Becoming an influencer takes time and hard work but nowadays, people are gaining popularity overnight. With the right strategies and tactics, you can make becoming an influencer quicker. In this blog post, we’ll look at five proven steps that will help you get started on how to become an influencer overnight — or at least in a shorter amount of time.
Let’s dive deeper into what a career as a brand influencer entails. An influencer works with brands they know and love to promote some of their favorite products to their audience. You don’t need a million followers to be an influencer, but the more trust and engagement your social media platform has, the better. Brands can advertise their product with an already engaged market that trusts the source. These partnerships are usually paid, offered free products, or both. An influencer can choose any niche that they love (think cooking, fishing, travel, fashion, etc.) and get started influencing their audience on products and services they love.
So how do you become an influencer quickly?
Optimize your social media platforms
Unfortunately, becoming an influencer isn’t as easy as starting a social media platform and putting up a pretty picture or video. There are many best practices to optimize your social media profiles.
On Instagram, for example, you’ll have to set yourself up as a Personal, Creator or Business account. On any social media profile, you’ll want to be sure your name is visible, your photo shows your face, and your bio is searchable with keywords based on your niche. As a fashion blogger, you may write something like “petite fashion for millennials,” or a foodie Instagram may use keywords like “sharing local Texas food blogger” to make your content more searchable.
Don’t just put keywords into your bio or fill your caption with hashtags, though. You’ll want to create engaging content that helps people see who you are and why they should follow you.
Create and post relevant content
Once you’ve optimized your new (or old) social media platforms, you’ll want to analyze how your content shows up for your audience and if you’re creating content that the algorithm will pick up. The more likely the algorithm picks you up, the more likely others will see your posts and follow you. Here are a few examples:
- Instagram loves when you use Reels and so do many of your followers. But if you love photography, don’t worry because it seems that photos are making a comeback on your feed. Create a Reel or photo that fits with your brand, and don’t forget about staying active on Stories.
- Search your favorite YouTube creators or others in a similar niche to see what types of titles and thumbnails are popular. While copying another creator won’t help you grow, seeing what is doing well out there can be helpful to spark ideas for your channel. In the end, make sure you’re uploading YouTube videos that feel authentic to you and you’re excited to put out to the world.
- TikTok is an ever-changing platform, but it’s one of the fastest to take off. See what type of content is popping up on your FYP, check our popular sounds and fit your own personal brand’s flair into your page. With TikTok, it can also be helpful to post multiple times a day at first.
But remember: Don’t just post because something is popular. You’ll want to make sure it aligns with you and what you represent as an influencer so brands and your audience can trust you on upcoming partnerships, which leads to our next point.
Find and use your authentic voice
With the excitement of wanting to grow your platform and work with your first brand, it can be easy to take the first deal or partnership that comes your way, even if it doesn’t feel authentic to your brand. Beware of doing this because most audiences can sense inauthenticity and may stop trusting you (making it hard to grow or work with brands in the future). Instead, spend your time being yourself and finding your voice online. This could be through humor, beautifully edited videos or sharing vulnerable moments that help you connect with your audience. Being true to who you are will always show up and draw in the followers who are right for you.
Engage your audience
Once you’ve got people coming to your page and following along, don’t forget to engage with them! Reply to every comment and DM, especially in the beginning. This is not only helpful for the algorithm, but it helps your followers feel like they’re part of a community. On Instagram stories, you can also ask questions or do polls to interact with your audience. Go live on TikTok to chat with your followers or do a video replying to one of their comments. Make your audience feel seen and they’ll keep coming back for more!
Post consistently
Last but not least, post consistently. That can be different depending on each social media platform. On YouTube, you post two videos a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. Stick to that schedule so people know when to expect content from you. Post multiple times a day on TikTok or multiple times a week on Instagram with some Stories thrown in. Don’t be discouraged if things aren’t growing as quickly as you’d like because you never know when a post will go viral or someone might share your content. Posting consistently means you’re showing up in your followers’ feeds more often, plus the algorithms on each platform are ready to push your content when it comes out on schedule.
While becoming an influencer may not happen overnight for everyone, sticking to these tips will have you growing faster and bringing in the type of audience that will be around to stay for the long run. Remember, while numbers are important in the grand scheme of influencer marketing, engagement is always at the top. Having millions of followers who don’t trust the influencer and won’t purchase products they recommend is just money wasted for a brand. Instead, a lot of brands are working with nano- and micro-influencers because they fit within their budgets, plus they tend to have an engaged following.
Influencers:
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Marketers:
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