Influencer Marketing Tips for SMBs in 2025

Influencer marketing campaigns are the bread and butter of Instagram, X, and TikTok engagement between brands and customers. Forming influencer partnerships for new and emerging brands is vital, whether it is a passing fashion or here to stay. These influencers bring their followers, perceived authority, and personality. However, they need to keep up with what makes the markets tick. So, what are the must-know influencer marketing strategies for small brands in 2025? We have answers!

Base Any Content on Your Influencer Type

Marketing insiders recognize mega, macro, and micro influencers. Mega influencers could be celebrities or simply YouTube stars with millions of followers. These are the folk courted by larger companies and luxury brands. Next up are the macro influencers. Their reach ranges from 500,000 to one million followers. Although popular, they are highly personable and excellent for non-profits or entertainment brands.

Then, there is the micro influencer. Follower numbers range from 10,000 to 50,000 or slightly more. Because there are far fewer followers than the other types of influencers, these folks are much sought after because of their high engagement rates. Emerging brands partnering with these niche influencers can generate quite a buzz about their products.

Finally, there is the nano influencer with fewer than 10,000 followers. Depending on your product or service, a nano influencer is excellent with well-defined niche marketing strategies. Products that do well in this field are artisan food, drink, and supplement brands.

An effective influencer marketing strategy depends heavily on the type of influencer you work with. A micro influencer is the ideal partner for your campaigns if you are a small business owner, a startup, or a niche brand.

Understanding the Psychology Behind Social Influencer Sway

Why will your brand benefit from a positive relationship with the right influencer? In psychology circles, this type of influence is called social proof. (Other terms thrown around are “herd mentality,” “authority bias,” and “conformity.”) Customers want to know they are making the right buying decision, but so many products compete for their attention. An influencer offers the social proof they need to determine that the crowd likes your brand, so it is safe for them to purchase. This thinking follows the same line as those who look at customer testimonials or ratings to make a buying decision.

Finding the Influencer That Will Make a Difference for Your Brand

When you have settled on the type of influencer you want to work with, select some influencers that have topical alignment with your brand. Rate them based on their tone when interacting with audiences. Does this tone match what you have chosen to reach your targeted consumer group? If unsure, check out some of the others in your niche.

Once you have narrowed down your list, check out their past content. There is a chance that an influencer may have worked with your direct competitor. Is this a risk you want to take? What happens if they liked the competing product better than yours? The trick to successful influencer partnerships is a genuine appreciation of your product. You may have to ask questions regarding their reactions to your brand before proceeding.

Finally, determine if the influencer’s brand could negatively impact yours. Look for political, religious, or social statements made by the influencer that could come back to harm your partnership. Check out the internet scuttlebutt to determine if an influencer could be considered “safe” for working with your brand or service.

Research the Influencer’s Audience

You have narrowed down the field of influencers to include only those with the right tone, brand allegiance, and positive impact potential. Now, it is time to look at their audiences. Determine their ages, genders, interests, income, and anything else that would align them with your ideal customer profile. Select the influencer who interacts with followers close to your company’s target demographic.

Determine Your Goals When Collaborating With Influencers

Partnering with influencers is one of the inexpensive ways to increase brand visibility. Besides that, you might focus on generating leads, boosting sales, and overall generating interest in your product or service. Why is goal-setting such a critical step? It sets the tone for the budget you will allocate for the partnership. Moreover, it will significantly inform your influencer marketing strategies for small brands in 2025.

Taking Advantage of a Micro Influencer Marketing Strategy

Although they have fewer followers than the big names, these influencers have positive engagement metrics that will benefit any emerging brand. (Remember that you can always go for the macro influencer the next time. Building brand awareness by then is critical for success with that marketing campaign.)

So, how can you make the most of your influencer partnership?

• Select for trust and engagement. Work with a micro influencer who regularly engages with their audience. Look for various interactions rather than just the same three or four commenters. The more varied the engagement, the more trusted this influencer is considered by their target audience, who will also be your brand's audience.
• Build a relationship with the influencer. Audiences trust this influencer because they come across as a trusted friend. Therefore, influencers are highly unlikely to take your money and advertise your brand even if they do not like it. After all, they have to maintain their status as a trusted authority. So, get to know them and interact.
• Collaborate on content creation. Any influencer worth their salt will chafe at the idea of being told what to post and how to do it. Instead, they will request product samples they can try out. From there, if they agree to the partnership, they will create honest and authentic content.
• Define the terms of your partnership. The influencer will likely ask for creative freedom. However, you must negotiate expectations, timelines, compensation, and the scope of the partnership.

What is New or Different for 2025?

Before, influencer marketing strategies largely followed affiliate marketing tactics. Brands had much more control over content creation, posting, and the frequency of promotions. Things are different now.

Because you want to piggyback on the influencer’s authority and engagement with followers, they are in the driver’s seat regarding content creation, selection of social media platforms, and the frequency with which they will discuss your product. Moreover, the days of the staged video with a scripted interaction are gone. If the influencer agrees to interview you, it will be on their turf with unscripted questions.

