Nano Power

I first heard the term nano in a science class aged 13 learning about the particles that allowed sun-block to be invisible on your skin but still protect you from the harmful rays. My teacher summed them up as ‘small but mighty,’ which is just as apt when looking at nano-influencers. We work with over 1,000 nano-influencers worldwide who produce high quality content in the endurance sports sector. To look at why we do this let’s start at the beginning.

What is a Nano influencer?

As influencer marketing has boomed in recent years, terms to categorise the content creators have emerged. Terms such as celebrity-influencer, mega-influencer, and micro-influencer have become a staple in the brand marketing lexicon. Although the definition based on reach are somewhat blurred, it is generally thought that a micro-influencer can have anywhere between 10,000 and 50,000 followers, macro 50,000-100,000, mega 100,000–1million and celebrity over 1 million followers.

Nano-influencers come in with less than 10,000 followers, below micro. Working with an influencer with less followers may initially seem counter intuitive to creating brand reach and engagement. But if a nano-influencer’s 10,000 followers are your target audience, it makes sense to work with that influencer. Ten thousand relevant followers is bound to be more valuable then 1 million irrelevant ones.

So what does this look like in practice, what results can you expect from working with influencers that have less ‘influence’ than you’re used to?

3 reasons your brand should be working with nano-influencers

1. Authentic engagement from specific target audience

Followers of nano-influencers did not catch them on an episode of Love Island and start following them because they’re famous. Nano-influencers’ audiences have chosen to follow them because of their relevant content and high engagement levels. The nano-influencers posts resonate with them, they want to talk to them and see them as experts in their field.

Followers of nano-influencers are motivated to follow them because they are interested and engaged with their content. This is reflected in the high engagement levels we see, often between 6 and 10%. By working with many nano-influencers you can collectively get the same reach as a much bigger influencer, but you will have an audience that is much more involved in the content and therefore your brand.

2. Quality content for own channels

Photoshoots, videographers and teams working on creative concepts are all expensive. Creating content for your brand’s social channels, website, and marketing channels can be extremely time consuming and exhausting. Influencer content is a great alternative to this. However, with larger influencers the complexity of payments and usage rights can be difficult to navigate.

In campaigns such as this case study with Lowe Alpine, influencers participation in the campaign was conditional on giving the brand access and usage rights to original images. In the end 480 pieces of content, showing the star product out in the mountains, on treks and in far flung corners of the earth were at the fingertips of the brand to use as they pleased. This variety of quality content showing authentic usage of the product is very difficult to come by (or expensive) any other way.

3. Less expensive, with better ROI

Nano influencers are often just starting out in partnering with brands and are eager to show brands the content they can make at little cost. We frequently run campaigns that offer no financial reward – the product that the influencers have been asked to create content about is often sufficient.

In the Lowe Alpine campaign mentioned above, the influencers were given a backpack in return for what amounted to nearly 500 pieces of content and over 35,000 engagements*. For start-up brands or those on a low budget getting your product into the hands of nano-influencers can be a very cost-effective way to get engagement with new audiences.

In a recent survey of the Freestak community† 38% of content creators said they do not charge for posts, and another 25% would ask for less than £100. Twenty professional photographers, as well as their travel and accommodation, for an outdoors campaign would typically cost many tens of thousands of pounds. Lowe Alpine were able to work with a group of established, genuine adventurers who received the latest Aeon bag as well as one cash bonus for the creator producing the most outstanding content. In doing so they were able to meet their campaign objectives at a fraction of the cost.

So with quality content, highly engaged audiences and low cost, working with nano-influencers is a brilliant marketing strategy. Not just for brands that want to keep the marketing costs down, but all brands that want to get awareness and engagement with new targeted audiences. We don’t know many brands that wouldn’t want that.

For more information on how we work with endurance sports content creators, nano- and otherwise, please get in touch with us.

 

 

 

* Not all participants in this campaign were nano-influencers, some were micro, but none were paid in cash, only product.

† The Report is coming soon and will be available to all our newsletter subscribers

photo credit title image @athenamellor