The influencer marketing industry is growing rapidly year on year, with many brands increasing their budget allocated to it. If you are just getting started with influencer marketing for your brand, it might help to know what a nano-influencer is. Yes, the term influencer is used in a more generic sense – there are 4 main types of influencers (6+ according to some marketers); these include nano- micro- macro-, and mega-influencers. In this article, I am going to be covering a marketing guide for nano-influencers.
What Is A Nano-Influencer
A nano-influencer is a type of social media influencer who has a relatively small but highly engaged and dedicated following. Typically, nano-influencers have between 1,000 to 10,000 followers on their social media platforms. Although they have fewer followers compared to micro-influencers, and macro or celebrity influencers, nano-influencers are often highly valued for their authenticity, trustworthiness, and strong connections with their audience.
Nano-influencers are generally everyday people who are passionate about a specific niche or topic, such as local food, small-scale fashion, DIY crafts, or community events. They often have a more personal relationship with their followers, which can result in higher engagement rates. Their recommendations and content tend to be perceived as more genuine and relatable, making them particularly effective for brands aiming to reach specific local or niche markets.
Brands partnering with nano-influencers often engage in collaborations such as sponsored posts, product reviews, or affiliate marketing. The key advantage of working with nano-influencers is their ability to create a sense of trust and close community with their audience, which can be essential for brands looking to build a loyal customer base.
How To Find Nano-Influencers
Finding nano-influencers can be somewhat challenging, especially as this is a classification of followers, rather than influencer status. Some of these accounts could be regular, everyday people who do not want influencer status. You can’t start a brand partnership based on the number of followers an influencer has or their ‘status’, you need to consider engagement rates, authenticity of followers, values of the influencer, and even the cost.
That being said, there are 2 different methods you can use to find nano-influencers;
The first is using an influencer marketplace or service. These platforms have influencers already listed, with metrics about their performance, reviews, prices, and more useful information. Communication and payments are usually processed through these platforms too, reducing the risk of fraud. This method is time efficient and makes running influencer marketing campaigns simple.
For nano-influencers – using a marketplace would be more suitable as it removes the ‘non-influencers’ from the equation if they fall under the nano bracket due to their follower count.
Popular choices for this method include:
The second method is to find influencers manually. As you may have guessed, this means searching on social platforms manually for individuals. You will need to look at follows, likes, reactions, comments, quality of audience, and the type of content the influencer posts. Then you would have to reach out and discuss a partnership for promotion.
You can search manually by using hashtags, searching trending topics, using Google search, and checking trending tabs on different social platforms. It’s going to be more difficult to find nano-influencers manually, especially as the algorithms might not be pushing their accounts yet. Therefore you might have to dig even deeper to find the perfect match.
Personally, I recommend using a marketplace or influencer platform, while backing your decision up through a manual check. Some red flags to look out for include:
- Authenticity of Followers: Look at the follower list of the nano-influencer. Do they seem like genuine accounts, or are they all strange names and are they from one country specifically? If the influencer has thousands of followers that all have odd names, low followings, and don’t interact, then they have likely paid for them and you should look elsewhere.
- Followers VS Engagement: You should take a look at what type of engagement the nano-influencer gets on their account. For example, according to data, influencers on TikTok with less than 15,000 followers see an engagement rate of 17.96%. Generally speaking, if there is a high number of followers / very low engagement, the account is either fake or has been purchased by someone else.
- Read Comments: If you find a nano-influencer that has a steady stream of engagement and genuine followers, be sure to start reading the interactions they get on the posts. Are they genuine? Do they relate to the content? People can purchase fake comments to make their profiles seem legit, so be sure to do your due diligence.
- Number of Posts: To achieve growth and popularity on social channels, influencers need to post frequently. If you see high followers and high engagement, but a low number of posts or infrequent posts, this could be a fake account too.
- Influencer Appeal: As nano-influencers can have a similar follower count to regular people, you have to take the time to check if the profile/person has the appeal of an influencer. This includes using your judgment combined with the points I mentioned above.
How Much Does A Nano-Influencer Cost?
A nano-influencer can cost anywhere between $0 – $250 per post, $0 is an option where a brand can send a free product in exchange for an honest review/post. However, these are just estimates, rates can vary depending on the influencer you work with, their engagement rates, their audience, and other factors. You will need to weigh up the value of the partnership to settle on a price, however, it’s worth noting that influencer marketing can 11x the ROI compared to banner ads!
The price will also vary depending on the platform. These are the current rates you can expect for nano-influencers:
- Facebook: $25 to $250 per post.
- YouTube: $2 to $200 per post.
- Instagram: $10 to $100 per post.
- X (Twitter): $0 to $20 per post.
- TikTok: $5 to $25 per post.
You should aim to try one test post with a nano-influencer and evaluate the results you get. If it’s not in line with your expectations and general standards – try a different influencer.
Benefits Of Working With A Nano-Influencer
There are many benefits of influencer marketing and in particular, working with nano-influencers for example, did you know that 36% of brands say influencer content outperforms branded content? Here are some of the key benefits:
Low Costs
Working with nano-influencers is more cost-effective compared to macro- and mega-influencers. In some instances, working with nano-influencers can also come with lower costs compared to paid advertisements and other promotional methods. Of course, this can all change depending on multiple factors: the number of posts, the type of content, the engagement rates of the influencer, the niche, and if samples need to be sent.
