Micro influencers may have a small audience but they can have a big impact on your marketing strategy.
Working with these more niche influencers helps you build deeper relationships with your audience. They’re ideally suited to help your brand deliver engaging content, boost your credibility, and drive conversions.
However, their lower visibility on social media can make them a challenge to find. You might waste hours sifting through profiles only to end up with someone who’s a poor fit for your business.
Let’s look at how to speed up the search and find the best micro influencers to partner up with.
What is a Micro Influencer?
A micro influencer is someone with a strong media presence who isn’t a celebrity. They typically have somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 followers (range depending on the platform) and tend to focus on specific niches like fashion, fitness, or technology.
Stephanie Kendron is a good example of a micro influencer. Most of her content is about her sewing projects and tips on how to make quilts.
This kind of specialized content attracts followers with shared interests looking for expert insights, inspiration, and recommendations.
By contrast, influencers with large audiences typically cover a wider range of topics. They avoid getting too deep into their interests to maintain broad appeal and may prioritize reach over engagement.
Why You Might Want to Partner with Micro Influencers
Micro influencers are ideal if you want to target a specific audience. They can help you connect with the right people and get them interested in your brand.
Partnering with mega influencers might increase your visibility, but many of their followers won’t find your brand relevant or appealing.
Here are some other reasons why you might choose a micro influencer over a big name:
- Lower campaign costs
- More time to interact with followers
- More quality engagement
- Community focused
- Expertise in your niche
- Relatable and authentic content
If you want to reach people in your local area, micro influencers may also be the best option for that. You’re more likely to find someone who lives nearby and focuses exclusively on the nearby community than with mega influencers.
How to Find Micro Influencers on Social Media
As you might expect, mega influencers dominate social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Let’s look at how to refine your search to find those with a lower follower count:
Search an Influencer Directory
The only guaranteed way to find micro influencers on the first go is by using a tool like Influencer Analytics. You can filter through a database of influencers by their category, subscriber count, and price range to find the right match for your next campaign.
Influencer Analytics enables you to verify potential collaborators. You can see essential metrics like subscriber count, number of views, and the time of their last post. The app also uses AI to assign each influencer a quality score.
We’ll go more in-depth into finding micro influencers with this app below, but first, here’s how to find smaller influencers on each social network.
Use the Right Filters to Search on Social Media Platforms
Most social media platforms have built-in filters and fields that can help you find micro influencers.
How to find Micro Influencers on Instagram
If you follow influencers related to your brand, Instagram will suggest similar accounts. You can often find the boxes under the profile header.
You can click ‘See all’ to get a complete list of potential micro influencer accounts.
If you’re a local business, you can use a combination of filters and hashtags to hone your search.
Click on the ‘Explore’ tool (the magnifying tool) in the Instagram menu. Type your location and select the place from the dropdown menu.
You can browse the top posts in your area or look at a map to look at specific spots.
How to Find Micro Influencers on YouTube
You can take a similar approach to finding YouTube influencers. Enter a keyword into the search bar and open the ‘Filters’ dashboard. Sort by the number of views.
Micro influencers typically have view counts ranging in the thousands instead of the millions. Scroll past the YouTube mega influencers until you see videos with around 1K to 50K views.
You can click on the user profile to confirm their subscriber count and check their content quality.
How to Find Micro Influencers on TikTok
TikTok doesn’t have user filters that are as configurable as Instagram and YouTube. However, it’s still possible to refine your search.
Type a keyword into the search bar and select the ‘Users’ tab. You can see their follower count next to their name.
Check Your Followers
It’s possible that you already have micro influencers producing content about your brand in your account followers. If you’re in a niche, it makes sense that they’d be interested in your business.
Scan your social media notifications for recent mentions of your brand name. Influencers may have used your hashtag or tagged you in their post.
Ask Your Network
If you’re in a particularly niche industry, you probably already have connections to micro influencers. Ask trusted members of your community for their recommendations on who they follow in your niche.
Alternatively, directly ask your followers which influencers they like and why.
Deciding to Work with Micro Influencers
While the methods listed above help you find micro influencers, they don’t tell you whether someone’s a good fit for your brand. Consider the following to determine whether to move forward with a collaboration:
- Past collaborations: Search the influencer’s post history to look for examples of their work with other brands. You can see whether their past collaborators and product recommendations were similar businesses to yours and what results they got.
- Brand mentions: How do they speak about other companies? It should both come across as authentic but also align with your marketing strategy.
- Values and goals: Ask candidates about what they hope to achieve through your partnership. A shared vision makes it easier to manage influencers and collaborate on projects.
- Post frequency: Check they maintain a constant presence on your chosen social media platform. Gaps or irregular posts indicate an issue that could negatively impact user engagement.
- Community: One of the main draws of a micro influencer is their ability to engage your target audience. Analyze their historical interactions to see whether they usually respond to users and encourage participation in posts.
- Influencer status: It’s possible to build a big social media presence through networking alone. Does someone drive engagement and conversions or are they just good at amassing followers?
How to Match with Micro Influencers on Influencer Analytics
Use an influencer directory to find micro influencers for the fastest and most reliable results. Here’s how to search for collaborators on Influencer Analytics.
Step 1. Install the App
Influencer Analytics is available through the Semrush App Center. Visit our marketplace to find and subscribe to the app on a free trial.
Step 2. Go to the Influencer Directory
Influencer Analytics will automatically open the main dashboard. Go to ‘Influencer Directory’ in the top bar.
A drop-down menu will appear with your options: YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, and TikTok. Choose the one you want.
Step 3. Set your Filters
Click on each filter and select the options that fit your search. Choose the category for your niche, language, country, and any other defining characteristics.
Next, set the ‘Subscribers’ range between something like 5,000 and 30,000 to make sure you get micro influencers.
Alternatively, describe the type of influencer you’re looking for in the AI search bar. Specify that you’d like a micro influencer.
Step 4. Browse the Directory
You will see a list of search results. Click on the fields at the top to sort them.
When you’ve narrowed down your options, click on the Instagram logos to look at each influencer’s profile. Look at their content and decide which one fits your needs best.
Going Small but Thinking Big
Successful micro influencer marketing isn’t about just going after the biggest numbers. There’s no use reaching out to a wide following if those people aren’t engaging with your brand or buying your products. Or worse, if it costs you your entire marketing budget.
Great micro influencers both attract the right crowd and build trust with your target audience. Especially when you’re working with a smaller budget, they can help you demonstrate that you’re a trusted, knowledgeable, and reliable brand within your niche.