28th February | Pascale Rees back

Make sure you’re calculating the real value of your micro-influencers

With more than 700 million scrollers perusing their feeds each month, Instagram is currently the social platform that can arguably boast highest rate of engagement. And with that comes a powerful opportunity for brands to harness and connect to the audiences they are trying to reach. However, as always, there is a watch-out. For example, if an influencer has hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of followers it does not necessarily mean that a campaign will be more effective than if a brand works with an influencer with fewer followers. Indeed, a recent Forbes article suggests that once an account reaches a certain size, it actually receives less engagement from its followers. The perceived wisdom is that this is because users just simply aren’t as prepared to interact with a celebrity as with someone they can relate to. And it is also why we enlisted the support of five very carefully selected influencers for a ‘Me & Tonic’ cocktail competition with our client Franklin & Sons, producers of a range of handcrafted premium tonics, mixers and soft drinks. Amplifying the growing trend for good quality, premium mixers, we wanted to challenge five influencers to create their own ‘Me & T’ serve with Franklin & Sons, using not just gin, but other spirits as well. The five serves were then showcased at an event at the Hilton’s 146 Paddington venue this week, with the winning cocktail put on the prestigious menu and credited to the winner. Our five specially selected lifestyle, food and drink influencers all had proven strong followings, but importantly they had also previously made it known they were fans of Franklin & Sons. We asked them to document the journey of their cocktail creation to their followers utilising a hamper of beautiful and carefully chosen gifts. A photo showing your product, whatever it may be, will not suffice as successful campaigns also need the influencer to tell a story to encourage engagement. Here’s just a selection of the results to date: Food Goblin – 15.3k followers Hey! Dip Your Toes In – 11.2k followers Kitchen With Cumbers – 10.8k followers The.Londoness – 19.1k followers