It’s easy to see the value of using a macro-influencer in a marketing campaign. They have huge audiences. They’re well-seasoned in the influencer marketing game. And they know a thing or two about content creation. But is a macro-influencer right for your campaign?
Influencers come in all shapes and sizes, from big-name celebrities to nano-influencers with a few thousand fans. And guess what? There are ways for all of them to make an impact. The key is finding what makes the most sense for your campaign goals, audience, and budget. In some cases, a macro-influencer is a solid middle-of-the-road option to supercharge your campaign.
Let’s define what a macro-influencer is and how to find them for brand collaborations.
Contents:
What Is a Macro-Influencer?
How to Identify the Right Macro-Influencer for Your Brand
Maximizing the Impact of Macro-Influencer Campaigns
Macro-Influencer Best Practices
Case Studies: Successful Macro-Influencer Campaigns
How to Use Klear for Successful Macro Influencer Campaigns
What Is a Macro-Influencer?
We define a macro-influencer as a content creator with a large following. Macro-influencer follower count is anywhere between 100,000 and 1 million followers.
Many macro-influencers tend to come from television, sports, or other prominent roles. They’ve usually acquired their followers at a much faster pace than micro-influencers or nano-influencers, given their built-in visibility and popularity. Still, they’re not quite household names like A-list celebrities or the president.
So, what's the difference between nano-influencers, micro-influencers, micro-influencers, and mega-influencers? It mostly comes down to the size of their followings.
Nano-influencers generally have anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 followers, while micro-influencers have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. As the name suggests, mega-influencers are the highest-ranking category of influencers, with over 1 million followers.
How to Identify the Right Macro-Influencer for Your Brand
Influencer marketing isn’t just about promoting clothes, shoes, and beauty products. Companies of all sorts and sizes are leveraging others’ strong social followings to grow their brand reach. Here’s how you can start searching for a macro-influencer who connects you to your target audience.
Use influencer discovery tools
You could search social media channels manually to find influencers in your niche. Or you could make the process easier by using purpose-built influencer discovery tools.
For example, Meltwater's influencer marketing platform, Klear, lets you search for influencers based on specific criteria, like macro-influencer status, audience size, engagement rates, niche, and more. These tools can help you shortlist macro-influencers who might be a good fit for your campaign. From there, you can do your due diligence to continue vetting them.
Check engagement rates
As you explore your options, don’t just look at follower count. Engagement rates help to tell a more complete story about an influencer’s effectiveness.
Fake followers abound, even with macro-influencers. Some influencers purposely create fake accounts to make it look like they have a larger audience.
Or in some cases, followers might not be interested in the content the influencer creates.
A high engagement rate usually means a more active and interested following. This means your brand collaboration is likely to be seen by more people.
Look at content quality
Review the influencer’s content to see how it aligns with your brand and preferred style. Their content should be high quality, professional, and ultimately resonate with your target audience.
For example, if the influencer uses curse words in their content, will this reflect poorly on your brand, or does their language fit right in? Do you share specific values, such as vegan-friendly products or family-oriented content? Finding close alignment in values and content quality will help your brand resonate with your influencer’s audience.
Review past brand engagements
Macro-influencers are in hugely demand, which means they may already have experience in collaborating with brands. Check out their content to see who they’ve promoted in the past. Make sure they haven’t collaborated with brands with whom you don’t want to associate — remember, the influencer will be an extension of your brand!
Connect with the influencer directly
Once you find some macro-influencers who might be a good fit, introduce yourself and see where the conversation goes. This is a great opportunity to ask questions about their audience, the types of content they like to create, the brands they believe in, and the values that matter to them.
Sometimes, you can gauge these things by looking through their content and influencer metrics. But it’s helpful to compare your data to their words and get a better idea of who you’re working with.
Maximizing the Impact of Macro-Influencer Campaigns
Audience size alone isn’t enough to guarantee a successful collab. Here are some ways you can maximize the impact of your campaign while letting your influencer partners take the lead.
Share your objectives upfront
While you should default to your influencer’s best judgment in terms of content creation, you should also be vocal about your goals. Tell them what you want to get out of the partnership, whether it’s growing your own social media following or making immediate sales. This will help the influencer decide the best way to promote you.
Create a campaign brief
Give the influencer plenty of details to help them do their best work. A campaign brief can include the goal of the campaign, the product being promoted (if applicable), target launch date, campaign duration, links to your landing page or product, special discount codes, and other information. This gives the influencer all the direction they need while also allowing them creative freedom to maintain their authenticity.
Tip: We have an influencer campaign brief template that works ready to go for you! Download it right here.
Along with a campaign brief, you can also share your brand style guide and other guidelines. This gives influencers an inside look at your brand so they can promote you in an authentic way. For example, your guidelines might have specific words or phrases you like to use in your marketing.
Monitor campaign performance
Use social media analytics tools to track your campaign in real time. If you’re using Klear, you can view things like engagement rates, number of posts, and earned media value from within the platform. Pair insights across multiple analytics tools to get a full picture of your campaign’s success.
Macro-Influencer Best Practices
Working with macro-influencers takes a little more finessing and strategy compared to working with smaller influencers. Macro-influencers typically work with more than one brand at a time. They charge more per post. And they’re more selective about the brands they partner with.
To break through their radar and start a collaboration, these best practices can help.
Offer creative freedom
Influencers know their audiences like no one else. Give them the freedom to create content their own way. It will feel more natural and authentic to their followers.
Have a contract in place
Macro-influencers tend to treat their collaborations more like a business compared to smaller influencers. For many, brand partnerships are a primary source of income. Maintain this all-business attitude with an influencer contract that protects them and your brand. The contract should be clear on deliverables, timelines, payments, and other terms. This ensures everyone stays on the same page.
Give them an incentive
Payment per post isn’t always enough to establish a collaboration with a macro-influencer. They’re used to brands wooing them with influencer gifting, so consider what else you can offer. This might be payment plus a free product sample, exclusive content, or something else that will entice them.
Case Studies: Successful Macro-Influencer Campaigns
Brands around the world are finding success with macro-influencer marketing. Take a look at these macro-influencer examples to inspire your next campaign.
Puma
Global sports brand Puma caters to diverse audiences, and the brand wanted an easy way to localize its content. The agency it hired leveraged Klear data to surface niche audiences in specific cities around the world.
Finding influencers for this campaign would have been difficult with manual processes. Having audience data at their fingertips made it easy to find the best-fit influencers, particularly those with an engaged following.
Starlight Children’s Foundation
Non-profit organization Starlight Children’s Foundation relies heavily on donations. Using influencers to promote charitable giving has allowed the organization to help more children and teens in need.
The organization used Klear to learn more about each influencer, view past content and brand collaborations, track engagement rates, and more. This ensures a positive brand fit before they engage in a partnership.
BBVA Bank
Macro-influencers aren’t just people. Based on the macro-influencer definition of having at least 100K followers, it can also be a social media account based on a specific topic.
This was the case for BBVA, which tapped into a popular TikTok account to grow awareness about carbon footprints and the importance of protecting the environment. The company sent 28-meter-long footprints to Lugo, Barcelona, and Madrid to illustrate its environmental values, then used the Ac2ality TikTok account to share its PR stunt.
How to Use Klear for Successful Macro Influencer Campaigns
Meltwater's influencer marketing platform, Klear, gives you end-to-end influencer management in a single platform. You can discover, vet, and connect with macro-influencers based on your criteria. Send them messages, manage contracts, view content, and track performance from one place, giving you the best visibility into every influencer and campaign.
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