Micro vs Macro Influencers: Which to Collab With?

The celebrity status of influencers on social media platforms has been used for many years to cater to audience sizes from large to small. Before celebrity influencers were commonly seen on social media platforms, smaller influencers (now called micro influencers) were often used to help businesses get their names and products out to a larger audience, in order to encourage and influence sales, or even just following. As influencers of all types–mega – influencers, micro influencers, and macro influencers–have continued to grow and expand their reach, the question has emerged: which type of influencer is best to choose for partnerships with brands? Does one bring in more potential customers than others?

Having worked alongside and with influencers myself, I have put together a guide to which influencer is more likely to help you reach your business goals. First, though, I want to take a closer look at what the different types of influencers are, what their niche audiences look like, and what industry experts have to say on the matter.

Types of Social Media Influencers Defined

While I talk about the brand affinity model for influencer marketing in The Age of Influence, the influencer marketing industry continues to have a follower-centric view of influence. The above image is a popular one that has been widely circulated over the years to define influence by follower size through the lens of Instagram. While influence does not necessarily equate to influence, there are generalizations that can be made by analyzing larger vs. smaller influencers.

With that in mind, let’s compare mega – influencers, who you might also call celebrities, macro – influencers, and micro – influencers to better understand their differences.

Mega – influencers are the celebrity influencers–the influencers with millions of followers and stronger relationships with their audiences as a result of months, years, or even decades of having fans and careers to follow. The marketing strategy that typically focuses on mega influencers usually belongs to larger companies and well-known brands (though this is not necessarily always the case).

Macro influencers are the next larger group, and these are the influencers with follower counts of between half a million and one million followers. Marketing goals may vary within this group of influencers, and the relationships they develop and brands they work with may vary from large companies and highly visible brands to more independent or small brands and companies.

The final group I am going to discuss here is the micro influencer, or the influencer whose online presence is still quite large but not astonishing in its scope, boasting between 10,000 and 50,000 followers on their social platforms. Influencer campaigns partnering with micro influencers are often after engagement; of the types of influencers I am discussing here, micro influencers are the influencers most likely to have a highly engaged audience–though, of course, the nano – influencer often has the most engaged audience of all.

Influencer marketing strategies vary widely within influencer campaigns, but I am going to focus on the micro and macro influencers here, because these are the influencer tiers that I find have a strong enough background in influencer marketing to know how to navigate the ins and outs of the practice, but may still offer competitive pricing for collaborations, and offer enough engagement to make campaigns worth your time and theirs.

Further Reading: Brand Influencers: Your Guide to Finding and Engaging with Them

So What is a Macro Influencer?

A macro influencer is not quite at the level of a mega influencer, or celebrity influencer; instead, they are recognizable to a sizable audience, but are still more accessible than celebrities. Macro influencers are great to select for collaborations, because they can have a major impact on their audience, and they are efficient in their scale. They have great influence over their audience, but have not exceeded the level of notoriety that makes them relatable and interesting to their audience. Influencer marketing strategies that utilize macro influencers often seek out larger influencers that can operate on a large scale, without the hefty price tag and exclusivity of a bona fide celebrity.

Redefining the Micro – Influencer

Micro influencers were once considered the bottom tier of influencers, prior to the invention or recognition of nano influencers (influencers with an audience of 1,000 to 10,000 followers), and were therefore frequently used as the most affordable option for influencer marketing platforms. Now that nano influencers have been identified as a significant influencer segment with high audience engagement, and with a distinct, niche audience, micro influencers are often passed over in favor of the highly niche nano influencer or the larger macro influencer.

Nevertheless, micro – influencers have a larger and more thoroughly established audience than nano influencers, so they can actually be utilized along with nano influencers within a single influencer marketing campaign.

As the landscape of influencer marketing has changed, the ability to mix and match and enjoy the benefits of all different types of influencers has increased and become more appealing to brands and companies.

Further Reading: What is an Instagram Influencer and How to Work With Them

The Benefits of Collaborating with a Macro Influencer vs a Micro – Influencer

As you can see from the above image, brands continue to overwhelmingly work with both micro and macro influencers as they can both be beneficial to influencer marketing.

Determining the benefits of micro influencers versus macro influencers can be difficult, as an influencer’s follower size does not necessarily equal influence or even content quality; an influencer can have a large following immediately after a giveaway-induced spike, for instance, without having cultivated a lot of genuine relationships and trust. Paying attention entirely to follower size represents an old and outdated way of thinking about influencer marketing, which does not take into account brand affinity, which I detailed at length in The Age of influence, into account.

