Scrolling through your favourite social media sites is a great way to while away a few hours or relax during a well-deserved break.
For most of us, that’s all social media is- the opportunity to catch up on gossip, interact with our friends from around the world and generally have a little fun online.
Some social media users have built up popular accounts on various platforms and created strong followings, which they’ve then used to their advantage.
They have become what are known as influencers and aim to help brands connect with social media users and offer a unique approach to advertising and promotion.
From a small nice to a billion-dollar global industry, the social media influencer market has flourished over a relatively short period of time.
Being an influencer looks like fun, but it also requires a lot of hard work, commitment, digital marketing, and online promotion skills.
If you’re eager to take the next step and become a social media influencer, then here are some tips to get you started on the road to social media stardom!
Choose Your Favourite Platform(s)
There are influencers on every social media platform, but some make more money than others. Visual platforms targeted at younger audiences, such as Instagram and TikTok, tend to be more lucrative for influencers than professional networking sites such as LinkedIn.
Check out the most profitable social media platforms for influencers, and then choose the ones you want to focus on. That doesn’t mean that you can’t make money from less-lucrative social media platforms or that you should avoid them altogether, but it means that you might not want to focus on them so heavily.
You can repurpose some of your content and share it across several sites, but focus on building a following on one or two to make an impact and improve your personal brand recognition. Choose to invoke good search engine optimization to help find a selection of crucial platforms to start using, and keep exploring new social media sites as they launch and grow more popular.
Work Out Your Niche
Once you’ve decided where you’re going to post your content, you need to figure out what you want to share and what niche you want to target. There are social media influencers in almost every sector, ranging from obvious ones such as beauty, sports and food to small niches such as teachers, home improvement and cleaning experts and even pet influencers! When choosing your target audience, you should think about your talents, skills and interests, so you can work out how to create content that suits you. This approach will improve your chances of staying interested in your work over the coming years.
Social media audiences will always be more attracted to influencers who genuinely love the topic they discuss; they can see your interest and will be attracted to it. Also, you’ll be more incentivised to post more content than if you quickly grow bored of your chosen topic and niche. Whatever your target niche, it’s essential that you research the market and find out who your target audience is and what they’re looking for from social media content. You can then start to craft the content they’ll want and expect.
Emulate Popular Influencers
You should check out some popular influencers in your chosen niche as part of your research. There are many influencers in each niche, so you should find a selection of the most popular and well-known. You can then review their content and explore how they interact with their followers. With this information, you can work out a formula for your social media presence that should help you attract the perfect audience.
While reviewing only the most popular influencers who share their insight on your chosen topic is tempting, you should also look at smaller influencers. They can help you get inspiration as you launch your career and are often at the forefront of emerging market trends. Also, check which brands influencers in your niche, both popular and smaller, work with and then consider reaching out to them to collaborate with them as well.
Learn About Monetising Your Social Media Presence
Being an influencer isn’t just about being popular online: that’s not what makes you any money. To make a profit from being an influencer, you have to attract and collaborate with brands and businesses. There are many ways to monetise your social media presence, ranging from allowing ads on your valuable content to undertaking sponsored posts for brands. Many influencers also offer branded merchandise with their slogans and logos on and even host meet-and-greets to interact with fans and earn extra cash.
Explore all the ways you can make money as an influencer and find the ones that work best for you. While making money isn’t the only benefit of being an influencer, it is an integral part of the process. As such, you must work out how to make the most of your time and effort and earn enough money to give you the lifestyle you’ve always wanted.
Research Advertising Rules
As the social media influencers marketing industry has evolved, so too have the online community regulations that govern it. Influencers now have to make sure that they are careful to make it clear what quality content is sponsored and to disclose any relationship with the brands they work with.
Make sure that you’re aware of your responsibilities as a social media influencer and that you are always compliant with relevant regulations. Keep reviewing these rules to ensure you’re always aware of what they are and what you need to do.
These rules change often, so consider following a relevant email newsletter or podcast to stay up to date with the latest influencer advertising rules and ensure you can follow them. If you don’t follow the rules, then you could be fined and potentially have your accounts shut down. Also, brands won’t want to collaborate with you if they don’t think you’re taking your responsibilities as an influencer seriously.
Review Your Past Online Activity
As mentioned, brands are eager to avoid anything that could harm their standing, including working with influencers likely to be cancelled by followers. Any scandal could potentially harm their brand. Not following relevant advertising rules is one potential issue your personal brand might face. If you previously posted content that could now be considered problematic, this could also pose a problem for you.
Many ‘tea channels’ and influencers make their money by searching the internet and then generating gossip, which they then share to generate a buzz and get attention. So make sure that you review all your past online activity, from an instagram post to sponsored content and anything that can be traced back to you. While you might not be able to permanently erase it, particularly if someone has taken a screenshot or share it across different social media platforms, you might be able to reduce its impact by deactivating old social media accounts.
Upgrade Your Equipment
As you start to build your career as a social media influencer and share unique high quality content online, you might find that your existing equipment isn’t up to the task. If you’re creating video content, then you might also need additional items, such as a ring light and a backdrop. You will also need a quality camera or possibly multiple options. There are also microphones, other gear, and your computer and phone.
You might need to upgrade those standard pieces of equipment to ensure that you always have access to your social media accounts and can stay connected. Buying new, high-specification gear for your new influencer business can quickly become expensive, so explore ways you can get funding. Consider short-term business loans from providers like Capalona can be an ideal way to get yourself some cash quickly to spend upgrading your gear, which means you can start making money online quickly.
Check Your Stats
When you start to share new content, you should check the statistics and which pieces are more or less popular with viewers. You can then adjust and start offering more of what they like and less of what they don’t. So, you should review your viewership statistics regularly across the platforms you post on and see what content works and what doesn’t.
Another tactic to help you get an idea of what your followers want from you is to ask them. Consider hosting polls or sharing statuses to see what they have to say about your work and your personal brand and what they prefer. You can then make the most of your time and boost the chances of your posts achieving the notoriety and open rates you dream of.
Keep Building Your Following
If you don’t achieve the social media success you expect instantly, it might be easy to consider giving up on your dream of becoming an influencer. It’s important that you don’t give up and work hard to continue to grow and flourish on the social media influencer scene. Becoming a successful influencer takes time, effort and passion.
It could take months or even years to build your customer loyalty, so don’t be disheartened if you can’t monetise your accounts as quickly as you might have expected. Keep adapting and exploring new approaches to find innovative ways to attract a target audience and get the attention of brands in your niche.
