How do you identify the right influencers to collaborate with to promote your brand? When you pick an influencer, you’ll need to consider the influencer’s niche, audience size, engagement rates, and more.
In this guide, you’ll discover how to categorize influencers, learn about the two main types of influencer categories, niche and audience size, and get tips on how to find and connect with niche influencers for collaborations with your brand.
Influencer Marketing Explained
What is influencer marketing? A type of marketing that involves social media content creators working with brands to promote brand products. Content creators have more authentic relationships with their audience and therefore can influence them more easily through their opinions and recommendations.
Influencer marketing can happen on any social media platform, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Brands need to learn how to leverage the right type of influencers to produce the best results.
Types of Influencers by Niche
Most influencers focus on one niche topic or industry. Their posts revolve around their particular niche, and they choose to align with brands in the same niche.
Their audience sees them as experts in that niche and comes to them for recommendations and advice on their particular topic. Sponsored posts or brand collaborations are often more effective because the audience is primed for posts about products that are in that influencer’s niche.
There are several types of influencers and niches, including:
- Fashion influencers: post about fashion trends, shopping hauls, and deals at their favorite brands.
- Beauty influencers: post about hair, makeup, and skincare trends, tutorials, and tips. They share their favorite products and help their followers find products that work for them.
- Health and fitness influencers: post about their fitness routines, diets, supplement regimes, and more in the health and fitness industry. They inspire their followers to prioritize their own health and fitness and help them along their journeys. They may also share about fitness wear, equipment, or tools they like to use.
- Travel influencers: share about their travels and recommend places to stay, eat, and see in various destinations. Travel influencers also share tips and hacks to make traveling easier. For example, they may share about their favorite carry-on luggage.
- Tech influencers: share reviews about the latest tech, gadgets, and devices, how-to videos on how to use them, and recommendations. For example, they may share about the best mic for podcasters.
- Lifestyle influencers: These content creators share a wide variety of topics that impact daily life, from meal plans to interior design. For example, they may share their favorite seasonal decor from Target. Audiences follow them because they enjoy the peek into their everyday life.
- Parenting and family influencers: share parenting tips, stories, and advice. Plus, they share about things that their families use and love, such as toys for the kids, activities for game night, or an easy weeknight dinner option. Some parenting influencers also share arts and crafts projects.
- Food influencers: share recipes, grocery store finds, and restaurant reviews. For example, a food influencer may partner with a sour cream brand and create a recipe that incorporates sour cream to share with their audience.
- Book influencers: These content creators share about book reviews, authors they love, and book events. They give their audiences recommendations based on book genre and interests, and they are often sent early-release editions of new books to read and review ahead of the release date.
- Do-it-yourself influencers: share about DIY home projects, crafts, and art projects. For example, a DIY influencer may redecorate a room in their house on their own instead of hiring professional help. These content creators share tutorials and guides so that their audience can copy their projects.
- Pet influencers: share about the lives of their pets through funny videos and photos. Pet owner/influencers will also share about toys, food, treats, and other items that their pets love.
Brands benefit from partnering with influencers that match their niche or industry because they get in front of their ideal target market.
Types of Influencers by Influencer Levels and Audience Size
In addition to classifying influencers based on niche, they can also be classified by their audience size or influencer level.
There are nano influencers, micro-influencers, and macro influencers, and working with each type has benefits.
Nano influencers have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. Though their audiences are on the smaller side, they are often highly engaged.
Nano influencers have the opportunity to connect with their audiences more often. They can respond to comments and messages to get to know their followers on a personal level.
Another perk of working with nano influencers is that they often cover extremely niche topics or post location-based content. For example, they may post about their favorite coffee shops in their city, which creates great opportunities for partnerships with those shops.
Brands benefit from working with nano influencers because their content is so niche that it is often a perfect fit for the brand. Since their audiences are highly engaged, partnerships with nano influencers yield a greater influencer marketing return on investment.
The next level of influencers is micro-influencers, categorized as content creators who have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers. They have built a level of authority and leadership in their niche, which is why audiences return to them time and again.
Micro-influencers are great at driving engagement and building a fanbase around their topic. They may not be able to connect with their followers as well as nano influencers, but they can still foster a strong sense of community.
Brands benefit from working with micro-influencers because they can reach a larger audience size that is still highly engaged. Most micro-influencers are still highly niched, which helps brands make valuable connections with their ideal market.
Lastly, macro-influencers have over 100,000 followers. While they may seem like the most appealing influencers to work with based on their large audiences, there are downsides to working with macro-influencers.
For instance, they have higher fees than nano or micro-influencers. They may also have a less engaged audience, and a larger portion of their audience may be disinterested in your product’s niche.
Macro-influencers are ideal for large brands with a big influencer marketing budget and a desire for broad reach.
When considering influencers for brand partnerships, consider audience size along with other influencer marketing statistics, such as a creator’s engagement rate and conversion rate.
How Do I Find Influencers by Category?
There are several strategies you can use to find influencers by category. First, you can search by hashtags on each social media platform. Look for hashtags that are related to your niche and then click on the content creators who are using them. From there, you can scroll through their profile to see if they’re a good fit for your brand.
You can also find influencers by category by searching for keywords that content creators in your niche might use. For example, if your brand is a haircare line, you can search for a keyword like “curly hair tips.”
While these strategies are effective, they are time-consuming. A better way to connect with influencers is through a database like Mavely.
Is There a Database of Influencers?
Mavely is a free affiliate marketing platform that offers brands a full database of influencers to connect with. Wondering how to find micro-influencers by category? Mavely lets you find them based on category and audience size.
Mavely has a robust database of many types of influencers at different influencer levels, so it’s easier than ever to identify the content creators that will best benefit your brand.
Join Mavely to Connect With Influencers Today
Ready to connect with the perfect influencers to promote your brand? When you join Mavely, you can sort content creators by category and reach your target demographic. Mavely is a free platform that makes it easy to reach out to influencers and set up lucrative collaborations. Contact us today.
