In this modern-day and age, with the growth of social platforms, people are wondering "what is a social media influencer?" What does it take to become well known on a social media platform and make money online as a beginner?
Before getting started, be sure to check out "The Niche Marketing Kit" and learn how you can make money online with this tool. Done? Let's continue.
In this article, I will go over the top social media influencers and what it takes to become one. Want to know who pays influencers? Read until the end of this article.
What Is A Social Media Influencer?
Whether it's Instagram or Facebook, there's a high chance that you're following an account with a huge following on any given social media platform. No one likes to work for free. Chances are, these accounts are earning money and I'll tell you how you can be just like them.
A social media influencer is a person who has the ability to affect the buying decision of other people (usually followers) because of their position, authority, and relationship with their audience. Usually, these individuals (the influencers) have a great following in a niche they're working on. A niche that their followers actively engage with.
It's also worth noting that these influencers aren't just marketing tools, but more like social assets which brands are interested in collaborating with to achieve their objectives.
How To Become A Full-Time Influencer?
As easy as it seems for some people, being a social media influencer isn't easy especially when you're starting off. The beginning is the toughest, so if you're in it for the short-term, then this isn't the right project for you.
There are hundreds of other ways to make money online. Don't be intimidated.
From my experience, I've grown many accounts through social proof marketing achieving accounts from 10,000 followers up to 50,000 followers.
Achieving a full-time income as an influencer can be difficult. There are accounts with over 100,000 followers that still aren't earning as much. It all depends on the niche.
So now that you have that fire in you, willing to ride that bus of opportunity, and achieve your dreams - What do you do?
Find a Social Media Platform You're Comfortable With
First and foremost, you have to find a social media platform that you're comfortable with. It can be more than one. Here are the social media platforms that I would recommend.
- YouTube: If you're great with video editing, know what viewers like, then YouTube is a great platform to start. Keep in mind that getting to 1,000 subscribers will be quite a journey. Many YouTubers can take up to a year to achieve this. It all depends on your content.
- Instagram: With Instagram, you can share photos and videos and gaining a following is quite easy if you're really active on this platform. You can also use paid promotion and target lower-tier countries for social proof. I would rank Instagram in first place for being the easiest platform to gain followers.
- Facebook: Within the last few years, many large companies and influencers started posting on their Facebook page. Facebook is a fantastic platform to start and I would rank it 3rd on this list when it comes to earning followers.
- Twitter: With Twitter, your niche is limited. There's more news on this platform than content that entertains. This platform is great because there's a chance of a viral effect when you publish content that people love.
These are the four platforms that I would recommend. While there are many more out there, the majority of social media users mainly use these.
After you create your accounts for the social media platforms that you're comfortable with, find your niche.
Finding Your Niche
When I first started, the biggest mistake that I made was creating an account with all the niche together. It wasn't thought out and conversions were extremely low. What you should do in this situation is to find a targeted niche. If you focus on general niches, they're most likely saturated and you'll have a lot of competition.
Example: If your niche is about cars, then scale it down to the type of cars. If you want an even more targeted audience, then you can do 90s cars.
There are many ways to make your niche more targeted.
Here are some general ideas in which you can scale:
Cars | Digital Marketing | Dogs | Cats | Health | Fitness | Entrepreneur | Food
After finding your targeted niche, you want to now focus on creating content.
Creating Content For Your Social Media Platform
The most important part of this process is content. You will hear it often in the social media world. Content is king. You want to create content that your audience will love, not what you love. I would recommend publishing at least 10 pieces of content before you work on building your followers.
If you're lacking ideas or your mind is blocking you from finding the right one, you should search up your competitors and find the type of content that they post. This way, you'll have a better idea of how they're achieving success with their accounts
Now that you have your first 10 pieces of content, let's focus on promoting and increasing your followers.
Gaining Followers For Your Social Media Account
There are many ways to gain followers for your social media account. I have experimented with many ways to grow an account I'm here to share it with you:
- After publishing your first 10 pieces of content, you can navigate using the search bar and search up words that are related to your niche. You can like and comment on recent posts and that will give your main account more attention which can lead to new followers.
- Social media platforms need ways to make money, right? They offer paid promotion and you can take advantage of paid advertising if you have the money. It can be risky if you're not familiar with advertising and not knowing who to target. My suggestion is to target lower-tier countries because you will get the most out of your money. This will help with social proof. I've spent $5 on Facebook ads before and achieved over 300 new followers as well as over 20,000 video views.
- Once you achieve a certain number of followers, you can contact accounts with around the same number of followers as you. Many of these accounts are willing to do a shoutout for a shoutout and it can be effective. There are even shout out groups out there.
- You can contact popular accounts (they usually have their business email in the description) to promote your account. They usually charge a fee and the post can last as long as 24 hours to permanent depending on what the influencer offers.
While there are many ways out there to promote your account, these are the ways I've grown my accounts.
Achieved A Decent Amount of Followers? Start Promoting Products!
You're finally here and you're ready to make money online. What do you do? You go out and find companies that will collaborate with you.
How do you attract businesses?
- You want to post your business email on your profile description. With a great number of followers, companies will reach out to you via email and offer you products to promote for a commission. Some companies will even send their products directly to you just so you can put on your page!
- There are websites that will help you find companies in the right niche for you to promote.
- There are middlemen services like ClickBank also known as affiliate marketing. You can search and test out products that will sell and see what works for you.
Now that you're making money, be sure to subscribe to mysocialgod for more ways to make money online. If you enjoyed "What Is A Social Media Influencer," be sure to check out:
