Looking at micro influencers can help promote your brand through media channels such as instagram users to help build brand awareness and engagement rates with your brand. You will want to define your target audiences of your niche market and understand that the micro influencer campaign is built to grow your business and social media presence as well as promote products and services. Microinfluencer marketing is a growing niche of social media marketing and is based on follower count, engagement rates, and previous history with a microinfluencer marketing campaign. While the influencer marketing platform seems to be a crowded space, an influencer campaign can drive awareness and your instagram followings.
Find out the four types of social media influencer and which type is best for your organization's digital marketing efforts.
The Gist
Market growth. The influencer market has seen significant growth in the past five years.
Influencer types. Social media influencers are categorized into mega, macro, micro and nano.
Strategic fit.Choosing the right type of influencer depends on your brand's goals, target audience and budget, with each offering different levels of reach and engagement.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated on October 3, 2024 to include new data and information.
The global social media influencers market has more than tripled since 2019. In 2024, experts estimated the market reached $24 billion. And that growth doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Today's influencers can be split into four categories:
Mega-influencers
Macro-influencers
Micro-influencers
Nano-influencers
The difference between these types of influencers goes beyond the number of followers they have. And if you're looking to dive into the lucrative world of influencer marketing, knowing the difference between mega-influencer vs. a micro-influencer is absolutely essential.
We asked leading industry experts and practitioners to define the types of social media influencers and identify the best use case for each one.
Influencer marketing involves partnering with social media influencers to promote products, services or campaigns. By leveraging the influencers' reach and credibility, brands can target relevant audiences, increase brand awareness and drive engagement, typically resulting in greater sales and customer loyalty.
The 4 Types of Social Media Influencer by Follower Count
To start, let's break down the types of social media influencer by the most obvious factor: number of social media followers.
Influencer Type
Follower Count
Mega Influencer
1 Million+
Macro Influencer
100,000 - 1 Million
Micro Influencer
1,000 - 100,000
Nano Influencer
Less than 1,000
Now let's dig a little further and see how these types of social media influencers differ beyond their number of followers, and which would work best for your marketing campaign.
Mega-influencers are the highest-ranking category of social media influencer, and it's not unusual to see them with tens of millions of followers on various social media platforms, like Instagram, TikTok and Twitter (X).
Gil Eyal, head of marketing and innovation at Silverstein Properties' Inspire, said mega-influencers “are often more famous than influential."
"They often have a very diverse audience with different topics of interest," Eyal explained. "Their relationships with the individual members of their followership tend to be more distant. They aren't necessarily subject matter experts but they definitely provide a lot of reach in one hit.”
If you're looking for examples of mega influencers, sometimes called celebrity influencers, think Kim Kardashian and other A-list or B-list celebrities.
Should Your Brand Use Mega-Influencer Marketing?
Mega-influencers are great for brand awareness campaigns, because they have a massive following and notably greater reach — but at a very high cost.
Cristiano Ronaldo, at $3.2 million per social media post
Leo Messi, at $2.5 million per post
Selena Gomez, at $2.5 million per post
Kylie Jenner, at $2.3 million per post
Dwayne Johnson, at $2.3 million per post
Ariana Grande, at $2.2 million per post
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The advantage of mega-influencers is that they give you the greatest amount of exposure and are accustomed to working with brands and companies on influencer campaigns, said John Huntinghouse, VP of marketing at TAB Bank and former director of digital marketing at Epic Marketing. "However," he added, "they're usually more expensive than other types of influencers."
He also noted that mega influencers do not have “real converting influencer power” due to their following being so diverse demographically and psychographically. These types of influencers are more suitable for a top-of-the-funnel influencer marketing campaign that promotes products that appeal to the masses.
What Is a Macro-Influencer?
Macro-influencers are a notch down from mega-influencers.
Macro-influencers still have a huge following, with counts between 100,000 and one million followers, lying somewhere between micro and mega. “There's no exact science differentiating these categories,” Deepak Shukla, founder of Pearl Lemon, explained.
“Unlike most mega-influencers, macro-influencers usually gained fame through the internet itself, whether that was through vlogging, or by producing funny or inspiring content,” he said.
Should Your Brand Use Macro-Influencer Marketing?
If you're looking to reach a certain target audience, but still want to reach the masses, then these might be the right influencers for you. These are people who already have established credibility and engaged audiences, and can speak expertly on their given topic, such as the beauty industry or fitness.
“If you want to reach a broad demographic — like young females — a macro-influencer is probably the way to go,” Shukla said.
