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Brands & nano- or micro-influencers: why is informative content more effective than persuasive content?

06/04/2026

4 min

Influencer marketing, which involves brands collaborating with influencers, is a recent practice that is becoming increasingly professionalized. It is often unclear, however, what kind of content should be promoted by brands and influencers. What content will generate brand engagement?

With the emergence of social media platforms, brands have stepped up their content creation activities. Content marketing has therefore emerged as a new concept, embodied by new practices and professions.

Content marketing involves creating and distributing compelling and relevant content for prospects and customers, in order to inform them, help them solve problems and encourage them to engage with the brand.

Brand content can come in various types. It can be entertaining: the latest animated film from the Intermarché brand “Le Mal-Aimé”, released during the festive season, is a good example. Content can also be persuasive in nature: in this case, it aims to present the product in an appealing way with the intention of pleasing and inspiring the target audience. It can also be informative, seeking to provide objective information about a product, its use or its technical specifications. The brand’s intention in this case is to educate its audience, as tutorial-style videos do.

Brands and influencers

Brand-related content can come from a variety of sources including the brand itself, its fans or even influencers. Many brands now work with influencers. Rémi Delrue, Managing Director of Garnier France, recently stated (Marketing Magazine, September 2025) that he works both with influencers who have large followings (macro-influencers) to ensure the brand’s visibility, and with smaller influencers (micro-influencers) to create a sense of closeness with the audience, ‘an almost intimate direct relationship’.

The effectiveness of informative or persuasive content has often been compared to that of entertaining content; however, analyses comparing the effectiveness of informative and persuasive content remain rare. This is nevertheless an important question when a brand collaborates with influencers: should it favor content that is primarily informative (providing useful information about the product and its use) or persuasive (presenting sales arguments to sell the product)?

Higher engagement rates

In a study published recently in the Journal of Marketing Management, we focused on this question and on content generated by nano- and micro-influencers (those with fewer than 100,000 followers). They actually represent the majority of influencers and generate higher engagement rates.

To conduct this study, we carried out two experiments involving a total of 326 participants. Participants were exposed to different scenarios, featuring content generated by the brand or by influencers, and of a persuasive or informative nature. The results demonstrate that content generated by nano- and micro-influencers is more effective when it is informative (rather than persuasive).

However, the difference between the two approaches is not significant when the content is produced directly by the brands themselves. These results can be explained by the fact that consumers are more skeptical and place less trust in the brand when content generated by nano- and micro-influencers is of a “persuasive” kind. Indeed, informative content is more in line with the relationship of expertise and closeness that these influencers have developed with their audience.

Our findings suggest that it will be more effective for a brand to focus on informative or educational content when collaborating with nano- or micro-influencers. Informative content builds greater trust in the brand and is therefore more effective in driving purchase intent and brand engagement.

Avoid overly promotional content

We recommend that brands encourage their nano- and micro-influencer partners to create content that adds value for their community (factual information about a product, usage tips), rather than overly promotional content that breeds skepticism among their followers and a lower level of brand trust. Marketers should also avoid being overly prescriptive in their collaboration briefs with micro-influencers, to allow them to create more authentic content.

The example of the fashion brand Kiabi Link illustrates the findings of our study. By collaborating with its own customers, whom it treats as nano- and micro-influencers, the brand encourages them to produce informative (advice, product reviews) and authentic content for their community. In practical terms, this programme has helped to strengthen trust and engagement with the brand; from a quantitative perspective, it has generated a conversion rate exceeding the average level in the sector.

These influencers are closer to their community, which expects authentic content that aligns with their values. Brands must therefore encourage the creation of spontaneous and educational content about their products to win the trust of their audience: followers will appreciate content that provides them with value and useful information; conversely, they will be more cynical if such content is overly commercial.

This is the English translation of an article originally published by Sanda ARRIVE (IÉSEG) and Andria Andriuzzi, Maître de conférences en marketing, Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Étienne on the Conversation France.