With the rise of ad blockers, DVRs, and
streaming music we don’t see as many ads as we used to; which is why influencer
marketing is now the most effective form of advertising. Influencers have a
loyal following, authenticity and trustworthiness making them so effective in
persuading consumers to buy a product.
You know who the big influencers are. Chances
are that you follow them on social media and watch their exotic vacations,
their great clothes and their fabulous lifestyles. Who doesn’t want to work from
home, make a ton of money, and get lots of free stuff?
So how do you become an influencer anyway?
1. Find Your Niche: Grab
a pen and list your passions. They don’t have to fit in the normal categories,
like: Travel, makeup, reviews, etc. Take Karina Garcia, for
example. She’s into slime: The goopy, green stuff. Now she has a popular
YouTube channel with millions of followers, where she teaches people how to
make their own slime. She’s even got her own brand, available at Target.
Whatever your passion is, go for it!
2. Do Something
Unique: How many unsuccessful “lifestyle” bloggers are out there? Chances
are that you have a friend who’s tried it. They have the passion for fashion,
food, and travel but they couldn’t get a following. Why? Because they’re like
everyone else. Be different than your competition.
3. Pick Your Channels: You
can’t possibly be successful on all channels. Pick one channel to focus on and
maybe two more to be active on. The popular F**k Jerry guys
didn’t have a Twitter or Facebook page for years. They found their engagement
was highest on Instagram, so they put all their energy into growing that
channel. Focus and grow.
4. Create A Social Media
Strategy: Don’t just wing it. Plan out your content. Make a list of
the content you want to create for the next three months. Decide how often are
you going to post. When will you post? Be consistent.
5. Create Great
Content: This is where you’re going to spend most of your time. Make sure
you create the best content you can. It’s your brand. And don’t be afraid to
invest your money. If you were starting a business, you’d invest money wouldn’t
you? If you’re serious about this, you should buy some good equipment.
6. Be Consistent: My
favorite podcasts come out on the same day and time every week. Your content
should be the same way. I post new articles on my blog every Tuesday at 5PM.
You need to give your audience a reason to subscribe. If you don’t create new
content, on a consistent schedule, why would they need to subscribe? They’re
not missing anything.
7. Promote: You
spent all this time creating content, but what good is it if nobody sees it?
Remember, it’s 20% content creation and 80% promotion.
8. Collab: The
quickest and easiest way to grow your audience is by working with a bigger
influencer than you. Remember, there’s more in it for you than the bigger
influencer, so you’ve got to help them out to make it worth their while. I
figured out this trick with my Forbes articles. If I interviewed
big influencers, and let them promote what they wanted, they would share the
article and it’d get a ton of views.
9. Engage With Your
Audience: This will be easy at first, because won't have a big
following. Respond to every comment, follow people back, etc.
10. Look At The Data: What
content is working? Who is your audience? Look at the analytics. Most platforms
will give you the data but if they don’t, just look at what posts are getting
the most likes and comments. What does your audience look like? Are they old or
young, male or female? Create the content that is resonating with them.
Finally, ask your audience what they want to see more of. Trust me, they’ll
tell you.
If you want to become a social media influencer, the very first
thing you need to do is to choose a specific niche where you want to be known.
Although most social media influencers start out posting content, they're
passionate about, what sets them apart is the fact that they tend to focus on a
particular niche within the industry they're passionate about.
To find your little corner of influence,
you'll need first to determine who is your target audience by developing a
unique persona—a semi-fictional representation of your ideal reader. Tools like HubSpot’s
Buyer Persona Generation Tool can
help you identify the individual wants, needs, challenges, and goals of your
ideal reader that you can help solve and address, pointing you to the right
niche to establish yourself and grow as an influencer.
In an interview with Kevin Rose, Elon Musk
explained that there are two reasoning approaches people use. The first and
most common is the analogy approach. People that use this reasoning method decide to do things based
on what has happened in the past.
That's why we often see many people in a particular industry doing
nearly the same thing, talking about the same topics, and even using similar
formats when it comes to publishing and promoting their content.
The second reasoning approach is what Musk
refers to as the First Principles Thinking approach. Instead of basing decisions on past successes or failures, Musk
and others that use this reasoning approach study objective fundamentals and
make their decisions based solely on that.
