What Happens When The Right Influencer…Works? Magic, Of Course!
As an audience of consumers, no one wants an out-of-touch influencer touching their Facebook or Instagram feeds.
What makes brands any different?
Let’s Cover Some Ground First
De-influencing, or the act of buying less and being more mindful of what you consume online, is a trend that’s gaining more and more momentum as the years pass. An oversaturation of content has made consumers yearn for regular people they can relate to.
This gained momentum because the trend doesn’t rely on influencers.
The irony is deinfluencing still means you’ll be influenced.
In any case, several studies (such as this 2025 study from the Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Management, and this 2025 study from the Journal of Business Research) have shown that influencer (or de-influencer?) marketing still works and is still quite effective as a marketing strategy.
When done right, influencers positively shape how people perceive and connect to a brand.
But…key phrase: “when done right.”
How can your brand do it right?
Let’s Dig A Little Deeper At These Studies
There’s this view that the bigger, more expensive influencers (with the bigger equipment) have more chances of success.
But according to several studies on influencer marketing, that’s not always the case.
Smaller Influencers Are More Likely To Bring In Engagement
In their 2025 study in the Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Management, Samanta found that it was actually nano- (ranging from 100 to 10,000 followers) and micro-influencers (with a base under 25k followers) that got more engagement compared to bigger influencers.
Despite the small reach of these creators, the engagement rates were better because their content felt more like personalized recommendations.
Well, the study tracks: Here are others that agree with the author:
- This 2025 study from the Academy of Marketing Studies Journal also agreed with Samanta: micro-influencers had higher engagement rates compared to more well-known influencers.
- One of my fellow writers, Ruth, in her detailed 2024 article about small influencers
What Determined These Small Influencers’ Success?
These studies, alongside others, boiled down the success of smaller creators to:
- Transparency, Credibility, and Trust
People generally trust their friends with recommendations. The same principle applies here.
Supporting the point of feeling like personalized recommendations, consumers often view smaller, more niche influencer recommendations as genuine–building trust in the brand and a positive brand image.
This is especially the case if the small, niche influencer is an expert in certain topics (i.e. an enthusiastic sculpture hobbyist, a librarian with spare time, or a psychologist). A few examples would be the licensed trauma specialists and mental health experts who found success talking about mental health on TikTok.
- Community and Engagement
This recent study on Twitter influencers found something that seems like common sense: the more an influencer engages with their followers, the more they’ll cultivate an involved and connected audience. By creating a sense of belonging and interaction, influencers can enhance any brand loyalty and encourage a positive network between the brand and your audience.
Needless to say, this shapes how people will see any given brand.
- Authenticity
When influencers appear genuine and transparent (versus being paid sponsorships without much thought to their content), their followers are more likely to believe your brand’s message.
This adds to your brand’s trustworthiness.
- Brand Values
Smaller influencers can (and usually) filter out and tie themselves to a brand aligned with their own values, lifestyle, and expertise.
The closer in proximity an influencer is to their audience, the more their audience identifies with the brand.
But Does This Mean You Always Have to Choose Small?
Not really. I find that it has less to do with size and more to do with how authentically an influencer connects to your brand’s audience. Smaller influencers just so happen to have higher chances of doing this.
You Have To Curate Your Brand’s Authentic Influencer
When broadly looking at how influencers shape a brand’s perception, Yuying Zhou (2023) found that, ultimately, authenticity depends on cultural norms.
“..authenticity, a cornerstone in influencer marketing, varies significantly across global
geographies and cultural contexts… These guidelines, in turn, play a pivotal role in moulding the local audience’s perception of how genuine a given influencer campaign appears.”
In short, know your audience’s culture before finding your influencers.
Zhou then went on to say that these same cultural norms and traditions inevitably impact how people judge an influencer’s authenticity.
Meaning you have to be pickier with your magicians before planning out your tricks.
And sometimes, the tricks shouldn’t be tricks. No matter how big or small your brand’s influencers are, they have to authentically align to your brand first.
Know Who You’re Trying to Influence First
- Do you know your audience well enough? If not, define your audience first.
- Do you know every single touchpoint your would-be customer faces before buying from your brand? If not, map out your customer’s journey.
- Influencers will usually ask for a spiel or a gist of the branded content you want. Have you mapped out what you want to say to your customers first? If not, map out your overall message first.
Or better yet, have a PR agency take care of finding influencers for you.
Here’s How A PR Agency Can Help With Influencers
- They Can Curate A List of Influencers for You
A reputable PR agency would take care of all the market research, networking, and scouting efforts you’d normally do for finding influencers.
Have these lists of influencers for example:
- This list of top 5 influencers from Davao (for when you want your brand to expand to a Davao-based audience)
- This list of top 5 Cebuano influencers (for when you want your brand to expand to a Cebuano audience)
- This list of top 5 Filipino TikTok influencers (for when you want to connect to a Gen Z audience via TikTok)
- They Can Save Your Budget
A celebrity influencer can cost more than P100k.
Rather than waste that much on something that might not work, a good PR agency can map out the size of the influencers that would work best for your brand first.
- They Can Provide A Blueprint For Your Influencer Campaign
Think posting on Instagram and TikTok’s enough? No.
What if your best influencer strategy was on facebook instead? Or YouTube? Those are popular avenues, too.
Much better if they have an integrated marketing communication (IMC) approach. That way, every channel you have (be it a billboard or, maybe, a Reddit thread) cohesively sends out the same brand messaging.
The Lesson is: Don’t Just Pick Small. Be Selective.
Rather than have your marketing team grab and parse a list of major influencers, these studies highly recommended thoughtfully selecting your influencers instead.
I’d agree. You need to know who you’re catering to first. Then cater to that.
Need help curating your influencers? Try contacting booking an appointment with NGP IMC here or contact them here! Their successful IMC approach has helped brands reap influencer rewards–all while connecting to people, too.
Kriztin Cruz is a recruitment and digital marketing professional, freelance writer, hobbyist painter, and frustrated sociologist–with too many things to want and too little time to spare. She graduated with a Psychology degree in 2019 at De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde Antipolo. When she’s not drafting a corporate letter or working on anything digital marketing, you can find her doing the following, but not in this order: reading a good book, scavenging for a good book, sketching, painting, journaling, junk journaling, obsessing over an obscure Czechoslovakian surrealist film (or anything by Miyazaki or Del Toro), cooking, finding a cafe to relax in, and creating new things while a nice documentary plays in the background.