Is It Hard to Be an Influencer? How to Become One – The Ultimate Guide

Chances are that you already follow one or more social media influencers, or even, you already could be an influencer. The advent of modern forms of communication such as social media has created new channels for advertisers and marketers to share their brand stories in the most authentic and distinctive voices yet. And influencers are the individuals bringing credibility to this industry. Similar to word of mouth, becoming an influencer means selling in a less explicit method.

As much as there is no specific definition of an influencer, they can be considered as a third party individual that uses their popularity on social media platforms to influence purchasing decisions of their followers; therefore it’s needless to say that a successful influencer needs to have good access to an active and engaged audience whom they will influence.

With traditional advertising methods making consumers natural skeptics when it comes to purchasing, marketers have had to use tactics that seem more trustworthy. Consumers prefer to buy a product that’s recommended not advertised. These recommendations can come from a family member or a friend or a trusted influencer.

Influencers create real value for marketers and advertisers by shedding the cynicism that every consumer has toward the average advertisement. Thus, when recommended by someone they trust, they usually let their guard down and are more receptive towards these products and services.

In your quest on how to become a social media influencer in 2023, it’s important to observe that strategizing to maintain a good reach without losing authenticity while staying compliant, are the growth goals that should guide you. The influencer marketing budget has been rising in the past years sharply and it won’t be slowing down any time in this new decade.

The Numbers

The influencer marketing industry was valued at over $16.4 billion in 2022. 61% of consumers said that they had made a purchase based on an influencer’s post. On average a business gains $5.2 for each dollar spent on influencer marketing.

Another statistic worth noting is that the Nano-influencers (of less than 1000 followers) on Instagram have the highest engagement rate (5%) compared to mass influencers with over 100,000 followers. Micro-influencers have a market share of 91% in 2021. This is encouraging news, especially if you’re just starting the journey of how to become an influencer in 2023.

Going forward, this highly lucrative marketing trend of influencer marketing is only likely to grow more popular. So, with this knowledge, how then do you become a paid influencer with the kind of audience brands want to connect with? How do you become the go-to influencer that gives value to both his audience and the brand?

Influencer Marketing 101

Here’s what you need to know about influencer marketing:

·       The influencer becomes the conveyor of pleasant branded narratives.

·       The audience trusts the influencer to be true, original, and interesting in their niches; this builds confidence in the audience and creates a ripple effect of shares and likes.

·       This is how an influencer builds and increases the authenticity of the brand they work with. In return, the audience develops a strong credibility for the brand and a great relationship with the influencer. As a consequence, when recommendations for products or services are done, the impact is quite observable.

How Is Your Influence Measured?

When you become a paid influencer, there are several ways in which your influence can be measured:

·       The number of followers is probably the most common and basic way of measurement

·       The number of likes and shares indicates your audience’s appreciation as well as interest in your content

·       The quality of comments also offers insights into the commitment and audience’s potential desire to support the influencer.

In the end, as an influencer, if you’re able to maintain meaningful and deep connections with your audience, they’ll end up considering you more of a friend and a pillar of influence in their whole buying process. This is the ultimate goal.

Types of Influencers

As you learn how to become an influencer, it’s important to know the types of influencer profiles in the market. They can be in various categories either by following, by content type, or by industry.

i.               By following

a.     Mega Influencer

These are also called Celebrity Influencers. They are super influencers with a substantial followership and reach of over a million. Their posts often go viral and often get many likes. However, their relationship or engagement with their individual audience is weak, and partnering with them comes at a hefty cost. Ariana Grande and Selena Gomez are such influencers.

Source: Instagram

b.     Macro Influencer

These are often self-made internet sensations with between 100k to 1 million followers. They could be vloggers or social media content creators that create content resonating with their audience. This followership is based on the originality of their content. But just like the celebrity influencer, the macro influencer’s engagement with each member of their audience is weak and they too can be expensive. Jamila Cuisine is such an influencer.

