With over 800 million active monthly users and 95 million visuals posted every day, Instagram has become a popular social media hub for individuals and brands as well. From big MNCs to SMBs, most of the companies are leveraging Instagram as a marketing tool.

Marketers understand the need of business promotion on Instagram and so there are around 25 million business profiles on Instagram. Especially businesses related to fashion, food and travel are finding Instagram the best platform to promote their products or services.

"Today in the age of booming social media presence for every individual, a person doesn't need to have millions of followers to be influential. It is all based on the one metric that is engagement. This is why Instagram is considered to be the primary hub of their influencer discovery tools that make it a natural fit for building the audience based around specific interests," says Subrat Kar, Co-Founder of Vidooly.

Micro- Influencers are all over Instagram. People with around 1,000- 100,000 followers are termed as micro-influencers. But how can these people be of your benefit when there are people who have even more followers? Well, according to studies the micro-influencers have more engagement rates than the Instagram celebrities.

"A micro-influencer allows the brand to create additional content that supports the brand. It is also perceived as an endorsement of the brand by many potential buyers. And a large percentage of people trust influencers and online reviews as much as they would trust a friend's advice." says David Abehsera, President and Co-founder of The Woo.

Let's checkout how these micro-influencers can help your brand grow.

Niche Targeting

Promoting a brand through social media is an effective way of marketing but promoting a brand with a targeted audience is even more effective. When you hire a micro influencer, you get a chance to show off your products/ services to a specific group of people aka your targeted audience. This allows you to get more engagements and hence more sales.

"Some effective micro-influencers have just a few hundred, some have a thousand and others have tens of thousands. They are super specific in their content, which is why it is not meant for the masses. That works well for businesses that are looking to a highly targeted demographic," says Kar.

Affordable Marketing

When you are running a small business, you need to be budget conscious and at the same time, you also need the best for your brand. Now, hiring micro influencers can help your brand grow without harming your budget. Moreover, with micro influencers, you may also experiment with what works for your brand or not without worrying about the wastage of cash.

"The declining effectiveness and rising cost of celebrity influencer marketing on digital media are driving the growth of micro influencer marketing, " says Pradeep Chopra, CEO of Digital Vidya.

Higher Engagement Rates

As mentioned above, micro influencers have a higher engagement rate than the Instagram celebrities. It's a common misconception of people that the more followers you have the merrier engagement rate you get. "Instagram is a high engagement platform and micro influencers receive the highest engagement rates within Instagram itself. The reason is that they have very targeted and passionate followers," says Abehsera.

Micro Influencers Appear to be more Authentic

When you hire a micro influencer, you get to promote your product in the front of a bunch of loyal followers who are following that particular person because of his/ her expertise in a specific field. This doesn't only let know about the product but also encourages them to trust your brand as well. And hence it boosts conversions and sales.

Moreover, with the micro influencers posting about your products or services, people start relating themselves to your brand as well.

"Micro influencers on Instagram are likely to post their own content, reply to comments and behave more authentically than a brand or a celebrity with a social media manager might. If a micro-influencer engages with a promotional post on Instagram, their followers might be more inclined to click to learn more about the brand they are posting about," says Kar.