What Is Influencer Marketing? A Guide to the 4 Main Types

The creator economy is now worth more than $104 billion. Sixty-five per cent of media and entertainment companies already partner with influencers to drive brand awareness and reach new audiences.

Influencer marketing has grown far beyond big-name celebrity endorsements. Today, brands are working with anyone who has a strong online presence and speaks directly to the customers they’re trying to reach, often through niche voices with a loyal following.

In this article, we’ll break down the four main types of influencer marketing and how your business can get involved. Many of the insights you’ll see are backed by data from our Media & Entertainment Industry Insights Report, which includes feedback from 350 decision-makers around the world.

These days, consumers don’t want to feel like you’re actively trying to make them buy your products. That might sound strange, but consider that nearly one billion people worldwide use ad blockers to avoid being marketed to online.

Why does influencer marketing work? Consider these statistics:

• There are more than 5.2 billion social media users worldwide
• There are more than 64 million influencer accounts on Instagram alone
• The creator economy is valued at $104 billion.
• 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions
• 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations
• Gen Zers typically trust influencers more than celebrities
• 65% of media and entertainment companies already partner with influencers

This doesn’t mean consumers don’t want to buy products. They do. That hasn’t changed. However, instead of being ‘sold to’ directly, customers want to find businesses organically through recommendations and their own research.

Influencers have already put in the hard work to prove their authenticity and grow their social following. This means consumers generally trust them more than they trust brands. With that in mind, it’s little surprise that 82% of brands say they get better quality leads from influencer marketing campaigns than anywhere else.

Influencer marketing is here to stay. Tapping into this strategy as a business is one of the most effective ways to build brand awareness and get more customers to your website. And with 89% of marketers saying they need to innovate constantly just to stay competitive, can you afford not to give it a try?

Let’s explore some of these benefits in more detail.

Implementing an influencer marketing strategy requires careful planning and an understanding of how influencer partnerships work. Let’s break down all the benefits you need to know before you get started.

• Boost brand awareness: Influencers can quickly introduce your brand to thousands of potential customers. This is especially powerful for new or growing e-commerce brands.
• Reach the right audience: By partnering with creators in your niche, you’re getting in front of people who are already interested in what you offer, which means higher-quality leads.
• Build trust instantly: Influencers already have loyal, engaged communities. When they recommend your brand, it acts as social proof and helps build credibility.
• More affordable than traditional ads: Influencer partnerships can be a cost-effective way to grow, especially with 39% of companies planning to cut ad spend over the next 18 months.

• Strong return on investment: For every $1 spent on influencer marketing, brands earn an average of $5.78 back , making it one of the most efficient strategies out there.

Despite the proven benefits, there are a few things you should know before you get started with influencer marketing. Let’s discuss some risks and limitations of the strategy.

• You’re relying on a third party: Partnering with influencers means handing over some control. If they miss the mark, it can reflect on your brand.
  • Solution: Vet influencers carefully and use clear briefs and contracts.
• Inconsistent brand messaging: Different creators have different styles, which can lead to a mixed brand message.
  • Solution: Share brand guidelines upfront and prioritise creative partners who already align with your tone.
• Risk of negative publicity: If an influencer faces backlash or controversy, it could spill over to your brand.
  • Solution: Monitor partnerships closely and work with creators who have a track record of professionalism.
• Lack of authenticity: Audiences can spot when a collab feels forced. If the influencer isn’t genuinely interested, the content won’t land.
  • Solution: Focus on creators who already use or believe in your product or niche.
• Not fully owned media: Since you don’t control the platform or account, influencer content has a shorter shelf life than owned assets.
  • Solution: Ensure your contract allows you to repurpose top-performing influencer content into ads, email, or website placements.

‘Influencer’ is a broad term. Technically, anyone with credibility and trust who can influence people on social media is an influencer, regardless of their reach. So, how do we know who to work with?

• Mega influencer: 1m+
• Macro influencer: 100k to 1m
• Micro influencer: 10k to 100k
• Nano influencer: 1k to 10k

Mega influencers have more than a million followers, meaning they have the most visibility and reach on social media platforms. Celebrity endorsements from these influencers are incredibly expensive but valuable.

However, studies have shown that engagement drops as follower counts increase, meaning mega-influencers see engagement rates as low as 1.97% . Smaller influencers also have more niche followings, meaning they may be able to drive more high-intent traffic to your page.

That said, for those who want to appeal to a broad audience and can afford the price tag, mega influencers will catapult your brand visibility. This is the strategy that Adidas used through their partnership with Ninja , a hugely popular gaming streamer.