Some well-known macro influencers include:
Dr. Jackie Walters, a health influencer with 1M followers on her Instagram posts
Brad Lau, aka ladyironchef, a food influencer with 591K followers
Ashley Galvin, a fitness influencer with 524K followers
Kiki, aka The Blonde Abroad, a travel influencer with 510K followers
Jo Placencio, a lifestyle influencer with 180K followers
Erica Nicole, a fashion influencer with 101K followers
A micro-influencer is someone who has between 1,000 to 100,000 followers. Unlike celebrity influencers or even macro influencers, these social media experts focus on a specific niche and are generally regarded as an industry expert or topic specialist.
Micro-influencers have stronger relationships than a typical influencer, Gyal said. "This is often driven by their perception as an opinion leader of a subject matter. A micro-influencer, as opposed to a celebrity or regular influencer, often has a very uniform audience."
Tech companies, including Adobe and Squarespace, are well known to engage in micro-influencer marketing campaigns to gain brand exposure and enhance their brand presence.
Should Your Brand Use Micro-Influencer Marketing?
Micro-influencers have a comparatively smaller following and don't often boast celebrity status. Because of that, brands can bank on their followers being interested in whatever made the micro-influencer "internet famous.”
Shukla underscored the relevance of this point, “If a micro-influencer gained a sizable following through travel vlogging, that's the ideal option for a travel agency or airline."
Some well-known micro-influencers include:
Francesca Newman-Young, a travel influencer with 100K followers
Julie Selman, a fashion influencer with 88K followers
Russ Crandall, aka thedomesticman, a food influencer with 36K followers
Kyle Luigs, an athlete and sports influencer with 31K followers
Holly Brand, an artist and music influencer with 22K followers
Connor Norby, an athlete and sports influencer with 12K followers
Some brands want to work with micro-influencers because they often cost far less than macro-influencers. Micro-ifluencers typically "give you the best bang for your buck," said Huntinghouse. "They have a following, but typically don't charge the same rate as those who have a larger following.”
Simon Pilkington, former digital marketing manager at Hello Social Australia, added that while micro-influencers have high levels of engagement, especially on Instagram, some micro-influencers do charge a hefty fee.
"Sometimes they're extremely expensive, and there's no unification to make sure you're getting a good deal," he explained.
What Is a Nano-Influencer?
Nano-influencers are a relatively new breed of influencer. They tend to have a smaller number of followers in comparison to micro-influencers, less than 1,000.
These smaller influencers are people with influence in their community, said Huntinghouse. "This would be someone who has influence in the local neighborhood or community. Some examples might be a local pastor, local community leader or local government leader."
The idea behind nano-influencers, noted Gyal, is to get “regular everyday people” to influence a brand's product or service to their friends and family. Most of the time this can be achieved through user-generated content.
Should Your Brand Use Nano-Influencer Marketing?
One of the benefits of using nano-influencers is that they have the highest level of engagement. Because of this, many brands have started to place a larger focus on nano-influencers.
“Brands represented by nano-influencers are often deemed more authentic, given the higher likelihood that the nano-influencer has a real-life relationship with the majority of his or her followers,” shared Mike Lu, co-founder and CEO of Triller.
But despite the highly engaged audience, these types of influencers don't have great reach.
“For big and ambitious social media campaigns, you'll have to look for more connections and make more orders which is a time-consuming task,” said Pilkington.
If you're still looking for guidance on how to choose the best type of social media influencer, you may want to pay close attention to the words of Joe Sinkwitz, co-founder and CEO at Intellifluence.
“One generally needs to understand that the larger the audience, the less focused it is likely to be, and therefore the broader the offer will probably have to be. It's no coincidence that we find Instagram celebrities selling green tea diet supplements, which have a broad appeal, rather than something extremely specific."
He added that, similarly, if a brand is selling a product or service for a specific target audience, it should consider partnering with either nano-influencers or micro-influencers due to their more "narrow" audience.
When you're ready to start putting together your influencer campaign, consider following these steps:
Understand your audience, including the social media channels they frequent most
Research influencers, look at their content and determine if they match your brand values
Evaluate engagement rates, focusing on comments and shares
Check for past brand partnerships to gauge the influencer's experience and past performance
Discuss expectations, including deliverables, timeline and budget
Monitor and measure performance and adjust strategies as needed
Following these steps can help brands find and collaborate with the right influencers (or influencer marketing agency), ensuring a successful partnership.
About the Authors
Michelle Hawley is an experienced journalist who specializes in reporting on the impact of technology on society. As editorial director at Simpler Media Group, she oversees the day-to-day operations of VKTR, covering the world of enterprise AI and managing a network of contributing writers. She's also the host of CMSWire's CMO Circle and co-host of CMSWire's CX Decoded. With an MFA in creative writing and background in both news and marketing, she offers unique insights on the topics of tech disruption, corporate responsibility, changing AI legislation and more. She currently resides in Pennsylvania with her husband and two dogs. Connect with Michelle Hawley:
Kaya Ismail is a business software journalist and commentator with years of experience in the CMS industry. Connect with Kaya Ismail:
