How Influencer Tiers Yield Different Marketing Results With Denise Lambertson

Micro-Influencers. Super Influencers. Nano Influencers. You’ve probably heard of all different types of influencers, but what does each term mean? Why even categorize them? Today, Tim Lambertson and Kelli Frazier are sitting down with the guru of influencer marketing, Denise Lambertson of LMS, to discuss the differences between influencer tiers and why it matters when building your influencer campaign. Get a deeper understanding of how you can leverage influencers for your marketing. Tune in and learn the value of each tier and what it means to work with them and increase your profitability.

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How Influencer Tiers Yield Different Marketing Results With Denise Lambertson

We’re going to try and roll out something relatively new. What that new thing is, is we’re going to try and go for some shorter, more succinct episodes, which we are calling internally The Shorts. The purpose of this is to cover a topic that’s pretty much on our mind, something that we have been talking about internally inside of the agency and now want to bring it public and bring it out there to the world. The fact of the matter is there is not too much to talk about. We want to stay tight, focused on content. The big exciting part is that we have Denise joining us.

Thanks for having me, guys.

We are always happy to have you on Denise and thank you for joining us. This is the show where we talk about marketing, entrepreneurship and the world of modern business, as well as some real-life issues that we’d like to bring up every once in a while, because like most things, business and life are very closely intertwined as we all very well know here on this show, being husband and wife, wife and friend, friend and other friends, and how many other ways can we cross over here.

I thought everyone did business with their husbands and friends.

For everyone out there in the reading world, Denise and I are still in Massachusetts. Kelli is holding it down along with some of the members of the LMS team in the podcast studio. We’re going to talk about influencer tiers. I know that that’s a super hot topic on everybody’s mind, especially with the presidential election coming up, some civil unrest happening, as well as all of the other things going on in the world, like global pandemic. Everyone is wondering about influencer tiers. It is what we call an evergreen topic. Influencer tiers, pros and cons, why would you use nano influencers? As a matter of fact, we’re going to talk about what the heck is a nano influencer and why would we go with maybe something like a micro influencer or why would we want a super influencer or a macro influencer or a celebrity?

Of course, the guru is in the house of influencer marketing. Denise is here to talk to us and we’re going to dive into all of the different kinds of influencers, how they yield different results. Ultimately, try to uncover and demystify what’s going on in the world of influencer marketing. However, as both Denise and Kelli know, I prefer to refer to influencers as content creators because they are exceptional content creators. They are creatives and are very unique and fantastic at selling products and raising awareness for brands. We’ve relied on that for years now and we’re happy to discuss. Denise, welcome. Thanks for joining us. We’re happy to have you.

One of the things that we should start with is, what is an influencer? I know this is a term that gets kicked around constantly and we’ve maybe never defined it on the show. I can’t remember if we did that in The Secret Sauce episode. For anybody that hasn’t read that, go back and read that. We’ve walked through all of the intricacies and details about influencer marketing. It’s a great episode. I want to make sure that you read that one. Denise, influencer marketing, what is an influencer? Why do we need to know them?

The term ‘influencer’ is not well-defined or not well-defined in a consistent way in the overall digital community. We have come up with a definition that is based off of our experience that we use as our North Star. That is that an influencer is someone who has the ability to affect consumer conversion and decision-making through authentically unique custom content, specialized industry, or subject matter knowledge and a highly engaged relationship with their audience.

The key here in the way we see it is a highly engaged relationship with their audience. Who knows how to create content better than the content creator who has built a said audience? That’s an important point.

[bctt tweet=”Every influencer tier has a different value and a different value exchange for the brand.” via=”no”]

I think that people often attach influencer to follower account and try to gauge importance based on that. We were intentional about not attaching that as part of the definition, because what we’re talking about is affecting conversion and a highly engaged audience. That’s our definition. Like Denise said, there are a lot of definitions floating around and there’s not a lot of clarity. For us, it was important to have this North Star definition that we can all operate from. That was step one. From there, you do have quite a range of what that can mean.

That’s what we want to dive into more is now that we understand what an influencer is, then we do need to address the fact that there are lots of different tiers of influencers. We get asked a lot at the agency about what tier is right to work with and is there one that’s more valuable than the other, the difference between a nano and a macro. For us, this is something that’s developed over the years to where we’ve narrowed it down to specific groups and tiers that we can talk about. That’s what we want to dive into, to talk about what those tiers are, what we call them and what that means, and then what the value is in working with each one.

Denise, why don’t you take us through, if you can please, the different kinds of influencer tiers and give us the definitions?

Some of the more common tiers that anybody who’s done a cursory Google search of what an influencer is may see terms like ‘micro influencer’ or ‘macro influencer.’ Micro influencers, the way that we define it is around follower accounts between 10,000 followers and 49,000 followers on one social media platform. What that means is you can be a micro influencer on YouTube and macro influencer on Instagram. It’s an important framework to consider is the platform between 49,000 and 10,000. Going back to Kelli’s earlier point about how important the highly engaged relationship is with their audience, I’m going to make the assumption that as a criteria, we all know that you must consider the engagement, even though we’re talking about follower account as a way to define the tiers.