What’s good about following Musk’s way of thinking and reasoning
is that it opens you up to other possibilities and approaches by “forcing” you
to disregard the status quo, and think differently. Doing that can help set
yourself apart from other influencers in your niche, and allow you to bring
something new and fresh to the table for your target audience.
Instagram is the channel where 93% of social media influencers focus their content -- because it gives them the best results.
However, just because those are the current statistics doesn't
mean that Instagram is a perfect choice all the time.
The reason is simple: Your ideal audience may not be spending most
of their time here.
If you want to quickly grow your following and establish yourself
as a social media influencer, you need to make sure that you choose the right
social media channel based on your niche and ideal audience.
Here are three questions to ask to help guide you in choosing the
right social media channel:
Who
is your target audience?
Again, this is where creating a holistic persona of your ideal
audience is crucial. Instagram and Pinterest are excellent choices if you're
aspiring to reach out to millennials. On the other hand, if your target
audience consists mostly of business executives, LinkedIn may be your best bet.
Where
are the other influencers in your niche?
Aside from sharing the same target audience, being active in
social media channels where the big influencers in your niche open the door for
you to reach out to them, and even collaborate with them in the future.
One tool I found extremely useful for this
is BuzzSumo.
When you do a search here using your targeted keyword, you'll not only see what
topics other influencers have tackled, but where they also share
these pieces of content.
This is extremely valuable -- it points you to the social media
channel where the content is shared the most, making these ideal places to
reach out and grow your following.
What
type of content will you create?
Some social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to
post a diverse range of content formats while others like YouTube and Instagram
only focus on providing users a specific content format.
That said, it's vital that you select the social media channel
that best suit the content strategy you'll develop, which we will look into in
the next section.
Regardless of which social media channel(s) you choose, remember
not to go overboard with your selection. Stick to using two to three networks.
Otherwise, you'll be spreading yourself too thin, and will find it difficult to
build your credibility and following.
Just like in inbound marketing, the format and quality of the content
you publish will make or break your chances of successfully building yourself
as a social media influencer.
Decide on the format you'll use when creating your content. It
should be one through which you're able not only to deliver
valuable information,but also, express your personality and voice -- which
help add uniqueness to the content you produce for your target audience.
Part of developing an effective content strategy is giving your
audience the right balance of informative content and personal content.
Remember, one reason why people trust influencers is due to their relatability.
One efficient way to do this is through
the 5-3-2 principle: Out of every 10 posts you publish in your social media account,
five of these should be valuable content written by someone else, three are
educational and informative content you created yourself, and two should be
posts about yourself.
Now, you may be thinking, "How will
this help me become an influencer if half of the content I'll be publishing is
curated content?"
For starters, influencers are known for being able to provide
valuable content to their audience. That includes sharing content written by
others that they believe their followers will find useful.
More important, sharing content published by other influencers in
your niche will help you slowly get their attention. As a result, it will be
much easier to reach out to them and ask them to do the same for you later on.
If you need help discovering topic ideas for your content, try
these resources.
Google
Related Search Keywords
This is found at the bottom of the page after you search on
Google. It lists down the most frequently used long-tail keywords used by your
target audience when searching for content on the internet.
Answer
the Public
Answer
the Public is a website that gives you a
comprehensive list of the different questions that are commonly asked around
your chosen keywords, which you can then answer through your content.
Quora
Similar to Answer the Public, Quora gives
you a list of different questions asked surrounding your selected keyword. The
main difference between the two is that unlike Answer the Public, which offers
you a list of questions based on search algorithms, the questions you find in
Quora are those that were left explicitly by individuals currently facing a
problem or challenge.
At the same time, Quora allows its members to leave answers to
these posted questions. This gives aspiring social media influencers the chance
to flex their muscles, and showcase knowledge on this topic -- and, eventually,
your niche.
No matter how great your content is, if you’re not getting people
to see it and engage with it, it’s not exactly useful.
That said, it’s important that you carefully plan out when you’ll
be publishing and distributing your content on social media.
The best time to post content on social media
hugely depends on which social media channel you chose to use. This infographic provides
a detailed breakdown of the best days and times when to distribute content for
each of the most popular social media networks.
It's just as critical to know how to
post your content on social media. While each social media channel has its own
rules and guidelines, here are some general best practices that are applicable
regardless on which social media channel you use.
Stick
to one theme per social media channel.
