How to Become a Social Media Influencer in 6 Easy Steps
Are you ready to become a social media influencer in 2023? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Social media is an increasingly important part of our lives and using it effectively can open many doors for success. To become the next social media sensation, you need to create content that is meaningful to your audience, build relationships with brands, and grow your following over time. Whether you want to become a micro-influencer or a full-time TikTok star, this ultimate guide to influencer marketing is a great place to start.
Summary/Overview
1. Choose your niche.
Choosing your niche is one of the most crucial steps in becoming an influencer. Your niche defines your content strategy, personal brand, and audience, so you should pick something that resonates with you and aligns with your values, beliefs, and interests.
Choose an angle that differentiates you from other influencers and that already has a passionate and engaged audience. If you’re not sure what your direction will be, experiment with different themes and ideas to find the perfect niche that showcases your unique voice, talent, and vision.
As a content creator, your niche will help you establish credibility, build relationships with your followers, and determine your future collaborations and sponsorships. So, take your time and choose a niche that aligns with your personality — meaning you can consistently create content and engage your audience over time.
Select something you are passionate about.
To find your niche, start with a list of activities and topics you are truly passionate about. This could be anything like photography, travel, cooking, fashion, lifestyle blogging, and so forth. Pick something about which you are knowledgeable and enthusiastic — something you could regularly make posts about and not get bored quickly. This makes it easier to come up with content ideas and genuinely connect with your audience.
Never select something simply because it's popular or trendy. Though this may help you gain initial visibility and followers, a lack of enthusiasm for or limited knowledge on the topic can eventually lead to declining engagement and reduce your ability to impact your followers.
Finally, identify which problems you will solve. Knowing this will help you engage in meaningful content creation and make your audience want to come back for more.
This part of the process in itself can feel like a conundrum. One way to find your answer is to focus on providing valuable insight or advice that people can use in their own lives. This helps you build relationships with your followers, strengthen your follower base, and position you as an expert in the field.
Research your niche market.
The next step is to do thorough keyword research. Keyword research is the action of discovering and examining search terms that people plug into search engines. In this case, the goal of keyword research is to use pertinent data for social media marketing purposes. Keyword research will help you understand which topics people are searching for online so you can create content relevant to your audience. Plus, using the right keywords increases the chance of your content being found. In this way, you tailor your content to your audience’s needs and interests.
There are many paid tools to use for keyword research but consider starting with Google Trends. This free tool lets you see the interest over time of any search term, breaks it out by subregion, and offers related topics and queries.
Once you get the hang of keyword research, start considering search volume, competition, and suggested bid. Search volume indicates the number of searches for keywords related to your niche market over a given period of time. This allows you to analyze potential trends in the market and determine which topics are more popular with your target audience. Competition and suggested bid indicate the current level of competition for a particular keyword or topic, as well as how much brands are currently paying to advertise on that keyword.
From here, you should set specific goals for yourself and your content. One of the most important goals you should have is to achieve a search volume range between 1,000 and 10,000 monthly searches. This range may seem overwhelming at first, but with the right tactics in place, you can achieve it within a reasonable amount of time.
Ultimately, having a search volume of below 1,000 searches is not sufficient. A low search volume can mean that people are not interested in the content you're providing. Without the right level of interest and engagement, it's difficult to make an impact on your followers.
To start, select keywords and topics with low to medium competition. This means targeting keywords with fewer competitors trying for the same search engine listing spots. This helps ensure that you stand out from the crowd, and it makes your content easier to find.
It's also vital to aim for a suggested bid on the higher end of the spectrum. Selecting keywords with a high suggested bid indicates that brands are willing to pay more for those words. This means that there is more competition among brands and influencers who are trying to capture that audience.
Focus on and develop your niche.
As you cultivate content, it’s important to remain focused on your main topic and not stray from it. Deviation can confuse your audience and lead to decreased engagement. For example, if you are a fashion-related Instagram influencer, it might confuse your audience if you suddenly start posting about car repairs. So, stay on-point and on-brand, and create a content strategy to which you can stick.
