If you’re considering becoming an influencer or just starting out, there are a few things that you should know. I wish someone told me in the beginning. I’m going to give you my best advice I’ve had to learn over time while experimenting.
Figure out your niche
To be an influencer, you must hone in on a niche and get good at it if you’re not already! If you’re aiming to be an influencer in the car industry, don’t post about food on a regular basis. Unless you’re eating yummy food in sweet cars, that is. Pick a topic you love as you’ll be spending all of your time writing, taking pictures and posting to social media and/or a blog about it.
Decide which social media channels to be an influencer on
If you’re just starting out as an influencer, don’t overwhelm yourself by being on every social media channel that exists. Unless you have a team managing you (and a ton of content), start small. Pick one or two channels and focus on growing that first.
One of the biggest and easiest mistakes influencers make just starting out is to try and tackle all social media at once. You’ll end up burning yourself out and finding nonsense content just to push it out. Quality of content is king! If you look at my social media accounts, Instagram is the one I’ve been focusing on since I started it over Summer.
Target your audience
So, you’ve got a topic and have chosen your social media channels of choice. Now it’s time to target your key audience. Influencers have the most success landing and retaining followers if they know who their target audience is. For example…to grow your followers on social media, you’re going to look for people interested in your space, not someone who appears to love the exact opposite.
Laser focus on your audience will bring you long term success. It’s better to have 100 engaged followers (think monetizing), than 500 dormant followers. In the end, you will just have people not interested in your content and they will unfollow you. If you’re looking. to monetize, this doesn’t work! Brands want to see engagement while numbers grow!
Get a business email
Don’t believe me? Let’s say you have an influencer brand that’s AMAZING. You seem to really know what you’re doing with content. Then, a major brand notices you and wants to collaborate. Or, YOU’RE reaching out to brands to collaborate and not getting a bite. No one wants to see a gmail.com, etc email address. They want to ensure they’re getting a professional influencer that takes their work seriously.
Gmail offers business emails starting at $5 a month, can’t beat that! There are also several other email hosts that you can choose from as well. I find that the G Suite through Gmail is pretty intuitive.
Get organized
If you’re looking for success in the influencer game, you’ll need to get organized. Set aside time every day and plan for specific tasks. It’s too easy to feel overwhelmed and not get anything done because you’re trying to do everything at once.
I use tools like Evernote for taking notes, making to do lists, etc. I also use HootSuite, which is a social media scheduler. It’s not expensive and saves so much time being able to schedule several posts for different times/days. Both of these tools help me stay organized and on task.
Work hard
This may sound really silly and obvious, but as an influencer we often don’t realize the hard work that goes into it! From managing social media, to blogs, to collaboration requests. There’s always something to do and you just get busier as you grow.
I’ve found I work best (and the hardest) when I set aside power hours during the day (not all at once). I dedicate time blocks to each task in my business. I work on social media for some time. Then I choose time to work on answering emails for collaborations. Then I choose time to do research…you get the idea. Pick a task, set daily goals and focus laser hard on them. You’ll be much more productive than if you were to try and do everything all at once.
Summary
Are you an influencer? Thinking about becoming one? What has your experience been? What are your fears or successes? Share your thoughts with me in the comments or on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter! Follow Boss Gal while youāre at it. Donāt forget to subscribe to receive everything Boss Gal right to your email!
