If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.
— Napoleon Hill
In my final post of 2025 I commented that while I was happy to assert my identity as a writer and blogger I wasn’t ready to accept the label of “influencer” despite it having been suggested on several occasions. That all changed when I learned (via this guest post by my friend and fellow blogger Aimee Wilson) that there are different categories of influencer. The article Aimee cited was Types of Influencers: Mega, Macro, Micro, and Nano Explained by The Viral Union (TVU). The types are distinguished by their respective number of followers and thus their perceived influence.
- Mega Influencers (1M+ followers)
- Macro Influencers (100k to 1M)
- Micro Influencers (10k to 100k)
- Nano Influencers: (under 10k)
That last category caught my attention. I’m pretty sure I have fewer than ten thousand followers. Does that make me a nano influencer? It sounded kind of cool, especially when I read that TVU — who bill themselves as “India’s leading influencer marketing agency” — consider nanos “low-key incredible.”
It turns out that influencer categories vary a little depending who you ask. Wikipedia defines Nano influencers (under 10k followers), Micro (10K to 100k), Macro (100K to 500k), and Mega/Celeb influencers with more than 500k followers. A different source lists Nano (1k to 10k followers), Micro (10k to 50k), Mid-tier (50k to 500k), Macro (500k to 1M), and Mega with more than one million followers. Oh, to be a mega!
It’s worth taking a moment to consider what’s meant by followers in this context. We might casually talk about a website, blog, or social media channel’s followers, views, visitors, or readers but these terms are not interchangeable.
Followers are people who’ve explicitly subscribed to your channel, account, or website. Think Facebook friends, YouTube subscribers, or followers on Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads. For bloggers a follower is someone who’s clicked a “Follow” or “Subscribe” button so they receive a feed of your new content when it’s published.
A visitor (also known as a “user” or “unique visitor”) is a unique device that accesses your website within a specific time frame. Note that this metric counts devices not people. If someone accesses your website from a computer, a mobile phone, and a tablet within the same recording period it will be counted as three visitors.
The term reader is less well defined but usually refers to engaged visitors who actively consume your material. A visitor only becomes a reader when they spend a meaningful amount of time interacting with the content.
The views (or pageviews) metric records how many times a particular page is loaded or reloaded in a web browser. If a visitor looks at five different pages, that counts as five pageviews (one per page). If that same visitor reloads a page three times that counts as three pageviews for that page. Pageviews are often aggregated for a website as a whole.
I know how many followers I have on my social media platforms but until recently the only metric I had for our blog was pageviews. Even that is suspect because Google Blogger statistics are known to be inaccurate. In general, Blogger overcounts pageviews because it fails to reliably exclude bot and crawler traffic. It also includes administrator views such as when I visit the website myself. Google Analytics (GA) is a more reliable tool but Gum on My Shoe has only recently been set up to collect GA metrics. The comparison between GA views and Blogger pageviews has been salutary but there’s some interesting data regarding our users’ demographics, the technology they use, and the amount of time they spend on our website.
Acknowledging that our follower count is even smaller than I imagined it to be, what are the benefits of being a nano influencer? The TVU article I mentioned earlier describes nanos as “everyday creators — students, niche hobbyists, new parents, foodies — who’ve built small but tightly knit communities. Their posts don’t feel like ads. They feel like real-life recs [recommendations]. The trust is deep, and the audience pays attention.” Elsewhere, nanos are characterised as authentic, relatable, trustworthy, and approachable.
What makes nano-influencers stand out is their authenticity and the genuine connection they have with their audience. They usually share content that’s personal and relatable, like photos of their family, funny cat videos, or memes. This makes them feel more approachable and trustworthy, especially when compared to bigger influencers.
Neither Fran nor I have cats. (Fran has a small artificial aquarium with plastic fish.) We recently shared an update on our cuddly bears Pemberton and Bubbs, though. That’s personal and relatable, right? The more I think about it, the more I’m settling into this nano identity. Full disclosure. I was once included in a Health Central article showcasing “Seven People Who Have Changed How We View Bipolar Disorder.” That could threaten my nano status but I think I’m safe. The article’s no longer online.
Joking aside, writing for a small audience is something I’ve struggled with throughout my blogging career. What motivates me to write and publish a new blog post every Wednesday, week after week, month after month, when relatively few people ever read my words? I’ve never found a satisfactory answer. And yet, I’m still here. Still writing. The closest I’ve got is the realisation that it’s how I make sense of the world and of my life within it.
Freedom to express oneself authentically and the freedom to make mistakes are two positives to writing for a modest audience. It’s easier to take risks and to write with integrity when you don’t have to worry about upsetting or alienating a large number of people. I welcome the latitude to interpret our blog’s themes and purpose as I see fit, all the while mindful of our audience’s preferences and needs. I explored this last year in an open letter to our readers. We may have relatively few “followers” but many of them — many of you — have been with us since the beginning. You are familiar names on our social media accounts. You are our acquaintances, colleagues, family, and friends. You joined us on our journey to explore mental health and supportive friendships. You stayed for that — and all the rest. Over the past few years I’ve shared posts on blogging, short stories, diary writing, shorthand, end of life planning, and my fascination with disaster documentaries. You’re still here and we’re more grateful than we can ever express.
Fran and I remain committed to our founding vision and principles and to you, our followers and friends. The recent redesign of our website confirms that commitment. Owning our status as nano-influencers allows me to reframe our modest reach as a strength rather than a limitation. I’m keen to explore the opportunities this might afford us, and invite you to join us as we continue the journey. Who knows where it might lead. Watch this (small but beautiful) space.
Further Reading
- Understanding the influencer tiers and when to use each
- The rise of Nano Influencers
- Nano-Influencer: The Secret Weapon Brands Are Using to Win
- Nano-Influencers: Who, What, Why, When, and How to Engage Them
Over to You
In this post I’ve explored the concept of nano influencers and how that label applies to our presence here at Gum on My Shoe and elsewhere. What are your thoughts on this and on the idea of influencers generally? Fran and I would love to hear from you, either in the comments below or via our contact page.
Photo by Evgen Slavin at Unsplash
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