Influencers are users who use social networks prominently and who have an interesting number of followers, on whom they exert some type of influence. That is, they are people who follow them, who value their opinion and who, therefore, are influenced in some way by their content and the values they represent.
One of the main challenges for any company that wants to work with influencers on social networks is to identify the profiles well and choose the right influencers. The success of your digital marketing strategy to carry out branding or dissemination campaigns about your products will depend on this.
The first thing you need to know is that there are many types of influencers. They can be classified depending on the main social network they use, the sector in which they work and the size of their community.
Social media influencer classes
This type of influence figures in networks can be classified according to different criteria. For example, they are given a different name depending on the main social network they work on, the content they make, or the number of followers they have.
Types of influencers according to the number of followers
One of the key factors to classify these profiles is according to the size of the audience they reach through their social channels. Although there is no established rule or exact amount to belong to one category or another, broadly speaking we can distinguish between:
– Nanoinfluencers (2k – 10k). Those accounts that have between 2,000 and 10,000 followers belong to this group. In this case, they are usually profiles that are starting to share content and have a very solid community, which translates into high interaction and engagement figures. Their prices are usually quite affordable compared to the rest.
– Microinfluencers (10k – 50k). They are profiles that have between approximately 10,000 and 50,000 followers, so their level of influence is greater than in the previous case. They may have been publishing on networks for a while, so they tend to be known within the sector in which they specialize and continue to be close to the audience.
– Midinfluencers (50k – 250k). They have more or less figures of between 50,000 and 250,000 followers. They are “medium” accounts but they are growing and beginning to have some relevance for brands. They are halfway between the previous ones and the largest.
– Macroinfluencers (250k – 500k). His accounts are followed by between 250,000 and 500,000 followers, figures with a fairly high level of importance. Among them, some may be well-known faces from other sectors of the offline world that have gained popularity on networks, such as television collaborators or series actors.
– Megainfluencers (500k – 1M). They have between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people who follow them on social networks and are considered large influencers due to their popularity. They have the ability to reach a wide and relevant audience, so running a campaign with them usually has a high cost, however, big brands usually take them into account for their strategies due to the benefit they generate.
– Celebrities or top influencers (+1 M). They have more than 1,000,000 followers and their reach figures are quite large. María Pombo, Dulceida or Paula Gonu are some examples.
Sometimes within this type of profiles there are some who do not specifically dedicate their work to networks, but rather their profession is recognized globally, as in the case of footballers, models, actors or musical artists, among others. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo and his wife Georgina, Messi, Selena Gómez, Ariana Grande, Kylie Jenner, Dwayne Johnson… are celebrities or top influencers because they exert a real influence on large communities on social networks.
Influencers according to the social network
Depending on the type of content they publish, its format and the target audience they target, they tend to focus especially on one main network, although it is common for many of them to be actively present on several social networks.
-Instagrammers: They are the ones who use Instagram as the main channel to carry out their digital marketing actions. Marta Díaz, María Pombo and Georgina Rodríguez are some of the most followed Spanish influencers on this platform.
– Tiktokers: On TikTok there are the so-called tiktokers, who are users with great influence on this social network that has exceeded one billion users in the world. Profiles such as Benjikrol, Naim Darrechi or Rosalía stand out, who are some of those with the most followers in Spain, and Khaby Lame and Charli D'Amelio among the most followed tiktokers globally.
-YouTubers: On YouTube, users who influence others are called YouTubers. They are those creators who specialize in creating quality and longer audiovisual content. Despite being a social network with a few years behind it, it is still a place that brings together important influencers such as Mikecrack, El Rubius or Vegetta777, who, according to SocialBlade data, are the Spanish YouTubers with the most followers in 2024.
– Streamers: They are those who use Twitch or any other online streaming platform to broadcast content in real time, whether it be video game games, cattails, special events or talks. In this field, for example, Ninja, AuronPlay or Ibai are recognized for gathering large numbers of followers on the streaming platform Twitch.
– Podcasters: They are those who are dedicated to regularly publishing podcasts, recordings in which a specific topic is discussed in depth. There are also video podcasters, who, in addition to audio, record the image mainly to share it on networks.
However, these are not the only networks where influencers are found; many creators have important communities of followers in others such as X (Twitter) or LinkedIn.
Other ways to classify influencers
In addition to the size of the audience or the content they publish, we can also classify them as:
– Influencers according to their content or sector. This classification is one of the most obvious, but sometimes one of the most difficult to categorize. Influencers can be grouped according to type of content they share on their networksbut this can be about almost anything and in most cases each influencer specializes in several sectors at the same time.
Depending on the topic they cover, they can be influencers of fashion, gastronomy, travel, sports, beauty, lifestyle, technology, decoration, music, video games, art, motherhood, comedy, culture…
– Brand advocates or brand ambassadors. They do not have a large number of followers, but they stand out for their organic content and for being loyal to a particular brand, this means that they can become good ambassadors or representatives for that brand. However, some influencers with large communities can also act as ambassadors.
– Niche influencers. These are influencers who, despite not having a large number of followers, are dedicated to a very specific sector (such as construction or gastronomy, for example) and directly influence the community that follows them. If they are specialists in a sector and have a larger community of followers, they could be called professional influencers.
– Everyday influencers. They do not have large numbers of followers nor do they have to dedicate themselves to a specific sector. Normally their audience is based on their personal environment (such as family, friends and colleagues), so they have a high level of influence in their circle when they recommend products or services that they themselves consume.