How to Become an Influencer

How Do You Become an Influencer?

The life of a social media influencer is envied by many. What we often fail to recognize is the persistent effort they have to put in order to live a life of luxury and glamour.

The truth is that there is no easy answer to the question of how to become an influencer. However, there are certain steps that you can take in order to steer your efforts in the right direction.

Identify Your Niche

Types of Influencers:

1. Mega-influencers are those who have millions of followers, earning them the prestige of a social media celebrity.

2. Macro-influencers have followers between 100,000 and 999,999. They focus on a specific niche such as beauty, lifestyle, gaming, fitness, fashion, or business.

3. Micro-influencers are masters of a specific field with the number of followers ranging from 1000 to 100000. Since many influencers fall under this category, this is the most preferred type of influencer.

4. Nano-influencer characterizes people with a following between 500 and 1000. They are usually hyper niched and have a closely-knit audience group.

If you want to become an influencer, you can’t expect to be a “jack (or jane) of all trades, master of none.” It is crucial that you pick a niche that aligns with your image.

An easy way to select your niche is to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. Choose a niche that allows you to showcase your strengths and hone your skills further.

Deciding on a particular niche will help you streamline your audience and tailor your content to suit their preferences.

Typically, when deciding on how to become an influencer, you can choose one of the following categories:

• Travel

• Lifestyle

• Fashion

• Food

• Beauty

• Sports

• Gaming

• Entertainment

• Tech

• Health and Fitness

What kind of content creation works?

• Conceptual – A big chunk of the content, especially on YouTube and Instagram, is around data science concepts. These include statistical concepts and tutorials on programming languages like R and Python.

• Career and job opportunities, data science and AI landscape – The most popular area for content creation in this field is around jobs and different types of careers in data science and AI field. Creators often talk about how to go about networking, how to edit one’s CV as per job roles and experience, etc. Some even host mock interviews to give a real feel of the actual process.

• Business concepts – A data scientist needs to properly understand business settings to derive insights from the data and help in business decision-making. Influencers often base their content around real-life business use-cases to give their users a feel of how business decisions are made.

Pick Your Platform

As an influencer, you need to have a powerful presence on the internet. However, that doesn’t mean that you should use all of the social media platforms and distribution channels out there. Depending on your niche, certain platforms might be better suited for your content than others.

Example:

For instance, if you are a fashion blogger, Instagram would work better for your visual content than other platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn. In fact, 93% of social media influencers prefer Instagram as it delivers the best results. However, that doesn’t mean that you should focus all of your effort on Instagram if your niche doesn’t align with the platform.

Prioritize Your Content

High-quality content is perhaps the most potent answer to the question of how to become an influencer. It is extremely important to publish unique and authentic content that resonates with your audience.

In fact, this is the only way to keep your audience hooked to your content. Regardless of the type of content you create, it should be meaningful and valuable.

Depending on your niche and distribution channels, you can choose different types of content such as blog posts, photos, videos, podcasts, etc.

Listen to Your Audience

An effective way to ensure that your content garners traction is to create content that your audience wants.

In order to get relevant content ideas, you can run a quick Google search for your niche. Scroll down to the bottom of search results to find the long-tail keywords that are being used by your target audience. You can also search platforms such as Quora and Reddit to get an idea of what your target audience is talking about.

If you want your content to strike a chord with your audience, you must have a deep understanding of your follower community.

Maintain Consistency

Publishing high-quality content on a regular basis is one of the most effective ways to retain your audience’s attention. When you deliver good content on a regular basis, it creates a sense of anticipation among your audience.

Collaborate with Other Influencers

When you are starting out, and still wondering how to become an influencer, partnering with someone famous in your niche can be of great help. It gives you access to their fan base and allows you to attract them to your social media profiles.

Create a Media Kit

A media kit serves as a digital portfolio for an influencer. Think of it as a way to show brands what you can help them achieve.

Whether a brand approaches you for collaboration or you want to pitch a brand that you’d like to work with, having a media kit will help you stand out as an influencer.

Your media kit should include details like:

• Introduction about yourself and your expertise

• Number of social media followers

• Audience demographics

• Engagement rate

• Previous brand partnerships and testimonials

• Collaboration options

You can easily create an impressive media kit online with real-time data and analytics using a platform like MediaKits. It offers multiple customization options to ensure that your media kit reflects your personal brand perfectly.