For example, if you paid for a nano-influencer to post an image of a product, and as the brand, you provided the image and the caption; this would cost less than asking the influencer to record their own video promoting the product.
Higher Engagement
On average, engagement rates across all industries are considered effective between 1 and 5%. However, nano-influencers on Instagram in particular can reach an engagement rate of between 4.9 – 10.7%. This is reflected across other platforms where the engagement rate drops with the more followers influencers have.
The reason for these higher engagement rates is down to trust and the smaller audience size. Nano-influencers are at the beginning of their journey, which means the audience will be very niche, highly engaged, and not be flooded with bot accounts and interactions.
Nano-influencers, and influencers in general, have a deeper connection with their audience, and due to the relatable content they create, also have very high levels of trust. This is something that brands cannot achieve. When an influencer posts on behalf of a brand, it will be received in a more positive way than if it came from a brand or paid advertisement.
Increased Trust
One of the main benefits of working with nano-influencers is the increased levels of trust. Most nano-influencers are not out to sell products and services in every post – they get paid by creating the content, which doesn’t alienate the audience and degrade their trust.
This means that when your brand partners with an influencer, the posts they create will be trusted, which means your product, brand, service, app, or whatever you are promoting, will also get that trust passed on.
A caveat here is the type of content, it’s important that the influencer integrates your brand promotion into their content style to remain authentic. If you pay the influencer to say ‘Buy this now!’ it will not have the same effect.
Increased Brand Awareness
Partnering with nano-influencers can help with increasing your brand awareness. Of course, this is generally not the primary goal of influencer marketing, but it is still effective. It’s more effective if you partner with a nano-influencer who is heavily involved in your industry/niche and if you post regularly with them – for the audience to keep seeing your brand name, product, colors, or other factors.
Access to Niche Audiences
Generally speaking, there will be more nano-influencers out there than other types, as it’s more difficult to achieve growth to celebrity status. Meaning that there will be nano-influencers in many different niche industries, allowing you to access that audience without having to spend time either building it or researching it.
Increases Sales
The latest influencer marketing stats show that 50.7% of brands that work with influencers have an e-commerce store to sell their products. That’s likely because influencer marketing can 11x the ROI compared to banner ads! Therefore by utilizing nano-influencer marketing, you can increase the sales of your product or service.
Best Practices For Working With Nano-Influencers
Starting a partnership with a nano-influencer can be intimidating in the beginning. Especially when 59.8% of brands say they have experienced influencer fraud in 2024, which has increased significantly year on year. However, by following these best practices I have laid out, you can minimize the risks and increase the rewards of your influencer marketing campaigns:
Define Your Goals & Objectives
As with any marketing campaign, outlining your objectives and the goals you want to achieve is essential. Think about what you want your brand to get out of the partnership, is it to increase sales, drive traffic, build awareness, and so on? Then set a benchmark of what you want to achieve to help measure performance.
Evaluate Their Profiles & Activity
You should research and evaluate nano-influencers’ profiles and channels – even if you use a marketplace with pre-filled data. Check for things like authentic engagement, genuine accounts, real comments, regular activity, and signs that the account is authentic and interacts with its audience. This way you can avoid any fake profiles.
Communicate With Them
Just because you find a nano-influencer to work with, it doesn’t mean everything will go perfectly. That’s not to try and scare you off, but you need to make sure you can have an effective, 2-way partnership. For example, imagine the influencer takes several days to respond to a message every time – can you see that partnership working with your brand turnaround times? You need to ask questions and find out more about their drive, personality, etc. just to ensure they will be reliable.
Ensure They Align With Your Brand
I believe that this is one of the key things to consider when working with any influencer. For example, if you partner with an influencer who is very outspoken on controversial political topics – that opposes what your brand stands for – would it be sensible to partner with them? Imagine if your audience discovered that. It could do more harm than good.
It helps to have a list of ‘red flags’ to look out for or have a set of brand guidelines so that whoever manages your influencer partnerships can assess the suitability of that influencer.
Define Scope Of Work & Payments
Although working with influencers can be informal compared to other marketing methods, you should still make sure there is a contract and that a scope of work is defined. This should be outlined before agreeing on the partnership to ensure that both parties are happy with what is expected of them.
When it comes to paying nano-influencers – you should use an escrow service initially. Where money is held by a third party and is not released until all requirements have been fulfilled. You should also agree on the rates and any free samples that will be provided beforehand.
Measure & Track Results
Did you know that 30% of businesses don’t measure their influencer campaign ROI? Measuring and tracking the performance of influencer marketing campaigns is vital – it ensures your budget is being utilized, you are profiting from the partnership, and also achieving overall brand goals.
Should Brands Work With Nano-Influencers?
In my opinion, brands should work with nano-influencers. This marketing strategy can help to increase a brand’s engagement, build awareness, and drive sales, achieving a higher ROI when compared with some other marketing channels.
