There's a reflex in influencer marketing that costs brands real money: assuming that more followers means more impact. It feels intuitive — a bigger audience should mean a bigger result. But when you line up actual engagement rates across campaigns, the intuition falls apart.
Engagement rate — the share of an audience that actually likes, comments, saves or shares — is the truest test of whether content landed. And on that measure, some of our strongest results came from the smallest rosters of the smallest creators.
The numbers tell an inconvenient story
Look at where the highest engagement actually showed up:
- 23% average engagement — G-Shock GA-2200, just 10 stylish KOLs
- 7.03% engagement rate — Sony ZV on Xiao Hong Shu, 12 nano/micro creators (3.5x the platform average)
- 11.38% engagement rate — Lazada 11.11 Supershow, a curated mid-to-alpha mix
- 3% — Digi x Capture App
- 2.65% — JIF's recipe campaign
- 1.45% — TP-Link's brand awareness prank video
The standout engagement rates came from the tightest, most carefully-matched rosters — not from throwing the widest net.
Why smaller often wins
Three things happen when a creator is smaller and better-matched to your brand:
1. Their audience is more relevant. A nano creator whose whole feed is skincare has followers who came for skincare. A mega-celebrity's audience is broad, and broad audiences engage more shallowly.
2. The relationship is closer. Smaller creators reply to comments, know their community and carry more trust per follower. That trust converts into interaction.
3. The content can be more specific. With fewer creators you can brief properly, so each piece speaks directly to a niche instead of being watered down for a mass audience.
The Sony ZV campaign is the clearest illustration: 12 nano and micro voices on a single, well-chosen platform outperformed the platform average by 3.5x. That doesn't happen by accident — it happens because relevance beats raw reach.
So when should you use macro creators?
This isn't an argument against big names — it's an argument for matching creator tier to objective. Macro and alpha influencers are the right tool when your goal is reach and awareness, where total eyeballs matter more than interaction depth. That's exactly why our biggest reach campaigns — like Touch 'n Go's 16.4M-reach #EverydayCashback — lean on larger, higher-follower rosters.
The mistake isn't using macro creators. The mistake is using them for an engagement goal, then being disappointed when a 2-million-follower post gets a 1% reaction.
The practical rule
Before you fixate on follower counts, ask what the campaign is really for:
- Want engagement, trust or conversion? Prioritise fit and go smaller. A relevant nano creator will out-engage a mismatched celebrity every time.
- Want raw reach and awareness? Follower count matters more here — bring in the macro tier.
- Want both? Blend them: macro creators for scale, micro creators for the engagement that makes the campaign feel real.
Follower count is a vanity input. Engagement rate is the output that actually tells you whether people cared. Optimise for the second, and the first stops mattering nearly as much.
Want a roster picked on fit, not just follower count? Talk to us about your goals.