Source: Instagram

c.     Micro-Influencer

These influencers have between 1000-100k followers. They are very specific in their niche and are considered industry experts by their followers. They create very authentic content that resonates with their followers. They also have very strong bonds with them even on a personal level and their influence has a high impact.

d.     Nano-Influencer

The Nano-influencers don’t necessarily have a huge following, they are relatively regular everyday folk, but this lot is the most engaged of all the other influencers. Their followers are complete die-hards and thus the Nano influencers have the most impact on their followers.

ii.              By their content type.

a.     YouTube Influencer

Many YouTubers continue to leverage this leading video-sharing platform to share their creativity. From tutorials to DIYs and general entertainment, these influencers are building a global subscriber base. A great example is MKBHD.

b.     Bloggers

Bloggers are probably the oldest digital influencers. These are people that love to share their experiences, expertise, hobbies, or just fun activities with anyone who’d care to be interested. They use blogs as their platform to connect to this audience and can use these same blogs to lead to certain websites as recommendations. Jenna Kutcher and Melissa Griffin are such influencers.

c.     Podcast Influencers

Lately, people have been diversifying ways through which they can reach their audience as technology keeps advancing. Podcasts are getting even more popular because of their nature, they’re an easy “as you go” kind of thing. You don’t need to sit down to watch or even stop what you’re doing. The influencers here just need to deliver creative, fun, inspiring, or educative content and are able to get lots of listeners.

d.     Style and Beauty

If you want to know how to become an Instagram-style influencer, then you’re in this category. This is the most popular niche for influencers, whether as their own entrepreneurs or through collaboration with other brands, they are a social force that’s creating quite an impact globally. It’s a wide niche that deals with clothing, styling, perfumes, make-up, hair products, shoes and so much more.

Source: YouTube

e.     Food Influencers

This is another popular niche for influencers. These foodies whet their followers’ appetites with colorful food pictures taken from all angles. This is one sweet avenue for how to become an Instagram influencer.

f.      Travel Influencers

These must be the most enviable of all influencers. They travel all over the world for free and in return, they give reviews and recommendations about their experience, activities, adventures, and amenities.

So, you see there are many ways for how to become a social media influencer as you’re spoilt for choice on the type of niche you can explore.

What Do You Expect to Gain As an Influencer?

Here are some major perks of being an influencer.

i.               Flexibility

As an influencer, you’re not fixed to a full-time schedule or tied to a specific location. You’re free to work from the point of convenience whether in terms of time or location. This flexibility also extends to the niche that you want as well as the platform that you pick.

ii.              Creating a Like-minded Community

When you become an influencer, you’re slowly able to build a community of people with the same interests as you. Once you’re able to establish strong connections with these people, you put yourself in a good position of landing deals with businesses where you become a paid influencer and the process keeps getting better.

iii.            Authenticity

The ability to be authentic and realistic is one of the reasons influencers are highly successful. Being truthful and open about your journey as an influencer can give an emotional appeal to your followers. It’s just not enough to show the successes and the happy side, once in a while it’s good to throw in the struggles for your audience to see that you’re a regular human just like them.

iv.             Gifts

One way brands like to collaborate with influencers is by offering their services, products, or promotional items for free for them to get a promotion or a review, or a recommendation. These freebies might go the extra mile into something like an experience such as a meet-up with fellow influencers in your niche and others even offer free training and workshops. Such benefits build up your influencing career as well.

With all these perks of being an influencer, it’s important to note that this is not an easy path. Your level of integrity must never be doubted, so it’s good to always be as honest as possible, do some research before offering your opinion because what you say to your followers will often be considered an expert review. You will also be required to be consistent and relevant at all times. Finally, keep engaging your audience to maintain their interest, even as you work to gain others.

So, with all these said, how do you become an influencer?

