Influencer marketing pays. And, it pays a lot! But how can you become an influencer?
If you run a business, then you will have certainly heard about the power of influencer marketing, and the great ROI it brings along.
Wouldn’t it be really amazing if you could become an influencer yourself?
After all, why pay someone else to market your business, when you can influence other people’s decision with your subject matter expertise?
But how do you do it?
This post will help you get the answer to this pivotal question.
Let’s take a look at how you can become an influencer in your industry.
1. Find your feet
You cannot just go around blabbering stuff on random topics.
To become an influencer in your industry you need to, first and foremost, identify a target niche.
Once you have that figured out, it becomes easy to create content targeting that specific niche. Remember, you cannot have everyone as your target audience.
The secret to becoming a successful influencer in today’s world lies in finding yourself a niche where people can recognize and connect to what you are saying.
So, find your feet in a niche by identifying the audience you want to target and then move forward to the next step – creating powerful content!
2. Make noise
Now you have it figured out which niche to target. What next?
CONTENT!!!
This is the one-word answer to your question.
Make your presence felt in the niche that you have chosen – the best way to do this is by creating and distributing a lot of free, useful and compelling content so that people cannot ignore your presence.
Look at all the influencers out there in their respective niches, and you will see that they all have one thing in common – powerful content.
They are the masters when it comes to creating engaging content.
In order to reach at a level where people can identify you and your brand, you need to take a few pages from their book and create content that shows your expertise on the subject matter.
3. Invest time
Stop spending your time, start investing it – this is the rule of thumb for influencer marketing.
As an influencer, you need to make the most of whatever time you have in hand.
Start by investing your time in reading as much as possible about your specific niche whenever you can.
Read not only about your niche, but also about things related to your industry – you can read books, online articles, and whatever else you can find that is relevant.
Reading will help you become well versed with the knowledge that you could not have otherwise gained.
It is better to know and learn from others’ mistakes, than to make them on your own.
Reading is as close as you can get to practical knowledge – so make sure you invest ample time reading content related to your niche.
And it does not end with just reading, quite the contrary. Implement the knowledge you have gained by reading, share it with people in your niche to establish your expertise, encouraging them to gravitate towards you for future information.
Remember – the smartest person in the class always used to get the most attention during studying time? Think of the niche as your class, and to become an influencer you have to become the smartest one in the class by showcasing your knowledge – as simple as that!
4. Use the power of connecting
We live in a connected world. As cliché as it might sound, the fact of the matter is that influencing is all about connecting with people.
As the saying goes:
influence is our inner ability to lift people up to our perspectives.
– Unknown
To become an influencer, connect with people already powerful in the industry.
Participate in events, forums, and meetups, and wherever you can find an audience from your niche, get involved.
Make full use of social media to showcase your knowledge and connect with people – offer them help to solve their problems, give expert advice and use the power of connectivity to your advantage.
This is how you can make them recognize your brand amidst all the noise that’s already spread in the market.
Remember – people look for real human advice. They don’t want another chatbot or reading manual to solve their problem.
Social media and the power of connecting give you a great opportunity to provide people the human touch they are searching for.
Based on the knowledge you have acquired through investing your time, give them expert advice which actually solves their problem. Through this, you can easily become the influencer you yearn to become.
5. Don’t rush
Most important of all – instill the virtue of patience into your personality.
Influencers are not made overnight.
As the famous quote by Lionel Messi goes:
It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.
You cannot become great by doing something once in a while.
Patience, persistence, and perseverance are the three characteristics that differentiate great people from ordinary ones.
Anyone can create something good once in a while, but only those who produce great content and offer exceptional advice every time have an impact on their industry.
The choice is entirely yours – whether you want to be remembered as a one-hit wonder or become someone who is looked upon with respect in their community!
Final words
Remember, focus and persistence are the keys to becoming an influencer; everything else comes at later stages.
If you have the confidence, the knowledge, and the power to keep coming up with something useful for the audience in your niche, with time you will start getting noticed and grow in stature as a subject matter expert.
Once you start getting noticed, this is when you know you are moving in the right direction towards your aspirations of becoming an influencer.
There are plenty of influencer success stories floating around in the market. Wouldn’t it be great if you could also become part of that list?
Go ahead and practice the steps mentioned here and you can start to climb the ladder of influencer marketing without any struggle!
Good luck and all the best to you!