Do nano-influencers really get more engagement than macro-influencers?

Yes: 4% average engagement for nano-influencers against 1.3% for macro-influencers, according to a 2025 sector analysis by archive.com. More than three times the difference — and it's arithmetic, not luck.

An account with 2,000 followers still has an audience that knows the account. People respond because they recognise each other from the club, the race or the Saturday morning ride. As an account grows that ratio dilutes: more followers who once liked a single post, fewer followers who feel spoken to. The numerator grows more slowly than the denominator.

Watch which figure you use where. That 4% is an average across platforms; on Instagram alone the nano average is 2.71%. Both come from the same analysis and don't contradict each other — they measure a different set.

What it means for a campaign is less dramatic than it sounds. A macro-influencer at 1.3% of 300,000 followers still reaches more people in absolute terms than a single nano account. The point isn't that one nano-influencer beats a macro; it's that twenty-five nano accounts together reach the same audience at a fraction of the cost, with three times the engagement, across twenty-five different social circles instead of one.

That's why we work with squads rather than names. The return sits in the sum, not in the individual profile.