“Influencing” has become quite the buzzword right now. What initially stood for “the ability to manipulate people” has now evolved to mean “a social butterfly” with a solid social media presence and an even stronger fan base.
While the verb version of the buzzword, in its literal sense, stands for influencing others, the noun version, i.e., Influencer, stands for much more than just the same. It has now evolved to become a popular career choice with eligibility criteria more flexible than most and arguably, the coolest of them all.
Who is an Influencer and who needs them?
In order to understand the potential of social media influencers, here is an instance of Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie. The 27-year-old YouTube sensation came a long way since he first started filming himself playing video games as a teenager with no goal of generating money. Now he stands With over 60 million subscribers and a rumored net worth of $25 million.
Influencer marketing is incredibly exciting for brands as well. According to data from Tap Influence, 40% of individuals have bought something after watching an influencer use it on Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube. The top 10 beauty influencers in the world have a combined social media reach of 135,000,000 users. This has proven that influencer marketing can be much more than just word-of-mouth for brands. So, the likelihood that your return on investment will increase significantly if you can convince a reputable Influencer to highlight your product is high.
Consumers in the modern day have become numb to advertisements and billboards. Instead, they spend their time learning more about a product before making a purchase. As a result, they seek out real people who can speak about the brand of their choosing. Influencers aid brands in connecting with their target market as a result.
How to make money as an influencer?
1. Sponsored Posts
The most well-liked method of generating income on social media is through sponsored posts. You can sponsor articles that mention a particular brand’s products as an influencer. These companies pay you in exchange for marketing their goods online.
Sponsored posts can be created in a variety of ways, including:
- Either one or more product descriptions
- Posts with Product Reviews and Information
- Highlight posts and tags
Furthermore, when you have a bigger audience, these posts are more profitable.
2. Brand Representative / Ambassador
Additionally, you can get into a binding agreement to work as a brand’s online partner. This can be done for a minimum of two months and a maximum of many years. For this reason, you might receive some corporate goods in exchange. You can also get paid a set amount for each transfer you make.
3. Affiliate marketing
Another choice is to speak with companies or merchants that provide affiliate marketing programs. To become an affiliate marketer, you must apply under the necessary options available. Once accepted, you will receive a special affiliate link to track your conversions and collect commissions.
4. Co-create products
When you become a recognized influencer, you could begin to feel oversaturated and decide to work with other brands to co-create items. You can receive significant cash and also a percentage of the profit in this method.
5. Promote your products
Instead of working with others, you can also market your own product line. To guarantee that you get the most out of this, you must start small.
Jobs for an Influencer
Brand Ambassador (BA) programs are increasingly gaining popularity among companies. BA positions are typically not full-time employment. Rather, they are chances for loyal consumers to provide support for and favorable reviews of their favorite items in exchange for compensation. This may be as easy as wearing a brand-sent T-shirt and sharing an Instagram post in favor of them!
Depending on the company they work for, BAs are typically compensated by being allowed to keep things that are supplied to them, by being given access to online products, and in other ways.
Even without regularly uploading vlogs to YouTube or earning a coveted mass following, you can still participate in this booming industry area of influence. There have been more positions available in recent years that are ideal for someone who wishes to manage bloggers, vloggers, or influencers. Examples of such positions are:
- PR and Outreach Manager
- Influencer Marketing Manager
- Community Manager
- Influencer Relations Assistant
- Influencer Community Coordinator
Your duties in these positions will include finding, managing, and working closely with Influencers. Moreover, coordinating the information they share about your employer’s or client’s products will also be included. You’ll be expected to be incredibly organized, knowledgeable about social media and digital PR, skilled at negotiating, and able to build and maintain relationships.
How to become an influencer?
The journey from being another outwardly social media user to a verified influencer isn’t that easy albeit. Contrary to how it looks like, becoming a successful influencer in times like these when there are hundreds of influencers popping up every passing day is a matter of grasping at straws.
But that is exactly where we got your back. Keeping the fact in consideration that every journey is unique and comes with individual challenges, here is a guide that can make the process a little easier for you.
Here is a list of 7 steps that can help you take the initial steps toward the greater journey. Keep scrolling to find out our guide on How to become an influencer.
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1. Pick your domain
Choosing your niche of interest is the first step in developing influence. It would be easier to study, investigate, and comprehend a place if you had a natural affinity for it. You can produce engaging content thanks to the same. Additionally, having some level of experience in the selected field will give you an edge in your quest to become influential. Some of the things to consider while choosing a niche are:
- Your long-term passion for creating information is your subject of interest.
- Activities that you enjoy performing yet are not compensated.
- Primarily the problems you fix for other people.
- A talent you possess that enables you to address the problems of others.
Here is a list of popular domains:
- Make-up or Beauty
- Lifestyle
- Fitness
- Travel
- Motherhood
- Food
- Fashion
- Gaming
- Home Decor
- Motivational
2. Select Your Platform
Selecting a social media platform to position yourself as an influencer is one of the most important tasks. Among the things to take into account while choosing your platforms are:
- Only use up to two social media sites for your visibility.
- Take into account your knowledge of the material typewritten, audio, video, or podcast.
- Pay attention to the social media channel where your target demographics are primarily active. Choose YouTube, for instance, if you are adept at creating videos and the majority of your material consists of tutorials.
3. Have an opinion
Make sure you are offering your own opinions, even if they diverge from what everyone else in your sector is sharing. Do so only if you want to stand out from the thousands of other articles, posts, and other sorts of content available. People might be more drawn to and devoted to distinctive, genuine voices than to those who simply repeat the prevailing talking lines.
