Becoming a successful social media influencer requires a lot of work and dedication. To succeed in the industry, you must be consistent and be prepared that it does not happen overnight.
The first step before you can start your influencer career is to decide the type of influencer you would like to be. There are a diverse range of categories that influencers can fall into. For example, you may choose to be a lifestyle, food, travel, beauty or fashion influencer. It’s crucial that you determine your niche before starting to publish content, so your audience understands your clear interests and the type of content that they can expect to see from your account.
Once you have decided on the niche that you would like to focus on, the next task is to select which social media platform you would like to start posting content on. Do you think that you will be posting mainly short videos? If so, TikTok may be the most effective platform for you. Contrasting this, if you plan to post longer, educational videos, then you will likely find more success on YouTube.
After deciding where you are going to publish your content, it is time to start developing your content strategy. It is best to hold off on posting content until you have a lot prepared so that you are able to consistently post. Consistency is key when it comes to growing your social media presence. If you want your audience to be engaged in your content, then you must consistently have new material for them to view. You should have a content calendar prepared with posts planned for multiple days a week, with different themes that you think your audience will be interested in.
Great, you’ve started posting content! Now what?
Now it’s time to start actively engaging with your audience! A great way to do this is liking their comments on your posts and replying to them – this will show that you truly value them as a follower and listen to what they have to say! Another great way to help increase your audience base is to search through your competitors’ followers. Chances are, if a user is interested in their content and it is similar to what you post, then they would likely also be interested in yours. You can engage with these followers by first following their account and actively interacting with their accounts.
Once you’ve started to build up your follower base and have reached an audience of 5K or more, you can start reaching out to smaller brands to see if they would be interested in partnering with you. More and more companies are looking for nano and micro-influencers to work with because of their high engagement rates – therefore, you’re in luck! You no longer have to have hundreds of thousands of followers to be considered an influencer, so don’t be too hard on yourself if you aren’t achieving the exact results you were hoping for when launching your account.