Influencer engagement: Nano-influencers are the clear winners

According to the recent study, nano-influencers emerge as the most powerful force in influencer marketing.

Currently, estimates set global revenues for influencer marketing somewhere between $ 2.38 billion and $ 10 billion. Yes, it is a dramatic range. However, regardless of where the real number is, it is an enormous sum to an industry that virtually did not exist ten years ago and shows that marketers involve it with much cash.

However, to whom is all that money going? With metrics not established, apparently thousands of agencies and a growing class of creators who are willing to do many things to make some money, it can be a bit difficult for marketers to decipher whom they should work with, and what constitutes a strong campaign. Many brands may be clamoring to establish relationships with influencer superstars, but they may overlook the possibility of better engagement with lesser-known creators who have more relative power.

With that in mind, it is crucial to understand what participation rates are realistic for creators with different audience sizes and on various social platforms. Below, we share some views on this courtesy of CreatorIQ, a platform of influence that helps companies to conduct brand ambassador campaigns with content creators.

Keep in mind that when calculating participation rates below, CreatorIQ considered more than 200,000 campaign posts on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter from the first quarter of 2016 to the present. Also, here are the data points considered in the calculations for each platform:

  • Instagram: I like it, comments and followers at the time of publication
  • YouTube: I like it, comments, shared actions and video views at the time of analysis
  • Facebook: reactions, comments, actions, and followers at the time of publication.
  • Twitter: I like it, replies, retweets, and followers at the time of publication

CreatorIQ examined four types of influencers based on audience size: nano (1K-10K followers), micro (10K-100K), medium (100K-1M) and mega (1M +), and observed average participation rates on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

The thinking is that the mega creators, those names of familiar celebrities, will always win with the engagement. After all, they're superstars for a reason. Moreover, some people may believe that participation rates of 2-3% could be ruled out as lousy when, in fact, those are generally pretty good.

In reality, the nano influencers had better participation rates on all platforms with averages of 0.17% (Twitter), 0.42% (Facebook), 4.4% (Instagram) and 6.7% (YouTube). It makes some sense in the reflection because their audiences tend to be more attentive and committed. The average engagement rates of mega-influencers are around 0.008% (Twitter), 0.01% (Facebook), 0.7% (Instagram) and 4% (YouTube).

Platforms should also be taken into account when evaluating participation rates: in all influencer groups, Twitter and Facebook have the lowest rate, while YouTube and Instagram work best.

The type of content also matters. It is a well-known fact that visual elements generally outperform text-only publications, but one must also take into account the platform used. Also, as a result, video is not always king: for Facebook and Instagram, image postings performed better than those with videos.

One thing is also clear from all these data: YouTube always has the best commitment based on the CreatorIQ methodology in all groups of influencers people.

Perhaps some standard metrics will emerge as a means to evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns as influencer marketing evolves from its early stages to adolescence. Until then, we hope that the previous numbers will help you quantify what is working well and what is not.

Using materials from CreatorIQ and Tubefilter.