4. Optimize your personal brand identity
You must optimize your social media profiles in the following ways in order to gain influence:
- If you already have a profile, you can unlock the relevant functionality by switching to a business account.
- Make an interesting biography for your visitors so they can learn about you, your background, and also, all the other pertinent information.
- Additionally, don’t forget to include your profile photo and cover photo, which are crucial elements of your company identity.
5. Be consistent
To keep your audience glued, make sure you consistently publish high-quality content in addition to publishing it. If you are inactive, your audience may choose to unfollow you or forget about you altogether. They should be able to depend on you for regular updates and postings.
There are several tools that can schedule times to automatically post your material across platforms if you struggle to remember to manually publish information or want to stick to a fixed timetable.
Maintaining consistency with your social media activities also guarantees that you are investing the time and effort necessary to achieve your objectives since it takes time to establish yourself as an influencer. Consistent posting is valued by audiences and increases the likelihood that they will interact with it, which will also help you develop closer bonds with your followers.
6. Let Brands Know You’re Open to Collaborations
You must express your desire to work with brands once you have established yourself as an influencer. You can draw in potential clients for this purpose by mentioning it in your profile or by including your contact information. Alternatively, you may contact pertinent brands.
You can also employ influencer platforms, which link the influencers and the brand. You may build relationships with companies in this way and position yourself as an influencer.
Collaborate with brands like Myntra and Amazon on Exly
7. Know your audience
You must adjust your social media posts to meet the needs of your audience. As a result, this will develop a solid content strategy that appeals to your audience and understands them. Analyze your current following to learn about their demographics and areas of interest before you start. Following the same, choose the post with the highest level of involvement from all of yours. You must build more content around this theme.
8. Create a content strategy
Pick a content strategy that your audience will adore reading. By doing so, you may make your content interesting and draw in more readers. For a more personal touch, some influencers even share posts on their specific expertise and personal material. Some people, however, rigidly adhere to their field of competence.
To fast update your followers, you should also conduct new research and stay current with altering fashion trends. As you develop content, keep in mind the questions and problems of your audience. Make sure to add originality to your material to set it apart from that of your rivals. In order to humanize your company and add a touch of brand awareness, you may also share your experiences with overcoming obstacles and anxieties.
9. Maintain your relationship with your followers
By posting frequently, you can increase audiences’ confidence. You don’t always need to pack a lot of content and graphics into your posts. But consistent content will increase your ability to influence people.
Alternatively, refrain from buying followers, utilizing bots, or engagement pods as these actions restrict your growth and can be detected by the newest AI-based social media algorithms.
Last but not least, avoid endorsing dubious goods or those unrelated to your area of expertise. You can preserve the trust you have already earned from your fans in this way.
10. Building Your Community
Focus on your return on investment and interact with your audiences instead of just increasing your follower count. The secret is to include or encourage your audience to participate through remarks, questions, responses, or polls.
Apart from the traditional ways, you can also consider hosting:
- “Ask me anything” event:
“Ask Me Anything” sessions allow your audience to ask questions about your personal or professional life. Consequently, you can establish an emotional bond with your audience. You can also demonstrate your authority in your field.
- Giveaway contest
This method will help you connect with more people and grow your fan base. Additionally, you can cooperate with other influencers to effectively promote them.
When you run a giveaway, you thank your followers for their likes, shares, and comments on your content. You can also allow your followers to include their friends’ names in the notification.
Track contest results and new engagements for free!
Building connections with other influencers in your sector as you gain recognition might help you expand your audience. By consistently sharing and commenting on their work, you can establish a relationship with influencers online. They may eventually share your material, inviting their audience to visit your accounts and follow you.
You can also privately approach other influencers to work together, but doing so takes some level of established status because you will probably need to have something alluring to give them in return for the relationship.
Offline, you can network by getting to know other business leaders at live occasions like trade exhibitions, conferences, or speaking engagements.
11. Build a website
It is possible that others may look you up online as you gain popularity. Owning a website can act as a hub where your audience can find all the information they require about you as well as a source for further content.
For instance, if you have a newsletter, people may sign up for it on your website. They can also purchase a book or e-book that you have authored.
A blog that you regularly update on your website is also a smart idea because it can assist increase traffic to your site. Make sure your website is functional and attractive because this will help people perceive you as a reliable, respectable source.
Try out the free Website builder on Exly
12. Evaluate and track your progress
The majority of social media networks offer analytics and insights into your performance, including information on your audience’s demographics, the reach of your content, and your engagement rates. As your journey to become an influencer starts, you should keep an eye on this data. It demonstrates the rate at which your audience is growing.
Additionally, this information will show you where you are succeeding as well as potential improvement areas. For instance, you might discover that some of the content you’ve released isn’t performing as well as others, which will have an effect on your content strategy. If you are interested in forming marketing alliances or collaborations, the more spectacular your data is, the more appealing you can be to potential partners.
Conclusion
It should come as no surprise that influencer marketing has grown into a significant sector of the marketing employment market. This is because studies show that 75% of people under the age of 17 say their dream profession is to be a YouTuber or Vlogger.
However, you must put in the time if you want to make a living from social media influence. This market is not any quick scheme to gain easy money. Neither is there any “one size fits all” recipe to gain success in this field. Since social media is such a crowded field, however, becoming an authority in your niche might be difficult, but not impossible.
If you are able to connect your business as an influencer with tools like that of exly, your journey becomes much easier. This is because you get an additional hand to your business that does most of the difficult stuff for you. For example, you get access to automated reports, analytical tools like Facebook pixel and Google, automated bulk messages and or emails to your clients with just a few clicks, et etcetera.