Macro influencers aren’t quite celebrities yet, but they’ve carved out enough authority in their niche through hard work and consistency.

Most macro influencers fit into one specific niche, such as fitness, fashion, tech, or food. This means their followers usually have the same interests, which could drive more high-intent traffic to your page.

For instance, partnering with lifestyle and fitness macro influencers is a favourite of Hello Fresh. The brand sends meal kits to various influencers and pays them to promote the product alongside the ‘hellofreshpartner’ hashtag.

That said, macro influencers can still be expensive if you’re just starting out. They’re a good choice for small and medium-sized organisations that have found their feet and are looking for rapid growth in their niche.

Micro influencers have smaller but more loyal followings who trust their expertise in a specific niche. Compared with mega and macro influencers, they often have a much more focused, uniform audience who follow the influencer for their expertise as a thought leader.

Partnering with a micro influencer is an excellent choice, as these creators are passionate about their niche and often build more authentic connections with their audience. They’re also typically more open to brand partnerships and are more affordable than mega and macro influencers.

Partnering with micro and nano influencers isn’t reserved for startups. Many large brands partner with small influencers because it makes the brand look more down-to-earth and relatable to everyday consumers. For instance, Glossier regularly sends out new products to micro influencers to encourage authentic reviews on social media.

Nano influencers have the smallest number of followers of any influencer category. While this means their reach will be smaller, they have the benefit of being more relatable to their audience.

These social influencers usually engage directly with their followers, meaning they have an easier time building trust with close-knit communities. Nano influencers’ opinions are often valued because of their authenticity.

Sending out new products to micro and nano influencers for social media reviews is a common strategy used by every business, from startups to well-established brands. One of the perks of nano influencers is that they’re very affordable. Many will even accept free products or a discount code in return for a review.

Before we get into creating your own influencer campaign, let’s briefly break down how the process works for your own understanding.

1. Your business researches influencers who align with your audience, industry, and campaign goals.
2. You contact an influencer and propose a partnership, outlining the scope, deliverables, and your budget.
3. You negotiate a pricing structure with the influencer based on their size and reach. This could be a flat fee, a commission, or the agreement to send out free products.
4. You collaborate with the influencer to develop sponsored content that’s both authentic to their style and in line with your brand guidelines. Here are some popular options for creative collaboration.
5. Once the influencer begins posting content, you track campaign performance to assess success. You then use this information to decide on the next steps.

Now that you have an understanding of how influencer collaboration works, let’s get into the guide. Here’s how to create an influencer marketing strategy step by step.

Before you begin sourcing and selecting influencers, there are a few details you need to work out:

• Setting clear goals and objectives: What are you hoping to achieve with your partnerships? Do you want to build brand awareness? Are you looking to increase conversions? Set out some SMART goals so you can judge the success of your campaign.
• Identifying your target audience: Your target audience will decide which influencers you work with. Create an ideal buyer persona and use this to inform your strategy as you source potential partnerships.
• Develop a budget and timeline: Determining a budget is the easiest way to determine which influencers you can afford to partner alongside with.
• Establish key performance indicators (KPIs): What metrics will you track to ensure you’re on track towards your goals? (There's an entire section on this below.)

These elements will help you make more informed decisions in the coming steps.

Using your audience as a guide, choose one or more influencer marketing platforms. Some options include:

• Instagram: Ideal for reaching older Gen Z and Millennials with lifestyle, fashion, beauty, travel, and fitness content.
• YouTube: Best for reaching audiences who value in-depth content. A good option for tech products and beauty. That said, there’s an influencer for every niche on YouTube.
• Facebook: Facebook has the broadest demographic of any social media site, but it’s become less popular with younger users.
• TikTok: This is perfect for targeting Gen Z with fast-paced content. Works well for humorous content, capitalising on trends, and product demos.
• LinkedIn: Ideal for B2B brands. A LinkedIn B2B influencer tends to have serious credibility, so there’s a huge opportunity to build trust with discerning businesses.
• Twitch: Twitch is the go-to platform for gaming. If that relates to your brand, there’s no better place to be.

To capitalise on trends and engage with a younger audience, a combination of TikTok and Instagram influencers is a solid bet. These platforms lend themselves brilliantly to short-form video content. Video content creation is among the top social media marketing trends for 2025, as the niche continues to get more interesting.

With your broad strategy prepared, you’re ready to identify relevant influencers. A good place to start is with your niche. If you’re in the beauty industry, for instance, you’ll want to find lifestyle and wellness influencers who’ve tested products like yours. One approach here is to check which influencers your ideal customers are following.