How to Become an Influencer

1.      Identify Your Niche

Remember the passions and expertise mentioned above? This is where they come into play. People need to be able to link your name to a specific niche; this is good for your image alignment. Picking a niche can start by identifying what you’re passionate about, you can also evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as well as what you’re an expert in. All these will be critical when identifying who your audience is going to be as this will dictate a lot of what your work will be. Some popular niches include:

·       Food

·       Fashion

·       Lifestyle

·       Gaming

·       Beauty

·       Sport

·       Tech

·       Entertainment

·       Health & Fitness

It’s also possible to combine 2 or more related niches, for instance, you can be a fashion, beauty, and lifestyle influencer, or a food and travel influencer, the deal is to give your own unique perspective to your audience. Be different from the rest of your competition, a unique voice is what makes the difference between the influencers that thrive and those that don’t.

2.     Create a Business Profile

Make a great first impression. What’s the first perception that someone will get when they look at your bio? You must be able to capture and engage your audience’s attention at that first instant.

Your profile picture and your cover photo need to be able to really represent you as a brand. It’s therefore important to select visible images of high quality that people will easily recognize and relate to you with.

If you have an existing personal profile, you may want to convert it into a business profile. Why? There are a lot of good reasons such as the ability to get insights or analytical tools that can help you grow your platform. But it’s also ok to start with a personal profile because you can always convert it to business and it’s free. The important thing is to ensure that your profile gives the potential brand partners the quick information that they may want to know, such as your location, email address, website if you have and who you are/ what you do (expertise).

3.     Choose Your Preferred Platform

As you prepare for how to become a social media influencer, it’s important to know that the type of platform you pick shall be dictated by the type of content you create and the kind of audience you will be targeting.

Instagram for instance is an excellent platform if your niche is lifestyle, beauty and fashion, travel, food, and alike. YouTube on the other hand is a great platform for tech and motor kinds of stuff and also food. LinkedIn is another platform great for professionals and business executives and so on. So, the question here is who is your target audience?

Understanding Your Target Audience

The thing that makes influencers very successful is the fact that they only cater to people with similar interests as them. This is why building connections with these people is quite easy. It is therefore very important for you as you learn how to become an influencer to know who you’ll be targeting.

How then do you understand your audience? You can start by searching content about your niche; this will guide you on 2 things. What is being talked about and who is talking about it? Once you search deeper into who is carrying out these conversations, you will be able to get clear demographics. Another way to identify your audience is to use the built-in analytical tools provided by most social media platforms.

For example, Twitter Analytics will give you insights about your current followers’ locations, interests, gender, and similar elements.

With this understanding of who your audience is, you will now be able to pick the platform to use.

Here’s an example, if your niche is lifestyle, then most of your target audience will be found on Instagram. Statistics have shown that most social media influencers would rather use Instagram than any other social media platform because it delivers. If your niche is décor and DIYs, then your platform shall most definitely be Pinterest. If you prefer creating videos and vlogging then YouTube is your ideal platform.

This knowledge of your niche and audience is crucial because it’s what will help you reach out to the right people, it’s the reason why your content will be relevant and it’s highly beneficial in your growth.

It’s also possible to have more than one social media platform. Just pick the ones that can complement each other better.

4.     Develop a Content Strategy

Once the platform/s of choice has been identified, the next important thing is to create a content strategy. This involves the unique voice mentioned above, something to help you stand out from fellow influencers in your niche. This uniqueness should be incorporated into your content because it’s what your audience will know you by.

The format that you pick must be one that will effectively deliver your message to your audience while allowing you to effectively express this unique voice and personality. What does this mean?

It means relevance.

For you to be able to engage and influence your audiences’ opinions, you have to communicate in a way they can understand and offer them content they can relate to. So, now that you know who your audiences are, what do you think is their preferred type of content? Do they prefer all work and no play? Or do they enjoy a little play?

One strategy that always wins in most cases is a perfect balance of both worlds. Share all your quality expertise but at the same time, give them a bit of your personal content that they can relate to, this builds authenticity. For instance, if you’re a pet influencer and your posts are mainly on pets, it would be refreshing if once in a while you show your followers a day in your life. This builds and strengthens connections with them. Other influencers even invite one follower to spend their day with them; this too is a winning strategy.

Another strategy is the use of unique weekly features such as reviews. If done consistently, your audience will always make sure not to miss a review or any feature that may be relevant to them. You can also engage them and ask them if there is a particular thing they may want to see, this will make them feel like a part of your brand.

