The First Steps to Becoming an Influencer
Being an influencer can be a real job these days – and it’s an important one no matter how often people question what influencers do. In every industry, including the medical and pharmacy world, influencers are doing their best to spread information and help others within their niche. With sponsorships and monetization in full swing, many influencers are using their reach to generate an income as well.
As an influencer, you are a brand. You decide what is at the heart of your content. You decide what type of tone you’d like to have with your audience. And you get to determine how much of your personal life you’re going to share. There isn’t exactly a rulebook that details how to be a top influencer – and that’s because there really is something for everyone. Ultimately, at the heart of it all is connecting with your audience.
So let’s talk about what that means.
What Is an Influencer?
According to SproutSocial, an influencer can be defined as someone who has “specialized knowledge, authority, or insight into a specific subject.” Influencers then use this authority to connect with their target audience and give them advice, connect them with tools they can use, and promote products the audience may be interested in.
There are several types of influencers, each with an essential role in our digital world.
Celebrities: people who have multiple platforms to reach their audience, like television, ads, social media, and video.
Industry Experts: people who have made a name for themselves as an expert in their niche, who have an audience who tunes in specifically to improve their own knowledge. They may do in-person engagements as well as digital work.
Micro-Influencers: people who have created a brand for themselves on social media and have amassed a large following online.
Content Creators: bloggers and vloggers who create content on a smaller scale, but still have an engaged audience
How Do Influencers Make Money
While being an influencer won’t immediately start you off with a six-figure salary and steady work opportunities, many people use their job as an influencer to supplement their income. Over time, people can transition to working traditional full-time jobs to doing social media full-time instead.
Scrunch did a fantastic job detailing all the ways that influencer can make money, but I’ll summarize the list here:
Digital Products: downloadables, packages, memberships, and eBooks are all ways that influencers can connect with their audience, offer them value, and generate some income at the same time.
Podcasts and Webinars: free or paid podcasts and webinars can include sponsored ads that generate money, or they may charge a small fee to access the content.
Brand Ambassador Work: when an influencer is employed by a company to use their platform to increase awareness of the company and boost their sales.
Sponsored Social Posts: when an influencer pairs up with a brand they like to promote a specific item or concept. They are paid to post content specific content that is approved by the company.
Sponsored Blog Posts: similar to sponsored social posts, sponsored blogs feature a product or concept that the influencer is being paid to promote.
Physical Products: merch, notebooks, and anything else that you feel confident will help your audience should they choose to support your brand with a purchase.
Affiliate Marketing: when an influencer receives a discount code or link to purchase an item from another company. The more purchases that come from their specific link or code, the more the influencer will earn.
Events: with a large enough audience, some influencers may be able to do in-store events, meet and greets, or speaking engagements. They may generate income from paid events or receive payment for the audience turnout.
Steps to Becoming an Influencer
In this blog, I’m going to cover some of the first steps you should take when trying to become an influencer in your field.
Explore Social Platforms: The first step to becoming an online influencer is actually signing up for the same platforms that your audience uses. For some people, Instagram is the only way to connect to their audience. For others, TikTok or LinkedIn may work better. To set yourself up for success, do research on which platform is right for you before you start investing serious energy into this goal.
Listen to Your Heart: There is a vast world of opportunity out there when it comes to finding your niche. Make sure that whatever you do is aligned with your passions and things that you will continue to be interested in for years to come. You could narrow in on this focus by thinking about things that come easy to you but would solve a problem for someone else.
Focus: Think about what you want to be known for. Make sure that any opportunities you pursue align with that vision. It will reduce your audience’s trust if you are an influencer that focuses on health, but suddenly decide to do a sponsorship with McDonald’s for a cheeseburger. Ultimately, you must focus on your message and the products that you want to sell. To build an effective brand, you need to start out small and specific to gain an audience and continue to foster that relationship. After all, it can be tempting to try and land big brand deals, but you have to remember that your audience’s reaction is what will make or break those deals.
Be Inspired: Name three influencers that you look up to and why they inspire you. While these people don’t necessarily have to be in the same niche as you, you can still take notes from their success. Hone into what they are doing that inspires you and use that as inspiration to create a similar connection between your brand and audience. If you enjoy the way they blend art and creativity with a discussion about an “industry issue,” see if you can do something similar with your own style of art and the niche you’re focused on. Your audience will always better connect with you if you are producing things you love.
Build Good Habits: One of the most important aspects of being an influencer is consistency. So, before you ever reach 20k subscribers, make sure you are building good habits. Push yourself past your comfort zone to create meaningful content. Dedicate yourself to a structured schedule even though the digital world is wildly unstructured. In the end, your audience will connect with you and come to rely on regular content from you too!
Grow Your Expertise: Your brand is you. Just like you wouldn’t want to be the same version of you that you were in middle school, you don’t want your brand to stay at the same level. You need to continually push yourself to learn, improve, and do more so that you can continue to grow and help your audience as well as your own expertise.
Network With Other Influencers: Another crucial part of being an influencer is networking. Get comfortable with reaching out to others and building a real relationship with them. Nevermind that you may never meet them in person; online relationships may mean just as much as in-person connections when you’re an influencer. You can also learn essential lessons from others who are further along in their journey if you genuinely connect with other influencers.
Identify Brands You Align With: As you’re getting started, you may be tempted to work with every brand that approaches you. Early on, it’s going to be vital that you stay true to yourself and only work with brands and people who add value. Create a list of brands that you’d like to work with in the future and use them as a standard. If a company approaches you and offers a pretty paycheck to promote an inferior product, it’s time to step away.
Becoming an influencer can allow you to manage your own career, connect with thousands of like-minded people, and build an income for yourself. Even though social media is sort of like the Wild West right now, be strategic. Take careful first steps to make sure that you are on the right path to success and that you can meaningfully connect with your audience. In the end, your brand and position as an influencer can be a reflection on your own expertise and that should always help lift up the community you work with too!