One of the hottest types of marketing today is influencer marketing, which is now also a mainstream tactic done by various brands and agencies. With the rise of influencers in almost every industry, brands take every opportunity they can to find ways to get their products promoted.

The people following an influencer take their opinion seriously and use their recommendations when they make decisions.

While it may take time to achieve success and seems like a big responsibility, this lifestyle can bring you immense benefits.

Here’s the thing though.

Anyone can do it. All you need is your phone, internet connection, and something to talk about.

How to Become an Influencer on Social Media

You can become an influencer in different ways and through various platforms.

It can be through blogs, videos, or picture posts.

Your platform should be a space where the work provided is something you’re comfortable doing, such as filming and video editing, photography, or writing.

Finding a specific niche is as equally important as choosing your platform.

If you get yourself into a crowded market, the competition is bound to be tough, especially with a lot more people who are just starting out the same way you are.

However, a market that isn’t well-known makes it harder since there are fewer people viewing the content. The key is to simply find the right medium and the right niche.

How to Become an Influencer on Instagram

Instagram is a platform that focuses mainly on visuals.

To become an influencer on this platform, you should understand how to create content that is visually dynamic and pleasing to get people to click through your profile.

One unique feature on Instagram is hashtags.

Hashtags are meant to bring people to your profile by making you searchable and appear in explore pages. The hashtags you use should be related to your niche.

Unrelated hashtags will simply look like spam to users.

You can also use stories or IGTV for diversity as well as another means of promoting.

How to Become an Influencer on YouTube

Being an influencer on YouTube is one of today’s hottest careers, but it’s also the hardest industry to break into.

Compared to other platforms, YouTube is highly competitive.

As a starter, gaining regular viewers is a challenge, especially when viewership is one of the main factors for YouTube monetization.

Creativity plays a big role in becoming a YouTube influencer. Taking a camera and filming isn’t that hard of a task.

The competition relies on how creative your videos can get, along with how genuinely you present yourself to your audience.

10 Tips on How to Become an Influencer

It takes a lot of effort and patience before you can officially call yourself an influencer.

Although as long as you stay focused on your goal, you’re sure to get the results you’re aiming for.

Here are a few tips on how to get started:

Find Your Niche and Beat that Drum Over and Over Again

Before you start becoming an influencer, the first thing you should do is select your niche.

While it’s a good thing to make sure your niche isn’t too crowded or too unknown, it’s equally important to make sure it’s something you’re genuinely interested in.

It’s a plus point to pick a niche that you already have experience or expertise in.

Your niche doesn’t have to be only one specific thing. It can be a set of different things.

For example, you’re interested in fashion. You don’t have to talk about clothes alone.

This can include other subtopics such as sewing, creativity, and accessories.

Have at least two or three similar interests you can discuss to provide variety to the audience without straying too far from the main focus.

The content you make will revolve around the niche you choose.

To make content, you may be required to conduct research on the topic.

By choosing something you like, you will be able to create consistent content while enjoying the time you spend on it.

The more you create content related to your niche, the better you will get at it.

Be Yourself and Always Be Genuine

Your best asset as an influencer is going to be your personality, which is also going to be important in building your brand.

Consumers often look for honest opinions and reviews on certain products or topics that will help them come to a final decision, rather than someone who merely sounds like an advertiser.

Being relatable to an audience is one of the reasons an influencer becomes successful.

There’s no need to worry about how you present yourself professionally in front of an audience.

What matters is to find the best way that you can communicate yourself positively.

Whether it’s through humor or wisdom, it should be done in a way that allows you to naturally get your messages across to other people.

As an influencer, you should encourage your audience to use their voices and be proud of themselves.

If your audience can feel your honesty through the things you discuss, they will be able to trust and believe in your opinion as an influencer.

Seek to Be the Guide, NOT the Hero

The role of influencer is to guide the people who look up to them.

Usually, it’s through providing your insights and recommendation to help people make decisions, especially when purchasing products or services.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that your opinion should be the only words that are true.

