We realized that a lot of our micro-influencers have their own followers and people that count on them for direction on their wellness journey. By engaging with those influencers, we're really focused on making Blink central to that community.

Consider macro-influencers: Activate’s DiSanto said that influencers with larger followings are sometimes chosen over micro-influencers for livestreams. “You have to do a lot of prep work to make sure that the influencer understands the brand safety guidelines and to invest that one-on-one time for a single piece of content,” he said.

A significant number of retailers in North America are now working with influencers as part of their marketing strategy. According to polling by Retail TouchPoints for referral marketing platform Extole, 31% of retailers said they have worked with brand advocates to become influencers, 30% used microinfluencers and 28% used paid celebrity influencers.

In the latest episode of "Behind the Numbers," eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson discusses how marketers are using influencer marketing successfully and getting past some of the issues holding the tactic back.

However, rates for nano-influencers (500 to 5,000 followers) were significantly below average, while those for celebrities were in the thousands for each content type. Even so, brand sponsorships are still likely to be how creators of all sizes bring in most of their income.

In a February 2019 survey by influencer marketplace Activate, for example, 64.2% of US influencer marketers said they worked very often with microinfluencers (defined as having 5,000 to 100,000 followers) and 25.7% said the same for nano-influencers (less than 5,000 followers).

Nearly two-thirds (64.7%) of the microinfluencers surveyed by SocialPubli used reach to measure the success of their work with a brand, but one-quarter (25.1%) said they preferred conversion rate.

This may convince more brands to embrace micro-influencers, who often generate a better ROI than do macro-influencers, whose audiences are more diffused.

Most of the influencers were micro-influencers with an average of roughly 35,000 Instagram followers. Nearly six in 10 participants were US-based women. Direct Messaging. In late September, Facebook announced that it was integrating Instagram’s direct messaging service with Messenger for users who opt in to the new feature.

“We're starting as marketers to learn that influencers are content,” said Brooke Robinson, managing partner at Peersway Nano Influencer Marketing. “We know now when they post something organically less than 10% are seeing the content organically, the rest are the result of paid media support.

“Instagram has seen huge growth, but Pinterest will be the next big platform,” said Brooke Robinson, managing partner at Peersway Nano Influencer Marketing. “Pinterest Canada launched their head office in Toronto, and they're going to start working with agencies and brands.

Many marketers have shown significant interest in Instagram Stories and are focusing on working with microinfluencers, who have smaller but dedicated followings. According to an August 2018 Econsultancy survey, 56% of US and UK marketers work with microinfluencers because they are more cost-effective than working with top-tier talent.

And with the rise of microinfluencers, marketers now have to increase their number of partnerships in order to reach scale. “While the increase has definitely led to more available influencers to work with, brands need to be careful,” said Jessica Dooley, US social practice lead at Mindshare.

A study by Retail TouchPoints in November 2018 showed that just 25% of retailers in North America said they used celebrity influencers, while 20% used microinfluencers. Many marketers have cautioned against focusing too heavily on revenue generation from influencers, feeling it should not replace the core tenets of what makes them effective.