Content strategy can also incorporate sharing of content done by fellow influencers within your niche. What this does is capture the attention of these influencers, builds your profile, and help you discover other topic ideas.

In the future, it will encourage these influencers and businesses to partner or collaborate with you since you already have a segment for reviews and are not a new face. The key thing is to keep your strategy focused within your niche.

5.     Distribute Your Content

To share out your content is more than just posting it on your social sites. It goes without saying that high-quality content is a gift that keeps giving. It leads to a great retention rate for your followers; it encourages sharing and attracts new followers.

But with that said, even stellar content requires an effective distribution strategy. If you’re preparing for how to become a LinkedIn influencer, then you already know that it’s a career-centric site, this means that posts containing consumer-based content may not thrive here at all, instead, it’s the business-to-business content that will do well. Therefore, because by now you have already identified your ideal platforms that will work for your content, the next thing is a schedule of when to do it.

Different social media sites perform best at different times, you can find out about your preferred platform here. It’s therefore of paramount importance that you know the times that will best work for your content. Because that means you know the best time to reach your audience, to be able to pique their interest and interact with them.

If you want to become a Facebook influencer, for example, the statistics have shown that the best days to post are Tuesday to Thursday, and the best hours for these days are between 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. And the worst time to post on Facebook is every day before 7:00 am and after 5:00 pm, such clues can help you organize your content in order to be effective.

Other factors to incorporate in your distribution strategy include observing the basic best practices for sharing content with your audience. And even though all platforms have their own set of best practices, there are a few basic ones such as customizing your content.

Content customization is simply personalizing your content to fit different audiences on your various platforms even though the content is the same. You should not use the same liner on all platforms. What’s seen on Twitter should be different from the one posted on Instagram and so on. This shows you took some time to consider your followers and therefore are not just spamming them.

Another customization that you should consider is for mobile views. 80% of social media time is spent on mobile devices, and because all your efforts are for these people, then why not make it easy for them to view your content? Most platforms have this feature and you only need to enable it.

Finally, keep testing various methods on different channels to see which captures your audience most.

6.     Show Your Expertise

As you’re prepping on how to become an influencer in 2023, all the effort you will put into your work may not go far if you lack authority, this is an important part of the puzzle. To show this authority you need to have the knowledge and expertise in your industry that is fresh and factual.

This expertise is what will establish a name for yourself; it’s what will help you stand out. So, this requires you to research and study more on your niche, you need to demonstrate that your brand has the knowledge and expertise for the solutions your followers seek.

Remember, authority is the power to influence your followers based on your expertise on matters that concern them, it’s established on trust. For you to be able to convert followers or your audience into paying customers, you need them to trust you. Therefore, share all your expertise, offer credible fresh content often and watch them support you even with their wallets.

7.     Grow Your Network – Collaborate!

One way to grow your audience, as well as your network, is through collaborations with fellow bigger influencers who’ve been around longer. This can be through offering your support on something they’re doing such as allowing them to promote their content on your page. To build this conversational space, begin by commenting on their posts or mentioning them in yours, gradually, they will take notice of you and when you offer space for their content, you’ll not be a stranger at all.

You can also be keen to know what events are happening within your niche/s. Could be workshops, conferences, or talks, whatever is it, attend and get a chance to meet and mingle with fellow influencers and experts within your niche.

Another way to network is through direct pitching. Create great outreach content that shows potential businesses what you can offer. This template should bespeak for each potential client, don’t do a one size fits all kind of pitch, you won’t be taken seriously.

Finally, another simpler way to call for collaborations is by tagging specific brands in your post on a topic that’s relevant to their products or services.

All these moves may at first seem tough and may not bear immediate fruits, but in the long run, they do pay.

8.     Listen and Engage with Your Audience

Your audience is the reason you’re called an influencer, therefore they must know that you value them. As you keep sharing your content, they keep growing in number and their interest keeps growing as well, they start leaving feedback and comments. You must create time to respond or react to these comments or feedback in order for them to actually feel validated and this simply boosts their trust in you.

