The traditional influencer playbook is changing, whether we like it or not.
A lot of brands still approach influencer marketing the same way they did a few years ago: allocate most of the budget to one large influencer, wait for the content to go live, then hope the reach translates into momentum. And today, this kind of approach will burn down brands’ marketing budgets in the fastest way.
When choosing among nano, micro, and macro influencers, the secret to success isn’t choosing one tier over another. It’s not that top-tier influencers are useless, and smaller influencers are an automatic silver bullet. Rather, the challenge lies in understanding that no single tier can carry an entire campaign on its back.
In an interview with The Anatomy of a Dream, Kent Yoshimura, co-founder of NeuroGum, spoke about how audience attention has fundamentally changed. Brands are no longer competing only for impressions, but for sustained attention across fragmented communities and repeated touchpoints.
One polished influencer post is rarely enough anymore. Audiences discover products through layers of exposure, seeing the same item appear across multiple influencers, different formats, comments sections, and everyday content. This is why the conversation around nano, micro, and macro influencers is no longer about choosing one tier over another.
The real challenge is understanding what each influencer type is actually good at (and where most brands often misuse them).
Breaking Down the Ecosystem: Nano vs. Micro vs. Macro
One of the most common problems in influencer campaigns is expecting one influencer to solve everything at once: from awareness to trust, and even UGC. When in reality, very few influencers can carry an entire funnel alone.
You also don’t need to choose sides between nano, micro, and macro influencers, or even delete one of them from your marketing ecosystem entirely; you just need to use them for what they are actually good at.
Nano Influencers: Small Audience with High Familiarity
Nano influencers are often underestimated because the numbers look small on their profiles. When actually, they have one thing that excels: closeness.
Their audiences still reply to Stories. Ask follow-up questions. Request product links. Comment like they’re talking to a friend instead of a public figure. For products that rely heavily on trust, repetition, or daily usage habits (such as beauty, F&B, wellness, or parenting products), nano influencers can become powerful trust builders.
Micro Influencers for Stronger Consideration Quality
Micro influencers usually operate in a more focused niche (skincare, fitness, tech, food, fashion, travel, parenting). Their audiences follow them for a specific interest, which makes their recommendations feel more contextual.
In practice, this often creates a stronger consideration quality layer, and that matters more than many brands realize.
A beauty influencer explaining why they personally use a serum tends to land differently compared to a generic endorsement dropped into unrelated lifestyle content. Or a food influencer explaining a detailed taste in a meal while they are eating it, often performs better than a heavily scripted “review”. Having the audience fully understand the product is the highlight of micro influencers’’ content.
Macro Influencers for Massive First Impression
Large influencers are far from irrelevant. They still play an important role in shaping visibility, cultural relevance, and perceived legitimacy.
The problem is that brands sometimes expect them to function like performance ads, where one post immediately drives clicks, conversions, or measurable sales at the same efficiency as paid media. Most of the time, that expectation usually creates disappointment.
A macro influencer can make a campaign feel important very quickly in the first days of launch. They introduce a product to massive audiences almost instantly, but what brands need (but often don’t realize) is to also have their products stay in social media conversation after the launch.
Layered influencer ecosystems tend to sustain momentum longer because audiences continue encountering the product through different influencer personalities and communities afterwards.
Why Brands Should be Starting to Diversify Influencer Budgets Instead of Betting on One Big Influencer
Part of this is simply how audience behavior has changed.
People rarely discover products through a single touchpoint anymore. Especially on TikTok, product discovery usually happens through repetition:
- Seeing a influencer casually use something
- Spotting the same product again through affiliate content
- Hearing another influencer mention it weeks later
- Finding clips reposted onto different accounts
- Reading comments from people who already bought it
That accumulated familiarity matters more now than one isolated viral post, which benefits brands to gain:
- Multiple audience entry points
- Different influencer personalities and content styles
- More testing flexibility
- Stronger repetition across feeds
- Lower campaign risk concentration
The conversation today is no longer,
“Should brands use nano or macro influencers?”
The more useful question is,
“What role should each influencer type play inside the campaign?”
Some build visibility, some create familiarity, some strengthen category trust, and some simply make the brand feel culturally relevant enough to enter audience conversations.
At RISE Indonesia, this is the influencer landscape we navigate daily across nano, micro, macro influencer executions. The strongest campaigns usually happen when these roles work together instead of competing against each other.