In addition, consider which type of influencers you want: nano, micro, macro, or mega, based on your needs and budget. To reiterate, a larger following isn’t always the best. Mega influencers and macro influencers have a larger reach, but this often comes at the cost of engagement.

Once you have a pool of potential candidates, you can narrow your scope with the following checklist:

• Does this influencer respond to comments as much as I’d like?
• Does this influencer’s content and engagement with their audience align with my brand values?
• Do the comments look like they’re from real people? If not, this could be a sign that the influencer has fake followers.
• Will my product align with this influencer’s content preferences?
• Has the influencer engaged with any brands like mine before?
• Does the influencer have a good engagement rate on each post?

To calculate the social engagement rate, start by determining the average number of likes and comments on each of the influencer’s posts. From there, follow this formula.

Engagement rate = (Average number of likes per post / Number of followers) x 100

Most influencers will fall somewhere between 1% and 3%. For larger mega and macro influencers, hitting the upper level of this range is usually a good sign. For nano and micro influencers, an engagement rate of 5% or more indicates they have a dedicated community behind them.

How you contact your candidates will depend on the size of the influencer. With nano and micro influencers, you can usually message them directly on social media. Some will also have their contact information in their bio.

In contrast, many larger influencers work with influencer marketing agencies, meaning you’ll need to go through them to get in touch.

Following your influencer outreach, negotiate the terms of your deal and create a formal agreement to ensure each party understands their responsibilities.

Top tip: Remember that influencer partnerships are a two-way street. You need to provide the influencer with value to make them want to work alongside you, whether that be through campaign payment structures or free products.

If you try to mould an influencer to fit your own ideas, loyal followers will be able to spot that the content is inauthentic. Ultimately, the influencer knows their audience best, so it’s important to allow them freedom for creativity.

That said, you can make specific requests. For a start, you’ll be able to explain the kind of endorsement you want the influencer to provide and for what product. You can also create brand guidelines to tell the influencer what they shouldn’t say.

Depending on the influencer, you may also be able to have a say in the type of content they produce. Common influencer video options include:

• Unboxing videos
• Contests or giveaways
• How-to guides and tutorials
• Try-on hauls (for fashion influencers)
• Product reviews and comparisons
• Skits and humorous videos
• Success stories

Ultimately, you should listen to the influencer’s advice about the best content strategy. Your chosen influencer will likely have a unique style that their followers love, so it’s important not to inhibit this.

Top tip: Make sure any sponsored content complies with disclosure laws in your region, such as the ACCC in Australia. Clear labelling, such as adding #ad or #sponsored, is required in most countries.

There’s no better way to learn influencer marketing than by examining the brands that have got it nailed down.

Australian skincare brand Frank Body is the ultimate example of successful influencer marketing.

Rather than partner with huge celebrities, the brand opts for local Australian micro influencers who can endorse the product to their loyal followers.

On the surface, Frank Body’s skincare range isn’t particularly unique, but the brand excels at authenticity and relatability. They have much more lax brand guidelines, with a cheeky tone of voice that allows the personality of influencers to shine through.

Frank Body used this popular influencer marketing campaign to create a unique hashtag (#thefrankeffect). They then encouraged users to share their opinions on the products to boost engagement further.

From a one-product brand with a $5,000 influencer marketing budget, Frank Body has grown into a $20 million powerhouse through a unique persona, clever local influencer partnerships, and a commitment to authenticity and relatability.

“For IG, I've found one of the best and easiest hacks is to create a brand new IG account. Find influencers/thought leaders you already know and follow them, then follow 'more like this’. From there, we love to use tools like Woodpecker to do outreach. Also, if I'm looking for a person whom I know their company but perhaps don't know their email address, I love to use Hunter to find that person's contact details.”

“When it comes to interviewing successful founders, I've found using the Amazon books coming soon list page to be an absolute game-changer. It allows us to get ahead of the line as influencers/thought leaders/creators work on their book tours, press runs, and interviews. As an example, this is how I got an interview with Tony Robbins for his book: Money Master the Game.”

“Something else that has been super important is the power of following up and being patient. It took 18 months to interview Barbara Corcoran and months of regular follow-up one-on-one speaking with her assistant. If I had given up straight away, the interview would've never happened!”

With Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you can track and optimise every aspect of your influencer marketing campaigns. Our customer relationship management (CRM) platform lets you centralise your influencer data and track your strategies across all social media platforms.

For example, you can use our marketing software to track engagement rate for your posts, see which demographics are interacting with your partners, and even assess conversion rates.

You can also compare the ROI of your influencer marketing campaign to see how it compares with your other digital marketing strategies. If there’s a missed opportunity, the built-in Salesforce AI will provide actionable recommendations that you can use to refine and improve.