We’re going to assume that engagement is high. If you’re looking for micros, it’s between 10,000 to 49,000. The yin to the micro yang is the macro. We define that as follower account between 50,000 and 149,000. That is again on their dominant platform. We see that as a valuable tier and a lot of incredible content gets created at that stage. Especially if you consider that a micro influencer, as they’re growing their audience, they’re starting to understand themselves more and understand their point of view, narrative, voice, what works, what their audience wants from them. When they get into this macro tier, that’s solidified and that can be an exciting place to see incredible results.

Some newer terms that are floating around influencers and influencer marketing that are important to consider as a part of this influencer tier conversation is nano influencers. Nano influencers are folks with between 1,000 and 9,000 followers. When I talk about this tier, often people say, “Isn’t that just a person with 1,000 or 2,000 followers? Couldn’t that be anyone?” To a certain extent, it can be. However, if you go back to that original definition, somebody that has the ability to affect consumer conversion, specialized industry, subject matter knowledge, you use that as a headline and a way to filter a nano influencer.

What you’re saying is I’m close to being an influencer?

We need to talk about that subject matter knowledge. Maybe if we checked off the box, then yes. I don’t think your all day long memes are subject matter knowledge.

Just talk to FuckJerry media about that.

FuckJerry would be a great example of what we call a super influencer, which is another newer term. This is somebody who has 150,000 plus followers. That plus can go on forever and ever. We can see that in the millions and in the multi-millions. Certainly, there are meme influencers that have built that and they’re incredible content creators, and FuckJerry is a great example of that. That designation between a macro and a super probably didn’t exist many years ago. As influencer marketing has become one of the most substantiated marketing channels, these distinctions on a tier by tier basis need to become clearer and super have a totally different value to a brand than a macro influencer does.

The outlier there is celebrities. Can you talk about when does celebrity become celebrity and is there a point ever where an influencer becomes a celebrity?

There are a decision-making criteria that we go through when we consider whether or not somebody is a celebrity in context of social media and influence. I’m going to say celebrity flash athletes here as their main career is in the music, TV, film, entertainment industry, or professional sports. That supersedes any context around follower account. As we all know, take an example of Jay-Z, one of the biggest celebrities in the world has chosen to opt out of Instagram altogether. That’s because he has zero followers does not make him less of a celebrity. He still is that because he is defined by his music career. That’s the first.

We do start to look at follower account. Some examples of celebrities that might straddle the fence between influencer or celebrity based on their follower account alone would be somebody like Molly Sims, who’s best known as being a supermodel. She has 519,000 followers, which probably put her more in a super category if you were looking at her as a social media presence. When you consider what she does, where she goes and how she behaves, gets national editorial coverage and attention, that puts her more into the celebrity category. You can see that there’s a moment in time where you have to make an exerting objective opinion as to whether or not somebody is a celebrity or not, but there are certainly celebrities and athletes that are very well defined in that. Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, regardless of their social media, they’re celebrities.

The last thing, to answer your final question of can influencers become celebrities, the answer to that is yes. When does that happen is the question to consider here. I’m going to talk about the American royal family here, the Kardashians in context to this question. They are obviously not in the traditional lanes of entertainment or sports the way that I described, but their influence has grown on social media to an extent where they have their own TV show. Now, they are television stars even though they’re playing themselves. Another example of that is Rachel Zoe. You might think of her more as a fashion influencer and stylist but having her own TV show that was well watched and loved has crossed her over into being a TV star and therefore a celebrity as well.

To recap that for the readers out there. Micro is from 10,000 to 49,000. Macro is from 50,000 to 149,000. We have some newer terms that Denise explained, nano influencers, usually from around 1,000 to 9,000 followers and we have super influencers with over 150,000 followers. As Denise eloquently explained, the celebrity world. There are a lot of variables in that discussion about celebrity and then influencer and where they collide.

Now, that we have an understanding of these tiers, we’re going to caveat that these tiers evolve and change over time. To Denise’s point that there were some terms that we started with and some newer terms that we’ve added, these continued to fluctuate and change. Every year we take a look at this and reevaluate where things are and determine if we need to add in more categories or the current ones that we have. As always, we’ll keep you posted on what that looks like, but these are the tiers that we are talking about. The next question I would say, and this is one we get asked very often at the agency, is how to decide what types of influencers to work with. Denise, can you give us your POV about the things you need to be armed with when you’re making that decision?

The question that it’s phrased the most is like, “Which is the best tier to work with?” when people are asking us for a suggestion. The answer to that is, “What are your goals?? What are you trying to accomplish?” Every tier has a different value and a different value exchange for the brand. Understanding, as a company, what you’re trying to accomplish with the influencer program is the most important part of this decision-making framework. Some general rules of thumb are that, if you are considering a conversion strategy, you’re going to want to look at nanos and micros. Any influencer with a smaller audience is going to see a higher percentage of engagement and is going to therefore see a higher conversion metric. The double-edged sword to that is you have to have a huge number of nanos and micros to make a real difference.

