This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hey, side hustlers, thanks so much for being out there. Chris Guillebeau here, your host. Today's question, "Should I hire micro influencers to promote my brand?" What are micro influencers? We should talk about that first, but we have a listener who wants to know, he doesn't have a lot of budget, but wants to spend some money, and he's like, "I can't afford to pay famous influencers," and I don't know if he should do that even if he had the money, but he's heard about micro influencers, which are basically people who have a certain amount of platform or profile or number of followers, but it's not huge. This can actually be a good fit in some ways because sometimes people who are just up and coming, they're going to do more for you, they're going to care more about your brand, and they actually have a closer relationship with their followers than somebody who has tons of followers, so it can be effective.
He's wondering about should he invest in this micro influencer campaign, is it the best use of his budget, and I actually have a really specific tip for him and anybody else out there who wants to do something like this. Let's talk about it. We'll talk to our sponsor, and then you'll hear from Sam. Hi, everyone. This is Sam from Nebraska.
I'm building an e-commerce brand and wondering more about how to market it. I don't have the budget to pay real influencers, but I've seen some agencies offering micro influencers who are a lot cheaper, so should I spend a few thousand dollars on a campaign, and if so, what should I look for in choosing the right people, or do you think something else would be more effective? Okay, Sam, first things first, not everybody should go out and pay influencers to promote their product. There's different ways to market, and often you don't have to pay anybody for anything. That's a core principle of cytosol school just to be real, but to be fair, let's approach this question from the perspective of just answering the question directly, assuming you want to actually use influencers or use people in some way in a paid promotional model to hopefully generate some interest and sales for your business.
What do you then do? Because it's possible to waste a lot of money, just like with social media ads, but there are smart ways to approach it. This whole micro influencer thing is interesting. It basically refers to people who have a good number of followers, but not a huge number of followers. It might be in the low tens of thousands compared to people who have hundreds of thousands or more, and in that way, because they have a lower number, hopefully it's targeted.
Hopefully it's like, "Oh, this person only, let's say, has X thousand followers," whatever the number is, but everybody who's following them is actually really active and engaged and focused around this topic that is a direct connection to your business. Well, if so, that could be great. My tip is there are two ways to go about this. One way is to work with an agency. I don't know any of these agencies, just to be clear, but I just did some quick little research.
I see there's one called Shoutcart, one called Collabster, one called Lefty.io. I'm sure there are many others, PopularPays.com, again, no affiliation with any of these. Basically these agencies will work with the influencers. They take a commission, of course. You can go there and hire a bunch of them.
So it's easier in some ways, especially if you want to work with 20 or 30 different people. But I would say if you're just starting out and you don't want to spend a lot of money and you do want to do this model in some fashion, you should find the people on your own and reach out to them directly. So a little bit more work, but probably going to cost you less and you're going to have a closer relationship. And when that person then promotes your product, whatever it is, they're going to believe in it more. Because it wasn't just like a random thing that showed up in there via their agency connection.
You reached out to them directly. At least that's the goal. So I would start by looking on whatever platform you're trying to use, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, search for hashtags related to your niche. Again, look for people who have influence and who are actively engaging with their audience but are not Kardashian-like. And then send them a message.
Just send them a message saying, "Hey, I'm looking for some collaboration." And be clear that this is paid collaboration because all these people get approached all the time with people who want to do stuff for free, so be clear about that. And see where the conversation goes. So I think finding these micro-influencers on your own can be more cost-effective and potentially more rewarding, especially when you're just starting out. Once you want to scale, then maybe perhaps you use these agencies and you do a campaign that goes across 20, 30 more people. But starting like this is going to help you save money and create more meaningful relationships.
That's my two cents. And you get it actually free. Because everything about Side Hustle School is free for 2,900-plus episodes we are happy to serve. I really hope it makes your life better in some meaningful way. That's why I make the show every day.
So I'm grateful for you. You can always subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. Much more on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