It’s important to remember that not everyone is going to agree with you.

It’s possible that what works for you may not work for them.

For example, with make-up, a product may work for one person but fail for another.

A new red lipstick may look good on someone with fair skin but not on someone who’s tan with dry lips.

People will gather opinions from a lot of different people, which is why it is important to make sure your reviews are honest although they may differ from other influencers.

Be Everywhere: Website, Books, Courses, Podcasts, Etc.

Your platforms aren’t the only way your followers can engage with you.

There are other ways you can provide your followers with content by making use of different mediums such as books, websites, or podcasts.

Introducing different mediums to your followers is a good way to step out of your comfort zone while still being able to provide content to your audience.

Utilize Social Media YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Being a social media influencer, you should make use of different platforms to promote your content. This makes it easier to get people to see updates or communicate with you.

There are various platforms available that let you customize your profile to your liking.

You can either create new ones or simply optimize the ones you already have, such as turning a personal account into a business account along with updating the content posted.

By having these platforms, you will be able to give casual updates to your audience.

Say if a post will be delayed due to technical difficulties, you can reach your audience through these platforms instead of leaving them without a proper announcement.

The things you post on your platform can also be related to your niche as a way of promoting your interests and finding people who like the same things.

Through that, you will also be able to get other people to find you—which may lead them to check out your brand and the content you post.

Provide Helpful Content

To become a successful influencer, you have to regularly create content that is relevant to your audience.

You can get a gist of their opinions and recommendations on different matters by engaging with them more.

This way, you will know what your audience is interested in and create content related to those topics.

Mixing in your personal life to your niche is fine if they are correlated. This allows your audience to view you as someone relatable.

However, you can also focus only on your niche.

Like a fashion influencer posting about how they put together an outfit or a food influencer posting a review on a new restaurant.

The content can vary depending on what you’re comfortable with, but the information you share should still be useful to the audience.

Be Consistent

Keep in mind that consistency is one of the most crucial parts of being an influencer, especially because it can either make or break your career.

Make sure you are able to post regularly on the platform you’re working with.

You can create a schedule of when you will be posting new content, such as once or twice a week.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, it can even be every day.

Stick to a posting schedule that you are comfortable with rather than a schedule that may bring you stress in the long run.

You can also look up statistics to find what time and days of the week receive the most engagement. You can base your posting schedule off of that so more people can view your posts.

Consistency is going to keep you on your audience’s timelines, especially with the ever-changing nature of social media algorithms.

By providing regular content, brands will also be able to find you easily.

If you come up on their timeline often and have a stable audience, they may offer you deals.

Collaborate with Other Influencers In and Out of Your Niche

Working together on small projects with someone well-known either in or out of your niche can help you promote yourself.

Through partnerships, you get access to a different fan base and can attract them to your own profile.

However, the benefit should be mutual to both influencers.

The content creators you collaborate with don’t necessarily have to be the biggest influencers.

You can team up with smaller creators who have highly engaging fan bases.

Making collaborations is a great way to promote the creators involved while building up the relationships you have with different influencers in your community.

Promote Yourself

There’s more to promotion than search engines and results.

Through other platforms like social media, you can get people to engage with your content as long as you guide them to it.

You can start by posting on other social media platforms about the projects you’re working on or upcoming collaborations you’ll be making with other influencers and brands.

Make use of photo and video teasers as well as links to the actual posts.

That way, whether it’s your regular followers or new people passing by, they will be able to get directed to your promoted posts.

Be Available to Your Fans

The bigger your audience grows, the more people will see and appreciate your content.

Most likely, they will also leave you feedback and comments.

While it may be difficult to respond to every comment, it’s best to reply to as many as you can.

Engaging with your followers makes them feel more connected to you, building both your trust and relationship with them.

It’s also good practice to let your fans know that you are open to their suggestions and comments because you appreciate their opinion.

This also is a way to remind your followers that you see them as “friends” rather than just an audience who views your content.

Through these interactions, you’ll be able to solidify your relationship with your fans as well as your position as an influencer.