The middle class of influencers is being squeezed as marketers turn to celebrities

• Influencer marketers are moving away from micro-influencer campaigns and back to big stars.
• A new survey from Linqia found a decline in marketing activity among creators with less than 500,000 fans.
• In contrast, celebrities and creators with millions of fans were receiving more offers, according to Linqia.

A few years ago, influencer marketers were abandoning their plans to hire big-name content creators for brand deals in exchange for influencers with smaller audiences. Goodbye, Kim Kardashian. Hello, small town beauty influencer.

Smaller creators, often labeled as “micro” influencers, typically have fewer than 100,000 fans. Marketers believed the group could reach a more intimate audience than celebrities and appear more authentic in their messages, increasing engagement rates. They were also cheaper to hire, costing a few hundred dollars for a sponsored post instead of the thousands an influencer with millions of followers might charge. Nano-influencers or creators with as few as 5,000 fans could charge up to $5 for a promotional post.

But the race among marketers to work with less famous (and cheaper) creators may be dying out.

In a recent survey by influencer firm Linqia of 200 US marketers, the agency found that between 2023 and 2024, the share of marketers planning to work with celebrities and mega-influencers increased, while interest in work with creators with less than 500,000 followers. escaped The survey was conducted between July and September.

The share of survey respondents who said they wanted to work with a celebrity rose from 30% to 40% between 2023 and 2024. For mega-influencers, the share rose from 48% to 60% over the same period. But a smaller share of marketers said they plan to work with macro, micro and nano influencers year over year. Micro influencers as a job category fell from 74% to 62% between 2023 and 2024, while nano influencer work fell from 37% to 28%.

One micro influencer, Bethany Everett-Ratcliffe, said she felt this impact on her business. Everett-Ratcliffe told Business Insider that she was “getting lower-paying partnerships” than in previous years, and also noticed that more brands were “going through agencies” rather than reaching out directly.

Other influencer marketing firms separately told BI they’ve seen a shift away from less popular creators and toward bigger stars this year.

So why are micro and nano influencers losing ground among marketers?

A few reasons, industry insiders told BI:

• Micro-influencers are getting more and more expensive.
• It doesn’t drive as much engagement on social apps like TikTok, which are flooded with content.
• And working with them can take resources, especially as brands aim to vet talent more before launching campaigns.

“Some brands require more vetting and approvals for creators and content, so they don’t want to have too many in a given program and instead focus on fewer and bigger partnerships with creators,” said Keith Bendes, VP Strategy at Linqia. BI.

While interest in larger creators is growing at the expense of smaller ones, macro and micro influencers continue to influence overall, with the most macro influencers being the most popular category to hire in 2024.

Go big or go home

One of the main reasons lesser-known creators lose work is that they start charging more, making it harder for marketers to see a return on investment. Four creators with 25,000 followers can cost more than one creator with 100,000 fans, Bendes said.

“The rates of micro-influence have increased and it’s no longer a simple calculation,” Bendes told BI.

Other marketers have reported spending increases of up to 20% among micro-influencers between 2023 and 2024.

Oversaturation in social apps is also a big factor. It’s harder than ever to get noticed on apps like TikTok and Instagram. Hiring creators with larger, established audiences can help a brand cut through the noise, especially as organic reach across platforms continues to be unpredictable, Bendes said.

When Linqia respondents were asked how they measured the success of a campaign, “reach” (consumed in views) was the top answer, followed by engagement rate and conversions.

Rather than betting on a micro-influencer, brands are focusing on “fewer and bigger” partnerships with creators, as well as greater vetting of the creators they work with, Bendes added.

“Macro and mega influencers are some of the big swing bets that brands have been more willing to take, invest in, and they’re paying off big,” James Nord, founder and CEO at influencer marketing firm Fohr, a said BI.

Meanwhile, celebrity endorsement campaigns have also been on brands’ priority lists this year – from Sabrina Carpenter’s partnership with Blank Street and Michael Cera’s CeraVe Super Bowl campaign.

“These celebrity partnerships were successful because they felt natural, were smart and also aligned with the celebrity brands, making them feel authentic as opposed to just a commercial move,” said Olivia McNaughten, Senior Director at influencer marketing platform Grin.

However, the trend was not universally observed. Jonathan Chanti, director of growth and president of talent at Viral Nation, said: “We’ve seen a recent trend where brands have started to shift their budgets from mega-influencers – those with more than 5 million followers – to creators of medium level, which usually have up to 500,000 followers.

Plenty of opportunities remain for lesser-known talent, even as some sponsored content deals fade. User-generated content (UGC), affiliate links, and other performance-based marketing tactics continue to benefit creators with smaller audiences due to lower barriers to entry.

UGC, a format where a creator makes content that a brand can use on its channels (instead of influencers), is the third most popular way that brands and marketers choose to work with creators, according to the Linqia survey.

The pool of money for sponsored content deals is still growing and is expected to reach about $8 billion in the US this year, according to eMarketer.

And within a year, micro-influencers could very well re-emerge among brands. The influencer marketing industry ultimately ebbs and flows at the whims of technology platform algorithms.