How to find and work with local and nano influencers
So you decided to work with local or nano influencers? Great! Activating these influencers is one of the best ways to break through the noise on social media and reach prospective customers.
Now it’s time to find nano influencers and local influencers that you want to work with and approach them with a proposal. Let’s dive in!
Why work with local influencers?
Brands have been searching for local influencers for years but didn’t know it! And the brands that have made the switch are seeing meaningful results.
Ask any brand with a physical location if they had success working with nano and micro influencers - I bet you’ll get mixed feedback. That’s because, for example, a fitness influencer who lives in St. Louis doesn’t necessarily have followers in St. Louis. If they promote a gym in St. Louis, their followers in other parts of the state, country, or even world cannot become paying customers of that gym.
Local influencers are everyday people who love the area they live in. They regularly interact with other locals who make up their social media followers. Sure, they might have a cousin in another state or a friend in a different country, but the majority of their followers could also become paying customers at the gym in St. Louis.
This hyperlocal, geo-targeted influence is why brands are switching from micro to local influencers.
Benefits of working with nano influencers
In a world where consumers are losing trust in large influencers, nano influencers are having their moment! They’re valuable marketing assets because their content is interpreted as authentic and genuine.
A majority of nano influencers are not full time creators. They often have a primary job and create content about a particular subject or topic because they love it. Popular subjects include art, photography, pets, travel, and health/wellness.
Because they don’t depend on the income, they can be very selective on which brands they work with. Oftentimes, they truly believe in the brand and use it themselves! Their followers pick up on this authenticity and therefore trust their recommendations.
4 ways to work with small influencers
There’s not a superior way to work with small influencers. The best way is whatever works best for your brand!
1. DIY find and contact influencers to promote your brand
Working with influencers DIY is more cost effective than using a platform or agency, but it is time consuming. What’s more precious to you: time or money? If money is the answer, it’s time to find influencers that can help you reach your marketing goals.
This guide to local influencer marketing is a great resource packed with information to help you identify and collaborate with local influencers. It works well for nano influencer, too!
2. Activate your current customers as local influencers
Does your brand have a loyal customer base? Start there!
Local influencers by definition are residents of a specific city with 500-5,000 followers on social media made up of friends, family and other people in their community. They’re everyday people who have influence in the communities they live in, not full-time influencers who depend on brand deals for a living. Remember, everyone has influence!
We recommend reaching out to your customers directly. Ask them to post about your business in exchange for a gift card, free service, or something else from your brand. It’s a personal approach that makes your customers feel valued, so they’re more likely to create a thoughtful social media post.
If individual outreach to find local influencers is too much, we have seen loyalty programs work with great success! These include tasks such as liking your page on instagram, sharing a referral link, and writing a review. The customers that do these things and engage with your social media posts are the natural brand advocates that you should reach out to.
It’s also possible that a few of your regular customers are already nano influencers. In this case, if your business aligns with their specific niche, they'll likely happily promote your product or service.
3. Use an influencer agency
Hiring an influencer agency is an efficient and often effective way to secure brand deals with influencers. Many marketing agencies have formed great relationships with influencers that your brand can leverage.
Pros and cons of influencer agencies
Marketing agencies typically have relationships with influencers that they’ve worked with previously. After signing a business agreement, they can propose influencers in their network and begin reaching out to them quickly. Because of their relationships, the influencers are more likely to negotiate and accept a deal.
Speaking of negotiations, agencies will take care of it!
Influencer marketing agencies are great, but they do have a couple cons. To start, they have a limited number of influencers that they’ve worked with. They can reach out to new ones, but the process will take longer and they cannot guarantee partnerships.
Second, most agencies do not focus exclusively on influencers. When they split their time between other types of digital marketing and advertising, you might not receive their full focus.
4. Explore influencer platforms
The number of influencer platforms for paid collaborations are growing by the day! Some have databases that focus on large influencers, while others focus on medium-sized influencers. There aren’t as many platforms for collaborating with small influencers, but some do exist.
Pros and cons of using a platform to work with influencers
The biggest pro of using a platform is that you don’t have to find the influencers yourself. Have you ever tried to find a specific tier of influencer on Instagram or YouTube? It’s tricky! Platforms have a catalog of influencers that already signed up to work with brands.
To that point, the only influencers that are available are the ones who signed up for the platform. Some are very loyal to a particular platform or agency and will only conduct brand deals through it. Additionally, the services offered and fees vary.
Top platforms for each influencer type
Unfortunately, most platforms focus on larger influencers, limiting options for local and nano influencers. Here are a few that you can explore:
Local influencer platform: Hummingbirds is a platform that matches brands with local influencers who are ready and excited to work with the brand. This is the best influencer marketing platform for small businesses and the only one solely focused on local.
Micro influencer platform: Stack influence is a platform for collaborating with micro influencers across all niches including fitness, beauty, tech, and more.
Platforms for other influencers: Upfluence, Aspire, and Tagger are all popular platforms for mid-tier, macro and mega influencers.