If you get any questions from your audience, try to respond to them as much as possible. It will make them see that you genuinely care about them and can also give you ideas on what they want to see more and you can incorporate it in your future content pieces.

On top of these, you can give a shout-out to a couple of your followers or audiences that have left some exceptional feedback. This is such a motivator for them.

And since you’re going to be receiving tons of these comments, it may not be possible for you to respond to all of them, in such a situation you can just like them to show that you noticed their effort and appreciate it. In scenarios where the comments are not positive, you can address them professionally without losing your calm.

Another method you can use to personally connect with your audience is by going live. Most social media platforms today have features that allow users to share real-time events. Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and others are features you can leverage to bring you closer to your followers.

Finally, another fantastic way to connect with your followers is to ask them relevant questions that relate to their issues. This will spark a great conversation between you and them. It helps them feel like part of a great solution to their daily lives.

9.     Evaluate the Metrics that Matter

Every task executed should have a scorecard to see if your efforts are paying off or not. Your focus should not stop at the number of followers, you should consider engagement rate and return on your investment.

You must stay above average as far as the number of followers engaging with your post is concerned, that is the indicator that you’re relevant to them.

Are brands returning for more collaboration? If yes then it means you’re delivering their expectations, if not, check where you went wrong.

The good news is that most social media platforms will give you valuable insights and analytics that can help you track your progress as far as reach, demographics, engagement rate, and even the content format with the most engagement rate, this will inform you what your followers like to see and you can create more of that.

10.   Keep Updating!

The networks keep changing their algorithms frequently. It’s therefore of absolute importance that you keep yourself updated about all these modifications to avoid being penalized. If you’re honing your skills on how to become an influencer on YouTube then familiarize yourself with all the posting conditions laid down by YouTube before you get slapped with suspensions or other such penalizations.

You should also know brand marketing regulations before using them in your posts to avoid jeopardizing your influencing career. This should be a continuous process.

Extra Tips on How to Become an Influencer in 2023

i.               Consistency

Posting regularly builds a great connection and boosts trust with your followers. You can create a calendar to help you manage this process. You can include some evergreen content to be useful at any time in case you’re not able to create content at a particular time.

ii.              Show Some Vulnerability, Be Smart About It

Relatability is one of the factors that make influencers succeed. People will need to see your struggles or fears at some point. It makes you more human. You can therefore show a bit of this side without going to the extreme.

For example, if you don’t want to show that you hate your career, this won’t work well for your brand. Instead, you can share about your struggle to wake up early in the morning, but then show them the tricks you use to eventually maneuver this. Just be smart about it.

iii.            Avoid Shortcuts

You’ve probably heard about buying followers to quickly reach a certain number. Don’t be fooled though, the ever-changing algorithms used by most social sites can easily detect it. Brands to know this trick and now check the legitimacy of your account. Therefore be transparent and allow your growth and influence to be organic.

iv.             Don’t Jeopardize Your Reputation

Your reputation is built upon the trust you’ve built with your followers over a long period of time. So, sustain this trust by being honest and realistic about your reviews and opinions. Don’t support a questionable product or service simply for the sake of a few dollars, once your reputation is ruined, you may never recover.

v.              Promote – Leverage Hashtags

Ever heard of the principle of 20% effort for the creation of content and 80% for its promotion? Yes, it’s not enough to create and just post your work, one way you can achieve this is through the use of hashtags. Hashtags boost your visibility especially if you’re a new influencer.

What you need to do is find the most relevant trending hashtags within your niche and ride on them. Relevant is the norm. This will allow other viewers, who may not necessarily be following you, to get a chance to see you.

You can also host giveaways on your platform. This is another way to become popular because it not only boosts engagement, it also encourages shares and likes.

Your quest on how to become an influencer in 2023 may imply loads of work in the beginning. It is. But if you start with all this expert advice and tips, it will only get better sooner rather than later. The important things to keep in mind can be summed up in 3 words. Relatability, Credibility, and Sustainability. Build your influence and authenticity around these.