Despite this approach no longer being an effective option for brands to base their entire influencer marketing strategy one, if brands continue to focus on follower size and the assumption that influence is relative to follower size, the obvious benefits to consider when deciding who to work with include:

Further Reading: Why Influencer Marketing? 5 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing Should be a Critical Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Macro Influencer Benefits

Macro influencer benefits often center around the sheer volume of an influencer’s reach; because a macro influencer caters to a larger and broader audience, brands who are looking for increased reach and additional exposure are likely to find that they are able to achieve their goals more effectively with a macro influencer. Macro influencer benefits include the following:

Reach More People Quicker

As mentioned above, a macro influencer has a larger audience, and any content that they publish will reach more people, and do so more quickly. Again, this does not necessarily equate to high-quality content, but if exposure is the primary goal, a macro influencer is going to achieve this goal more easily.

Increased Credibility

Macro influencers are likely to have been developing personal relationships with their audience longer, and will therefore have a level of influence that is greater than smaller influencers and more well-established. Larger follower counts can also help these influencers appear to be opinion leaders, which can make them appear more reliable or credible within the world of influencer marketing.

Tap Into Greater Expertise

Because these influencers are likely to have been working longer than smaller influencers, they often have more substantial expertise in their own realm. A content creator who has been working hard for years and amassing an audience over that period is going to be able to offer greater feedback on collaborators’ brand, products, and content than someone with a smaller audience and fewer years under their belt. Macro influencers can offer more experience in and comfort with navigating the current landscape of influencer marketing to help collaborators reach campaign goals.

More Data

Also as a result of the volume of a macro influencer’s follower count, influencers and companies both can glean more from a larger set of data to determine how content, products, influencers and more actually perform. Because the metrics are higher–more followers, more engagement, etc.–the amount of information being delivered and evaluated is on a much larger scale. This is often considered a boon, because it means that brands and influencers both can more easily determine the degree of influence that is actually being wielded, and see more immediate results of macro-influencer marketing.

Further Reading: What is an Instagram Influencer and How to Work With Them

Micro – Influencer Benefits

Micro – influencers are those with a smaller but still substantial following, with perhaps a more intimate connection with their audience. Because a micro-influencer is going to be able to more closely attune to their social presence–i.e. respond to more comments and DMs, connect with followers, and more–they can often be seen as more powerful for developing lasting or ongoing relationships between brands and potential customers. Additional benefits of micro-influencers include:

More Authentic Engagement

The smaller scale of a micro influencer’s follower count makes it more likely or easier to cultivate a genuine connection with their audience. Because a smaller following is associated with more authentic engagement, many people flood to micro influencers on social networks to leverage the close connections of influencers and their smaller audiences.

Reach a More Niche Target Audience

Smaller audiences also frequently mean smaller niches. If you are looking to expand your audience, you may need to reach out to several micro influencers rather than a single macro influencer, but you may find that you are reaching a more diverse set of people by going about influencer marketing on social networks. By finding a more niche target audience, you can more closely evaluate where you stand in small groups of people, and make changes accordingly.

Higher Potential for Exclusivity Relationship

Smaller collaborators may be more open to agreeing to exclusivity in a collaborative contract. This provides a competitive edge to micro influencers, as exclusivity can help ensure that your influencers do not simultaneously or in tandem collaborate with both you and your closest competitors. The smaller the influencer, the higher the chance is that they will be open to exclusive collaborations in comparison to their macro counterparts.

More Affordable and Flexible

Larger influencers are often less flexible than smaller influencers, because they are established and have a set rhythm in place. Micro influencers are usually more affordable, because they do not have as much experience under their belt, or they do not have a massive following expecting them to hold fast to a formulaic series of posts and conversations. This means that a micro influencer may be better equipped to take on collaborations that require more finesse, or more flexibility in creating content. Think substantial influencers like Kim Kardashian; these influencers are not going to deviate significantly from their niche or the posts and collaborations that have made them a great deal of money. Micro influencers have the ability to go with the flow and shift to accommodate a more diverse array of products and ideas.

Micro vs Macro Influencer: Which to Choose?

Ultimately, as illustrated in the image above, the question of whether to choose a micro or a macro influencer is not an easy one to select; first-party data is an essential component to determine just how effective each influencer will perform.

Your unique brand, product, and target audience will all influence the type of influencer that is best suited to your company, your products, and your goals for your influencer campaign. Although I do think it is important to know the differences between all of the different influencers, to more fully understand the process of using influencer marketing, it is also important to recognize the importance of diversity, and the value in using different types of influencers.

Ultimately, you cannot determine which influencer will best suit your needs, or which handful of influencers will best serve your needs, until you begin engaging with influencers and consciously weed out the ones who are not a good fit and hold fast to the types of influencers who are going to best suit your needs and support your campaign.

The information I have gathered here can help you determine the likelihood of working well alongside a macro influencer and a micro influencer–or using the benefits of both to your advantage. By focusing on the benefits of each that I have identified, you can more accurately understand how working with each type will differ, and find the best mix of influencer types to support and bolster your influencer marketing efforts.

Do you currently use influencer marketing in your brand or business? Let me know in the comments!

Further Reading: The 13 Influencer Marketing Trends You Need to Know in 2025

Hero photo by Joel Filipe on Unsplash