From nano to mega! Let's go through all stages of influencing to understand influencers' life cycle!
September 20, 2021
Clémence Del Castillo
Social media are known to be platforms easy to access and open to all kinds of users! There are spectators as creators, sharing various content from cooking posts to music, fashion, sports, and many other sectors! Regarding creators, we can distinguish regular users from influencers: they can be identified by following various criteria, the most popular one being their number of followers.
There is no limit on social media; anyone is free to use and showcase their talent, creativity, work, advice, passions, and so on. Nonetheless, a particular hierarchy has been determining itself within the sector: influencer tiers. As said previously, influencers can be classified as their following, nano, micro, mid-range, macro, and mega. However, an influencer isn’t simply defined by a name for no reason; they go through a specific evolution, which brings them to their actual positioning and explains their professionalism.
Ready to know more about the life cycle of an influencer? Then let’s get to it!
From nano to mega!
When subscribing to a social media platform, one is simply a user, yet you can be considered a nano influencer once you pass the 1K subscribers. In this case, nano influencers feel free to post any content they like, feel like sharing and appreciate working on. It can be for fun, professional purposes, and other reasons. Thus what defines a nano influencer is the closeness between them and their small community and their original content. However, these newbies can also lack professionalism and a global understanding of the functionalities and algorithms of the platform due to their short experience as young and small influencers.
Once a nano starts growing, getting more visibility, and engaging with their community, they will expand their following, making them part of the micro-influencer tier.
What defines a micro-influencer?
They are committed to growing their account to become more significant influencers and long to become professional creators.
What does that mean exactly?
Micros are looking to expand their community and start having a more professional image of their account at this stage of their growth. Thus their objectives are to: engage with their audience and start working with brands! They are ready to step up their game, and they begin to understand the business aspect of influencing since they are discovering how to get remunerated and contacted by brands.
Companies look forwards to working with micros since:
📌 They look forward to learning more and improve their feed, thus are open to suggestions
📌 Micros are still young creators. Therefore their content is usually original and relatable
Now up to the next level: mid-range influencers.
Once micros overpass the 50k followers, they become mid-range influencers! They are starting to get used to making collabs, introducing products and services to their audience while keeping their organic content up to date. They have gained experience. Therefore, their feed looks clean and well organized, we can sense continuity in their posts, and they start to develop an authentic style of their own. Thus this is a period where influencers choose their content strategy and start making a name for themselves. At this stage, they work on their content, their visibility, and their relationship with brands.
On to macro-influencers, the stars of social media!
From 200k to 1M, a creator is defined as a macro influencer when they:
📌 Have visibility
📌 Share constant and coherent content
📌 Are experienced
📌 Know how to make professional collaborations
On the positive side, creators are working on the professional aspect of their accounts: straightforward and good quality content, various brand collabs, partnerships with other influencers, etc. In other words, they are still looking to expand by enlarging their audience, and what better way than to target new niches by appearing on other macro influencers’ feeds! Now on the business aspect, it can be more challenging to reach out to a macro influencer. Since there are more propositions, they can create their brand repertoire and decide which ones they are willing to work with and which ones can help them boost their influencer career. Moreover, due to this business point of view, some influencers fall into a posting routine that lacks original and creative content, so watch out for their saturation rate, content diversity, and account activity on Favikon!
Finally, the big fish of social media: mega influencers!
The kings and queens of all platforms are the most popular influencers you’ll know! They ensure immense visibility, positive ROI, and long-term partnerships. These creators have built their image and reputation and keep working on it every day. Thus contacting them can be very tricky and costly! However, on the downside, most mega influencers lack engagement! So if you are looking for an influencer that will present your product to a vast community, they are the ones for you! However, if you are longing for an engagement and conversion rate increase, you might want to take a look at the previous members!
And that is all for the influencer’s life cycle! From Nano to Mega, which one is best for your brand?
About the author
Clémence Del Castillo
Our daydreamer, Clémence, develops her creativity on a daily baisis by drawing, playing the piano, and singing! A true artist at heart. ✨As a TikTok influencer, she'll share her top tips on the blog.🤓 Does this ring any bells? You may have seen her in Spain, Singapore, or Paris. She's constantly on the move! 🌎 #Creative #TikToker #ESSEC