Most importantly, influencer partnerships are no longer as disposable as they have been considered in recent years. Successful small brands embrace the influencer’s audience demographics and plan to maintain these partnerships for years. Doing so is advantageous because it makes your brand synonymous with the influencer.

One unexpected shift is using social media platforms as centers of commerce. Social commerce lets customers buy your products directly from the influencer or your social media platform without visiting your website. For the marketing insider, this is a complete change in the customer’s buying journey and the sales funnel model.

Welcome to Shopper-Tainment

Customers want to be entertained. Successful influencers know that and will craft content that resonates with audiences. However, they may not be as adept at creating entertaining content for your product as their audiences would like. Here, you may have to collaborate more closely with your chosen partner to work with your product entertainingly. Build on what makes the influencer so beloved and appreciated, and then go from there. You may have to help with the first few pieces of content before your partner feels sure they can address your target audience as needed.

The Elephant in the Room: AI

Audiences like the personalities they follow because influencers create authentic content. You know what does not produce authentic content? Artificial intelligence. It lacks the personal warmth and integrity of the human touch. Would it be faster and more productive to use AI? Sure. However, introducing AI into the partnership essentially undoes what makes a micro influencer worthwhile for small brands. We recommend avoiding artificial intelligence.

How do You Know That an Influencer Partnership is Successful for Your Brand?

We just talked about building relationships and having personal authenticity. Now, we must pull back a little and introduce statistics and key point indicators.

• Increased conversions. Partnering with an influencer persuades customers on the fence to come down and make a purchase. You assist this process with exclusive discount codes for influencer followers. It is easy to track the use of these discount codes to gauge your partnership's success. If you do not see dramatic conversion increases, it is time to try something different.
• Increased brand followership. Because you maintain your brand’s social media presence, you can easily determine if its followers steadily increase. If there is little or no movement, there is a problem.
• Increased product interest. Your website should see a marked increase in visitors. They may land on specific pages or check out all your site's offers.

Is the Partnership not Working?

If you have followed our influencer marketing strategies for small brands in 2025, you will have a cost-effective partnership that benefits your product. However, despite your best efforts, there may be problems. Your metric does not show the movement that you have expected. Now what?

Do You Have the Right Influencer?

Just because you like the influencer’s personality does not necessarily make them the best partner for your brand. If the influencer you selected does not have an organic reach within your niche, they will likely have little effect on your sales. For example, do not work with a makeup influencer when selling your artisan honey. While the niches sound like they could be compatible, they are far too different to encompass a sufficient number of your targeted demographic.

Is the Influencer as Popular or Authentic as They Indicate?

As with any other business, some influencers may rely on online versions of smoke and mirrors to land lucrative partnerships. Examples include fake followers, one-sided engagement, and ongoing introductions of new products. While you cannot dictate whether an influencer will introduce other products during a partnership with your brand, it is wise to establish expectations and performance benchmarks. If the influencer does not meet them, they must adjust their practices to comply. (Yes, this might mean not introducing additional brands while working with you.)

Does the Content You Create Convert?

You may work with the best influencer, but if your content falls flat, there is little they can do in this partnership. Business insiders know their brands have specific buzzwords that resonate with the target audience. The influencer you partner with needs to be on the same page as you. During your discussions, outline your brand’s core values and any terms you do not want to associate with your product. For example, bird toys made from natural sources should not be advertised with words like “plastic” or “metal.”

Your First Influencer Partnership Went Well. Now What?

You have options. Think long and hard before you make a final decision.

• Continue working with the influencer. If a partnership is working well, it makes no sense to end it. You might even discuss with the influencer how to boost your partnership.
• Add another influencer to the mix. If your brand has developed a national following, add another influencer from across the country.
• Move up to the next influencer type. It is a big step that is not as easy to make as you might think. Of course, if you prepare your brand for the move, it is possible and could be quite lucrative.
• Set new key point indicators to gauge the success of your chosen approach. Is it possible to get more out of an existing partnership? Give it a try.

Remember that the influencer you partnered with will have input on your decision. Some may not want to work alongside another influencer, while others welcome the opportunity to boost their reach by collaborating. Moreover, working with macro influencers after engaging with a micro influencer is a different experience. It costs more, and the access to the person is very different. Make sure that your brand is ready for this change.

We have found that a working partnership is a tremendous brand asset worth preserving. A long-term partnership with an influencer easily becomes a cornerstone of your marketing and brand-building approach. Most importantly, you continue to build customer relationships with the influencer’s followers. You might consider building your social media presence and printed sales collateral around this partnership.

How is Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Effective SEO is still necessary even within influencer partnerships. You might have hoped that it would no longer be something you must focus on after building your website. SEO allows your consumer demographic to find the influencer in the first place.

Ideally, your selected influencer will already know the ropes, do their keyword research, put together quality content, and optimize it for SEO. Plenty of them know about this practice and incorporate it into their content. However, some may not have this information yet. Therefore, working with a marketing partner who will help you polish anything SEO-related is critical.

May we suggest our team for this particular partnership? Contact us today to learn more!