YouTube micro-influencers are the key to this small business' success

Hey folks 👋

Bufferchat is fast becoming the highlight of my week. On Tuesday, dozens of folks joined us on Threads for a fun, thoughtful chat about building a personal brand.

We shared everything from tips and tricks to journeys of growth, and it was fascinating! Our Social Media Manager, Mitra, and I even teamed up to make a snicker-worthy Frozen joke that is one of my proudest social media moments to date. (Follow the #Bufferchat tag on Threads to find it. 👀 Or if you’re not into Frozen, let it go.)

If you’d like to join some Buffer community members and teammates for an intimate chat on Threads, join us here next week on Tuesday (Feb 27) at 12 p.m. PT/3 p.m. ET/8 p.m. UTC. We host Bufferchat every week, with a new topic to unpack each time. Our discussion topic for the 27th is salary transparency, so it should be a juicy one.

Before then, here are some other interesting tidbits to nibble on.

💌 In today’s email:

• 🎬 How this small business is leaning on YouTube micro-influencers for sales
• 🤖 Use this AI Assistant prompt to make your posts easier to understand
• 📱Mitra shares a neat Reels audio for showing off your creative process
• 📣 The latest social news, features, and bonus reads
• And as always, all the latest and greatest content from the Buffer blog.

Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next Friday!

Warmly, 

Kirsti & the Buffer team

P.S. Dive into our free tools — especially our AI-powered social media post creator.

🖊️ Deep dive: YouTube is Our Highest-Converting Channel Thanks to Micro-Influencers — Here’s Our Strategy

Galan Leather Co. sells a fairly niche product: handmade leather and wood writing accessories, plus other craft goods for writing and stationery enthusiasts. If you were to choose a social media platform that would be the key to their success, you’d likely have chosen Instagram, maybe even Pinterest.

But their highest-converting platform is YouTube, thanks to the help of micro-influencers. “We’ve spent seven years fine-tuning our YouTube micro-influencer strategy,” Co-founder Yusuf Perens, says. “Thanks to that commitment, we now get over 20,000 visitors from YouTube each year.”

Here’s how they do it:

They focus on content and engagement over follower count

The Galan team starts by searching for creators who cover the keywords their ideal audience might use: planner setup, notebook reviews, bullet journaling, etc. From there, they focus on their content and engagement rather than follower count.

“We don’t pay too much attention to audience size because we’ve worked with folks who have large follower counts only to find their videos don’t receive many views,” Yusuf says. “Now, we focus more on engagement. Most of our partners have several hundred to several thousand followers.”

They ask for genuine feedback (good and bad)

Not providing too many guidelines allows for more authentic and relatable content, Yusuf believes — the last thing they want is for the videos to feel like “scripted sales pitches”.

“Think about it: If a product online only has positive reviews, it can seem unbelievable,” he says. “It’s much more authentic when someone shares feedback like, ‘This product is beautiful, but a little small’ or ‘I can tell the craftsmanship is wonderful, but distressed leather like this is not my style.’”

They focus on long-term wins instead of each individual campaign

Yusuf has learned this approach is a long game. Sometimes, new videos get results right away, but it’s more common for them to take time to gain views and search traction. “Instead of obsessing about trying to measure the impact of each video, we pay more attention to the overall benefits, both qualitative and quantitative.”

🚀 Three entrepreneurs skyrocketing their growth with Buffer

We pride ourselves on being an excellent tool for entrepreneurs and business owners to grow on social media — and our users were more than happy to back us up.

• Jayak at redpigeonmedia: “Over the past 3 months we've managed to grow one of our client's social media accounts by 400% from 6k to over 23k followers!”
• Press 1 for Nick on YouTube: “My following has grown 10% consistently since I started using Buffer”
• Jon Buckley: “Over the last 90 days, I've seen a 24.5% increase in accounts reached, a 53.2% increase in engagement, and a 9.3% increase in followers.”

Want to skyrocket your growth? Click the link below to get started with Buffer today!

👇 The latest from the blog

• 9 Things You Need to Know About the Threads Algorithm (According to The Threads Team): A round-up of everything we know about how the Threads algorithm works, along with a few predictions for the future.

   

• How I’ve Used Speaking to Develop a Sales Funnel With a 10-25% Conversion Rate: Learn the exact funnel Ziza Natur uses to turn speaking gigs and podcast opportunities into paying customers for her coaching business.

   

• How to Schedule Instagram Stories: 2024 Guide: How to schedule your Stories, step-by-step, and plus tips and tricks to get the most out of your content.

   

• DMs for Networking (Real-life Examples from 7 Writers): How to leverage DMs to build your network, whether you’re looking to find new customers or build your personal brand.

🤖 A tip for Buffer's AI Assistant

Did you know that most people can best understand text at a grade 8 reading level? When creating content, you want to make sure your audience doesn’t have to work too hard to comprehend it.

This simple prompt will make sure you hit the mark. 

Rewrite the post below so that it is easy to understand at an 8th-grade reading level.

Here’s the content: [paste post in here]

Note: You need to be logged into Buffer for the content of this link to show up properly in your Create space.

📱Social tip of the week from Mitra, Buffer’s Social Media Manager 

‘The process vs. the result’

Show your followers how you create something special with this audio, whether it’s your business’s product, delicious dinner, or your go-to make-up look. The Reel is pretty short too, so it can come together in just a few minutes! I recommend picking a few different video clips for the process section, but you can also just use one clip.

Check out this example from artist @laurynbowers where they show you the messy, mesmerizing process of making a vase. Pro tip: Hit the Use template option when viewing Lauryn’s video to easily add in your clips and make your own version.

🤳 What's happening in social?

Numbered lists (and more!) have come to WhatsApp with their new text formatting options; you may soon be able to crosspost from Facebook to Threads; Instagram is working on a new AI backdrop sticker; after tests with Mr Beast, X has now launched its new “Creator Targeting” ad option; and discover how adults use TikTok in a fascinating study by Pew Research Center.

Thanks for reading! 💟

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