Influencer marketing is the new word-of-mouth advertising. It’s a powerful tool to add to your marketing mix, as long as you’re doing it right.
You have so many options for influencer marketing, but they’re not all the best choices for your business. Here’s why you should look at working with small influencers instead of just going with the largest creators you can find.
What Counts as a Small Influencer?
With influencer labels, it’s all about the following size. Anyone with a following of less than 100,000 is a small influencer. Medium influencers have between 100,000 – 500,000 followers and large influencers have 500,000+ followers.

These are not precise categories, and each category can be broken down further to make it more descriptive. For small influencers, there are generally two subcategories: small and micro-influencers.
Small vs Micro
Depending on what definition you look at, small influencers include those with between 10,000 – 100,000 followers while micro influencers are those with between 1,000 – 10,000 followers. Those with fewer than 10,000 followers are also sometimes referred to as nano influencers, with micro being those between 10,000 – 100,000 followers.
Although they’re all smaller influencers, there’s a big difference between small and micro (or nano) influencers. Most micro-influencers are highly niche-focused with an engaged follower base. The larger they get, the more the focus of their content can dilute away from the niche and spread to other related topics.
ROI from Small vs Large Influencers
Does the size of an influencer’s following really affect the ROI from working with them? The answer is yes, but maybe not in the way you would expect.
With influencer marketing, there’s a delicate balance between reach and engagement.
Large influencers tend to give you access to a wider audience, expanding your reach. If an influencer is large enough, this comes at the detriment of engagement. Small influencers tend to offer higher engagement with less reach.

Both returns can be valuable. It depends on the goals of your marketing campaign.
If you’re going for brand recognition and trying to get your name in front of the most people, regardless of if they follow through with a CTA or not, a large influencer may give you the highest ROI. But, if you’re looking to get more engagement from an influencer’s audience, small influencers usually offer a higher ROI for CTA engagements and conversion.
Benefits of Working with Smaller Influencers
Beyond the basic differences between smaller and larger influencer marketing campaigns, what else changes with small influencers? Here are some of the main benefits you can get.
Highly Engaged Audience
The larger an audience is, the less engaged they become. It’s difficult for most large influencers to maintain a highly engaged audience because of the sheer size of their following. How can one person keep in touch with an audience of more than a million people?
Smaller influencers tend to be more connected with their audience because they can meet and interact with the same people regularly. These influencers can get more direct input from their audience and respond to people more personally, helping their audience feel more connected. The connection is more authentic because they can interact more closely with their audience and express their real perspectives.
Audiences with higher engagement are more likely to be interested in what an influencer is recommending or mentioning. If you want a higher chance of returns from influencer marketing, work with a smaller influencer who has a highly engaged audience.
Better Pairings
When you work with smaller influencers, you have a lot more choices about who you want to work with. These smaller creators also tend to be pickier about which brands they’ll work with. What this means is that the influencers you’ll end up working with are more likely to be a better fit for your brand than a larger influencer who takes more sponsorships.

This especially applies to influencers who focus on direct monetization sources like Patreon or Twitch subscriptions. When sponsorships aren’t the main source of income, the person is going to be more particular about whom they partner with. They’re not going to work with you unless they love what you do and think their audience will love it too.
Cost Effective
Larger influencers = larger fees
With influencer marketing, you’re paying for audience size and engagement. Larger influencers can charge more for access to their audience because they have the potential to reach more people.
If budget is a concern, working with smaller influencers can be far more effective than trying to partner with larger influencers. Even though you may have a smaller potential reach, you could end up with a higher ROI.
Location-Specific Marketing
It’s easier to find small and micro-influencers who focus on a specific location. The smaller the influencer, the more they’re likely to stay connected with their local market. If you want to stick with marketing to a specific area, search around for small influencers in your area who appeal to your local market.
Narrower Target Market
Because smaller influencers don’t have the same wide appeal as large influencers, they tend to attract followers with more specific interests. The people following a smaller influencer are more likely to be directly interested in the niche that the influencer operates in.
If you want to target a particular niche, find smaller influencers who make content in that niche. You’re more likely to find an audience that’s truly interested in the topic rather than a broad audience with limited interest.
Long-Term Partnership Potential
Larger influencers usually have an enormous number of companies reaching out to them regularly. You can get lost in the mix as just another business trying to partner with them. Since they have limited time and sponsorship slots, you may not be able to work with them consistently or at all.
Smaller influencers don’t usually have this problem. Since they tend to have fewer brands reaching out to them, they can pay more attention to each offer and may be more open to long-term partnerships with a brand they have a good experience with. These long-term partnerships can be great for boosting brand awareness and building relationships with customers over the years through consistent, enthusiastic advocates.
Small to Medium Product Launches
If you have a small business selling physical products, or any other product with stock limitations, working with smaller influencers can help boost sales without overwhelming you. If your business is incapable of handling a large influx of orders, working with large influencers could be counterproductive. It’s a bad look for new customers to find everything out of stock when they want to place an order.
Sellfy – Sell Products Online
Create a digital storefront for customers to order and pay for your products.
Work with influencers who have a following that more closely aligns with the scale you can handle. If you’re selling digital products, this isn’t as much of a problem as long as your online store can take increased traffic, downloads, and payments.
Subject Matter Experts
While many large influencers focus on a broad topic, it’s easier to find subject matter experts if you look at smaller influencers. People who are not full-time influencers tend to maintain their credibility and expertise by continuing to practice their profession, using social media as a side gig instead of as their career.
Subject matter experts make great advocates for your brand. It can be highly beneficial to you when a subject matter expert agrees to talk about your product, service, or company to their followers.
Having many different experts in a field talking about and linking to you can also benefit your SEO. The more backlinks you can accrue from reliable sources, the higher your website is likely to rank.
Risk Dilution
Working with a few large influencers is like putting all your eggs in one basket. If their promotion falls flat, you could miss out on all the benefits the campaign could have provided. It’s better to work with a variety of separate, smaller influencers to dilute the marketing risk and increase your chances of reaching your goals even if it doesn’t work out with one or two influencers.
Working with smaller influencers can be a powerful way to get your business in front of more of the right people. Choosing more niche influencers with highly engaged audiences can lead to higher ROI for your influencer marketing campaign.