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Thanks for this great article. I am more familiar with the B2B part , where micro-influencers are usually experts i.e the M Gladwell rule that it takes 20 hours a week for 20 years to become an influencer.\nI see three specific benefits in connecting "community & influencers".

You may have influencers in your community and not knowing it. Some of your community members may not be very active in your community but they may write great content and develop audiences in their blog, Twitter account, LinkedIn group.....

If your community is not "product/support" centered but "practice/expertise" centered and one of its objective is growth, then you definitely should target micro-influencers as prospective members. These influencers will bring credibility to your community and will also be great advocate/promoters.

Also, if you view your community as your "company", influencers brings skill that are mandatory for growth: they usually write great content and they know how to socialize content.

Content (and for this you need a LOT of micro influencers). Many community die because they lack fresh, timely relevant content. It is expensive to develop content and the only way to get relevant content on a daily/weekly basis is to curate other people content. By listening to 1000's of people in your field and by spotting what these people share the most, a community manager can get a reliable flow of great content to share

Agree that you should be careful not to rely on one or a few influencers.