Focusing on one specific theme for each of your social media
channels allows you to give your followers a more holistic picture of who you
are, what you do, and what you stand for. That way, you’re able to publish more
diverse content while still keeping your profiles very sleek and cohesive.
More important, it helps you categorize the different types of
content you publish. That way, your followers know which social media channel
they’ll find the content they need from you.
Customize
your message.
Even if you’re posting the same piece of
content on different social media channels, always take the time to make sure
that you customize the message you include in it. Not only does it make each of
your posts more personalized, but as Aaron Haynes, founder of Fenix
Pro points out, it prevents your followers from feeling like
their being spammed on their social media feeds.
"You need to make sure that you tailor every single content
you post caters to the wants and needs of your followers, whether it's a
regular post or a paid post," he explains. "The worst thing is that
they can report your account as spammy, which could mean the end of your social
media influencer dream."
Optimize
posts for mobile.
The average person spends over three
hours on his or her mobile device.
Source: eMarketer
And within that time, 80% of it is spent on social media. That said, make sure that the posts you publish are just as
appealing in mobile as they would be when viewed on desktops or laptops.
While you’re still in the process of establishing your credibility
and expertise as a social media influencer, you’ll need to actively grow your
follower base.
One of the most effective ways of doing this is through blogging.
Even though more Internet users are turning to social media networks for
information, the fact remains that you don't entirely own your space here. One
misstep can easily cause these social media networks to take down your account,
causing you to lose all of your content and followers.
Blogging can help you kickstart your follower base by helping you
get discovered. By including social media sharing buttons on each of your blog
posts, your visitors can share your content with their respective social media
networks.
If you have the budget, and you have a premium
content offer on your blog, Justin Morgan -- a.k.a., the Dental Marketing Guy --recommends promoting it as a sponsored post. That way,
your content can find its way onto the feeds of those that match your ideal
persona, introducing yourself and what you have to offer to them.
Blogging is also an efficient way to reach out
and connect with is influencers in your niche as well as those related to
yours. Blogging was how I connected with key
influencers in my niche and
exponentially grew my follower base.
Creating guest posts is another way of growing your followers.
Getting featured on a reputable site within your niche helps you further
establish your credibility and authority. At the same time, it will help you
capture the attention of the more prominent influencers in your niche, and even
open the door for collaboration with them.
When your followers leave a question or comment on your posts,
take the time to acknowledge and respond to them. That can make them feel like
they're valued and that you sincerely want to help them. It will also help you
develop a relationship with them.
Of course, not all of the comments and questions will be positive.
As an influencer, expect that you’ll have your fair share of negative comments
and criticisms. Make it a point to keep your cool and address them
professionally.
This step is crucial, especially if you’re
looking to collaborate with brands for their influencer
marketing campaigns, since this is one of the things that brands look for in an
influencer to partner with.
Most social media channels give you insights and analytics to
monitor your progress -- things like demographics, reach, and engagement rate,
that will show how quickly (or slowly) you’re building your audience. It will
also shed light on which content formats get the highest
engagement rates, so that you can create more of these.
If you’ve been active on any social media channel, you know how
often networks update their algorithms, as well as their posting terms and
conditions. As an aspiring influencer, you need to keep yourself updated with
these changes to avoid penalizations.
You’ll also need to familiarize yourself
with FTC guidelines and policies, especially if you’re going to be collaborating
with brands to promote their products and services on your social media
accounts.
With influencer marketing proving itself as a
highly effective marketing strategy, the FTC has become even more vigilant in monitoring brands and partner influencers that might be
violating marketing guidelines.
According to Adam Steele, founder
of Loganix, if there’s one thing that surpasses quality content, it’s
consistency.
That’s because your followers need to be able to count on you to
deliver quality content on a consistent basis. If you don’t, they’ll eventually
stop following you, or at least paying attention to you.
Scheduling your posts using a social
automation tool like eClincheror HubSpot’s social publishing tools can
help ensure that you stay consistent with your posts. Instead of manually
publishing on each of your social media profiles, these tool allow
you to create, upload, and schedule posts in batches.
Positioning yourself as a social media influencer will take some
time, so you'll need to be patient with the process, and stay consistent with
it.
Most important, understand that becoming a social media influencer
in your industry is not the end destination. Instead, it's a stepping stone to
more significant opportunities and responsibilities.
Originally
published January 30 2018, updated January 30 2018