You can’t rely on one to move the needle on conversion. You’ve got to have 10,000 or 20,000. In some cases, with us and our clients, hundreds, but it is the best conversion driver. The reason for that, at least the way that I think about it, is we’re at this point mimicking the true human behavior. Kelli, if you sat down with me at lunch, as we often do, and say, “I finished this incredible documentary. I read this amazing book. I tried this incredible new Kombucha,” I’m going to be like, “We’ve been friends for twenty years. I love your tastes and things. I want to try that too. I want to read that too.”

[bctt tweet=”None of the marketing is worth it unless you can accurately state what your goal is.” via=”no”]

That is the behavior that you see with nanos and micros. It is that feeling, that closeness. At that stage, the influencer can still answer every DM because there are not that many of them. They can still respond to every comment or question in the post. You have created and cultivated this relationship with your followers through trust and value alignment. To a certain extent, we are all influencers and we all influence each other.

When you start to talk about, “I want more brand awareness. I want to drive more conversation. I need to educate my audience about this product, about the ingredient in it or the intention of it, or the science behind it,” then you’re want to look at macros and supers. They have the ability to get these conversations out in this communication out at scale. They have a strong sense of what their audience wants from them, the way to communicate with them, in what format, using what feature, how to respond in a way that is scalable not to every single comment but to 1 or 2, but that answers everything. If you’re trying build a new message, reinforce a certain brand attribute, awareness, eyeballs, you’re going to want to go with a macro and super strategy. What I always tell potential clients and clients, the best strategy is a bifurcated strategy. You’re going to want to have to go from the bottom up, the nano, the micros and then from the top down, the macros.

We continue to find that the combination is the sweet spot and that you can accomplish a range of goals using that combination. To your point, sometimes it’s a volume game with the nanos and micros, but then layering on supers and macros that can drive that home. Definitely, there isn’t a one-stop-shop answer. When we get asked that question, we say, “That depends on what your goal is.” That’s a great point and I definitely think at the end of the day, that combination is what gets you to a place that you’re accomplishing all of your goals.

From some of our campaigns, we’ve had engagement rates on posts from nano influencers, 75% higher than those for micros. It’s pretty astonishing the difference between those two levels of tiers with what that looks like. We’ve also seen that nano influencers and micros have driven 152% more conversions than super influencers. This is not rhetoric here. We are keeping a close eye on at the agency. It’s exciting to be able to say, “If these are your goals, then this is the plan to get you there.” None of this is worth it unless you can accurately state what your goal is and then you can build something that fits into that.

Tim, you are asking how do celebs fit into this?

When did we get the celebrities in there?

Ultimately, they’re the biggest macro. They have all of that brand awareness ability, plus what’s a layer of validation and credibility. For better or worse, the idea that a celebrity has gotten to a place in their life where they have ultimate success and that yields them tons of possibilities, choices and opportunities. They could choose whatever product and experience they want because they can afford any of it. They’re choosing this product and they love this. That is a layer of validation for consumers that’s valuable. In addition to brand awareness, delivering messages, education, and I would say, especially brands that want to connect with their consumer about any kind of social impact or give back that is intrinsic to their brand. Celebrities will do all of that plus the validation factor.

Everybody’s question is, have you put any celebrity deals together and what were they? This is what gets the people excited.

I can’t share that. That’s locked in the vault. You’ll have to follow us on social to see when we can officially announce any of that. I could talk about this stuff on and on. I love this world of influencer that we’re in and it is super fun. Thank you for allowing me to ramble on about the different tiers of influencers and why they’re valuable.

Thank you for joining us.

I appreciate you, guys. I found out a couple of things about myself. I can sit quietly and I’m an influencer. All things considering, this has been another fantastic episode of the show. Denise, thank you for coming on and talking us through that. For anyone that’s interested in finding you on social, where can we go?

You can find me on Instagram, @Hold4Denise.

We are gearing up to do our very first questions episode. If you have a question about anything that fits into marketing, digital marketing campaigns, investment business, real life, what is it like to be Denise or Kelli at the agency, any questions that you have, you can always send us a note to @LMSTheAgency. Feel free to DM us on our Instagram account. You can find us @LMSTheAgency about anywhere.

If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, feel free to head over to everybody’s personal LinkedIn and send us a message there. We are encouraging you to ask any questions that have come up or anything that you were discussing. We’re happy to check it out and hopefully, we can talk about it on the show. Thanks, everybody. We appreciate you reading. Thanks, Denise and Kelli. Thank you for being content creators out there and thank you to all of the content creators that we have worked with. We love you tons and we love all the readers. Thank you.

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• Denise Lambertson – LinkedIn
• The Secret Sauce – previous episode
• @Hold4Denise – Instagram
• @LMSTheAgency – Instagram
• @LMSTheAgency – Twitter

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