But there are some easy steps you can take to become an influencer. This article will tell you how. So read on to learn more and how you can grow your social media account with viralgrowing.net.
First, You Don’t Need Millions of Followers
When someone thinks of a social media influencer, they may imagine someone with millions of followers, and the smaller end is someone with tens of thousands. If you only have 1,000 or even fewer followers, you may not believe that you can be an influencer. But this is wrong. There are many levels an influencer can be.
A mega influencer is someone with over a million followers. Following them is a macro influencer with 100,000 to 1 million followers. A micro-influencer has 1,000-100k followers. Finally, a nano influencer is someone with under 1,000.
Even a nano influencer can be successful. If you have only 500 followers, these can be enough. This is especially true if you have a specific niche or all those followers engage with your profile. Speaking of which.
Have a Specific Niche
Your niche is the critical first step with any social media or business campaign. However, if you're trying to be an influencer, you may need to make the niche more specific.
Your niche should be something you are passionate about, filtered by something that makes you stand out. For example, makeup is a niche. To be more specific, you may focus on eyeliner and then make it more specific that you're a male eyeliner lover.
A niche can also reflect your values and beliefs. You may take a hobby and show it through the lens of your beliefs. Alternatively, you may look into your audience’s beliefs and cater to them.
No matter what your niche is, however, you'll want to narrow it down and ensure that there is a following for it. The Explore page can be a great way to do some keyword and hashtag research and see how much of a following certain topics have.
Be Yourself
One reason that people trust influencer marketers is that they come across as genuine. When someone is trying to promote their brand through traditional advertising, it can come across as sales and like they don't care about their audience.
Meanwhile, if you are yourself and express your genuine interests, more people will likely follow you and be interested in what you have to say.
That said, being yourself doesn't mean you should develop an influencer voice that you may not use in your daily life. Your influencer personality should be part of your own.
Post Great Content
With any social media tips article, having a robust content strategy is always a step. It can be a little redundant, but there's a reason for this. Content is king. When you post photos and videos related to your niche that are engaging, interesting, or humorous, people will follow.
You should post your content periodically and post when your audience is the most active. Your analytics can give you a good idea of when to post.
Engage With Your Audience
A crucial part of being an influencer is connecting with your audience. People may not want to listen to you if you come across as above your audience. While advertising and being an influencer have many similarities, influencers have more of a personal connection.
You don't need to spend every minute of every day answering questions and messages, but you should like valuable comments. If someone has a question, answer it as quickly as possible. If someone creates content for you, repost it.
Create polls through Instagram Stories to let your audience vote on what you promote next. Collaborate with audience members that have something valuable to contribute to your brand. Doing this will ensure your audience is eager to see what product you're promoting next.
Small Influencer, Smaller Brands
You don't need a specific number of followers to collaborate with brands, especially when they're smaller. Once you have some following, you should reach out to smaller brands.
There are many ways that you can reach out to smaller brands. First, you can search via your niche's keywords and hashtags. With some searching, you can find smaller brands that may not have much competition. Then, you can send a message to them. Ask to collaborate or strike some influencer deal. Chances are, any smaller brand will want to collaborate.
Another way you can be an influencer is through ambassador and affiliate marketing. These tend to have a lower barrier to entry. For example, affiliate marketing means applying to the brand's affiliate program and then posting links in your posts. You will make money if someone clicks the link and buys a product. There is no financial risk, either.
Smaller brands may not pay you much; if anything, you may not gain a financial bonus but instead get a free product. But taking on these smaller brands is how you eventually score larger brand deals.
As an add-on, we also mention that you can collaborate with smaller influencers with niches similar to yours. This way, you can grow your account’s presence even more.
Persistence is Key
Finally, you will probably not gain instant influencer fame overnight. It can be a long process that may not be fruitful at first. But if you keep trying and adjust your content strategy based on what works and what doesn't, you will soon see results. Few get it right the first time.
With that, these are some ways that you can grow as a potential influencer. While you may not gain millions of followers, you may be able to find success as a micro or even nano influencer. You may earn conversions and even brand deals if you have a small but engaged audience. We hope this article was helpful to you.
