Whether the term influencer marketing is new to you or not, you will no doubt be aware of the wider topic of social media marketing. But, thanks to Gen Z, influencer marketing specifically has become one of the best methods of product promotion and brand awareness today, with Instagram being at the center of this.

Types of Influencers

If you are new to influencer marketing, trying to find influencers that are right for your campaign can seem daunting. At this stage of your campaign, it is more important than ever to recognize your target audience and your current customer base, and to understand that by being too ambitious with your choice of influencers, your campaign could be unsuccessful. Here are the widely recognized tiers that influencers are grouped by:

Nano influencers have1K-5K followers. With the smallest follower base of the five groups, these influencers can sometimes be inexperienced. However, they tend to have a high engagement rate and their followers are more likely to trust that their content is genuine. Typically, these influencers will accept product alone as payment.

Micro influencers have 5K-50K followers. They have more experience and typically boast high engagement rates, with followers that trust them. They will usually accept product alone as payment, or sometimes a small monetary fee.

Medium influencershave50K-100K followers. These influencers have a more professional account which is probably their full-time job. They will usually ask for a monetary fee as well as product for payment, and sometimes have a manager too.

Macro influencers have 100K-1M followers. These are full time, professional influencers. Many have their own product lines with partner brands, and managers who control their accounts. Engagement rates are lower and monetary payment is higher.

Mega influencers have 1M+ followers. A lot of these influencers can be classed as celebrities, many of whom are famous outside of social media. These influencers will have a manager that charges high fees. Their followers are more diverse, and the influencer can be seen as less authentic. Costs are high and engagement rate is low.

Instagram Tools

So, you have found the right type of instagram influencers to promote your brand, but now you want to know what method they will use to do this? In the 10 years that Instagram has been around, new features have regularly been added to the platform, meaning that there are many methods of promotion to make use of.

Postsare the veryfirst feature of Instagram. Photos and videos are posted and can be viewed on an account’s profile indefinitely. Instagram has subsequently updated this by adding a feature that allows you to add multiple photos to a single post. This is the most expensive form of marketing on Instagram as it requires the most time and effort from the influencer.

Stories are easier and cheaper to produce in terms of marketing efforts. These are temporary posts, only available for 24 hours and not shown on an influencer’s profile, unless saved to story highlights. More recently, the swipe up feature allows professional accounts with more than 10K followers to promote a product on their story. This feature takes customers directly to the brand or product page.

IGTV provides the ability to post videos that are up to 15 minutes long (or 60 minutes from a desktop), as opposed to the 60 second cap on videos uploaded as a regular post. This is beneficial for a more complex video, such as one that may go into detail about a product, like an unboxing, tutorial or a full review.

IG Live: the description is in the name! Here you can post on Instagram live, while your viewers can watch and comment as you record. When thinking about authenticity, followers are more likely to consider an influencer’s reaction to a product as genuine when it is live. This feature can be used for content such as live first impressions, and Q&As.

IG Reels is the latest feature from Instagram. If you have been keeping up with social media trends, then you will be no stranger to Tik Tok, the app that Instagram Reels is competing with. It shares many of the same features, being able to upload short videos, whilst incorporating special effects and filters for users to be creative. It seems that this feature of advertising isn’t great for all types due to the 15 second time limit on videos. However, many Tik Tok influencers have grown incredibly fast over the past year, and have been posting promotional content, even within these short videos! It can be great for specific types of content such as showing before and after make-up look.

Conclusion

So, is Instagram really taking over social media advertising? If you’re not already using Instagram as a marketing platform then yes, you really are missing out! One billion people use Instagram every month, and of those, 200 million users visit at least one business profile daily.

 This social media giant is definitely one to consider for your next marketing campaign, and if you are not already doing so, it is worth considering the use of an influencer marketing platform to really optimize the success of your marketing goals.