2017 is an exciting year. Presidents and world leaders are on social networking platforms. Policymakers are turning to Twitter for popular opinion. Celebrities are launching new lines on social media, and we have hundreds of teenagers earning millions from social media marketing. Even the most popular brands like Amazon and GoPro are using social media platforms to market their new offers, services, and products. Did you know? Only Instagram followers account for about $1 billion market share.
Now that you have accounts on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, you may want to seek some extra revenue as a social media influencer. With a little research and extra effort, you can easily find the same tools most influencers use to make money. However, you will need to find out the extra bits that most influencers do to engage the crowd. You must remember that forging a career as an influencer is not easy for common folk and you will need to give it time before it kick-starts.
Here are 5 of the most important tasks you must commit to, to start your career as an influencer.
Define your presence on social media
What are you all about? That is the first thing almost all your followers will want to know the moment you try to communicate with them. You need to use your presence on social media to answer the most pressing questions that your followers are asking right now.
You may already have your YouTube channel. If you are seeking recognition in the field of makeup and makeovers, you may want to start posting tutorial videos on the same. Start interacting with your viewers through the comment section and find out what kind of content they expect from you.
Don’t just stop there. Share your content across multiple platforms to find followers with shared interests. Connect with your views, readers, and followers on a regular basis via your original posts.
Communicate regularly
When you want to represent a business on social media, you need to behave like a business. You cannot act like a whimsical social media artist, who is too absent-minded to contribute to an ongoing marketing campaign. You can see the small business blog that can provide variety of different options for increasing social media followers in a genuine way.
You need to hone your communication skills. Communicate with your followers and communicate with the businesses who are reaching out to you. Send the statistics and find out more ways to secure more followership. The most effective way to stay in touch with your current followers and find new ones is to turn to sources of organic followers like Social Growr.
Think about your audience’s interests
We have seen social influencers lose their fortune by merely ignoring the needs of their audience. A social influencer can grow by leveraging their followers. As your audience increases, you will find yourself facing more brands and companies.
There will be companies that are in direct conflict with your channel interest. For example – imagine a social influencer, who endorses a vegan lifestyle. When a leather merchandise company approaches this influencer, he or she should say a loud and clear “No.” It is in the interest of the influencer’s image and the followers’ interest. However, if the influencer does agree to endorse this brand, he or she will end up losing a lot of followers.
When a brand approaches you, you do not necessarily have to agree. If you do not believe in the product or the lifestyle it represents, you have full right to deny. Sometimes, saying a “no” saves a lot of trouble for social media influencers. You should never alienate an audience that serves as the primary source of your income.
Pay attention to the feedback
Being a thriving and vibrant social media influencer takes a lot of A/B testing. The most significant advantage of handling your own social media profile is getting to interact with your audience first-hand. Whether it is a comment on YouTube or a re-Tweet on Twitter, you need to pay attention to how your audience is reacting to your posts.
Opening yourself to feedback is necessary if you want to work with brands in the long run. Open communication and taking feedback is not just great for the channel-audience relationship, it also fuels your journey of success with the brand. Brand managers know their brands as well as you know your channel. Therefore, always listen to what they have to say about the final product presentation as well.
Work together with influencers and brands
Collaboration goes a long way towards creating a healthy and robust relationship with social media influencers and brands. Being an influencer does not automatically pit you against other influencers. In fact, most leading social media influencers follow quite a few influencers. Most commonly the latter is a different niche, but have a shared interest. It helps in cross-promoting products across several follower groups on various platforms.
While collaborating, do not leave the primary brands out of the equation. Most agencies work with several brands. When one company has a pleasant experience of working with you, you may get the responsibility of promoting other house brands too. The chances are best when you work as a team player. Collaborations bring referrals, recommendations, and new clients.
In conclusion
Being a social media influencer does not mean sharing your thoughts and opinions on day-to-day affairs. Yes, there are celebrity influencers, who share every cup of latte they drink and every wardrobe change, but they are already celebrities who decided to join the social network. Social media influencers are celebrities due to their fame on social media. Therefore, your impression depends upon your regular posts, shares, and updates. You cannot post anything to insult, aggravate or bore people.
Social media influencers need to be about keeping a friendly profile to their followers. You need to take control of your work and engage with the social world in the interest of the brand you represent. If you already have a brand that you would want to endorse in the future, you should start following their activities, posts and current influencers. It will help you understand how you should prepare your channel for endorsing them or a competitor brand.