Micro-influencer Marketing: Why a TV Network Plan Comes Before Hires

Lydia Lee, a social media and influencer marketing strategist with 15 years of experience scaling brands to the Inc. 5000, walks through her exact day-one-to-day-90 playbook for building an influencer program from scratch. Her first move is always goal setting, because influencer marketing is a tactic, not a goal, and most teams get lost chasing tactics before defining what they actually need to achieve. From there, she maps target audiences by channel, arguing that the person buying on Amazon is often a different person than the one buying through Instagram or TikTok. She then introduces her content series framework, comparing a brand to a TV network like ABC or MSNBC, where four to six recurring series attract distinct audience segments and drive purchase. Micro-influencer marketing decisions, she argues, should only happen after that architecture is in place, not before. If you are about to hire your first creator or hand this off to a team, watch this before you do anything else.