Developing your brand is another key to success on social media. Identify a unique selling point that sets you apart from other influencers and effectively communicates your values and personality. Consistently developing and refining your brand establishes your reputation as a social media influencer with a unique voice and following.
2. Optimize your social media profiles.
People interested in you and your content will pay attention to your various social media profiles, so it’s critical to optimize them. To help potential followers find you more easily, use keywords that are relevant to your niche. This also makes it easier for them to connect with you and your content. Additionally, create a strong aesthetic and tell your story through visuals so you stand out from other influencers in the same niche.
Unify your social media pages.
Consistency is the key to developing a recognizable brand. Creating a unified presence across your social media accounts shows consistency to potential followers and can help build a sense of authenticity. This all starts with your profile picture — an image you should use across all your social media channels.
When selecting a profile photo, it's important to choose an image that is clear and of high quality. It should be relevant to the topics you are discussing on your channels and capture people’s attention. You also need to make sure that your profile picture looks good on all platforms, regardless of the size, shape, and other aspects of the device on which it’s viewed.
To further increase brand recognition, incorporate your logo across all of your pages. This helps potential followers identify you quickly and makes it easier for them to keep track of your content. Additionally, a logo creates unity across your channels and makes your content more easily identifiable; it’s a key aspect of developing your brand.
A cover photo is another must-have, and you should use the same one on all of your social media platforms. A high-quality and visually appealing image makes for an attractive brand presence and helps your followers quickly identify you. Choose an image that represents your brand well and is relevant to the topics discussed in your content.
Develop your social media bio.
Writing an interesting and engaging bio helps people understand who you are as an influencer and why they should follow your content. It should include your primary keyword, information about the topics or content you post, any brands or businesses that you work with, and any related awards or recognition. Finally, include a call-to-action encouraging people to learn more about your content and follow you.
Another vital component is your contact information, which should be included on all your profiles. Include an email address for professional correspondence and a link to your website or other social media platforms. This allows followers and brands to easily reach out with inquiries or collaborations.
Lastly, consider including specific information about yourself and your work. This can include your city or town of residence, or hours and availability for collaborations. Providing this information helps your audience get to know you better and trust that you will provide quality content. It also helps to create an authentic presence and makes it easier for people to connect with your work.
Include keywords.
Keywords are critical in building your SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization and refers to the process of optimizing web pages and content in order to rank higher on search engine listings. Researching and using relevant keywords throughout your content improves visibility within search engines and makes it easier for potential followers to find your content. Using relevant keywords in titles, headings, and descriptions similarly improves visibility.
To establish your keywords, consider common ways people would search for you or your chosen niche. For example, people searching for influencers may use keywords such as “social media influencers” or “influencer marketing.” Additionally, consider the language your target audience uses when searching for content, such as slang terms or nicknames associated with a certain topic or product.
Selecting keywords and phrases related to your niche market makes your content easier to find on search engines. Think about what words you want associated with you when people search for you online. Researching relevant keywords and using them throughout your content will boost visibility, making it easier for potential followers to discover you.
Consider different keywords that fit each platform. What works on Facebook may not work for Instagram or TikTok. To maximize your reach and success as an influencer, learn which keywords are most effective on each platform and cater your content accordingly. Regardless of the platform, use relevant hashtags — this will help you reach a wider audience and draw more potential followers.
It’s important to use keywords in your headlines. This helps your audience identify topics within your content faster and makes it easier for them to find you in search engine listings. Using relevant keywords creates attractive headlines, capturing people’s attention and enticing them to click on your content, all of which will ultimately help you stand out among your competitors.
The primary keyword should be relevant to the topics you post about, thereby helping your audience quickly recognize you and easily find your content. Having a primary keyword also makes it easier for search engine algorithms to rank your profile higher in search results.
3. Understand your audience.
Understanding your audience is indispensable. Knowing who your target audience is and what they're looking for can help you create content that connects with them, as well as attract potential followers to your profile.
Brainstorm target demographics.
Identifying the target demographic for your content is of the utmost importance. This means figuring out things like age, gender, field of work, education level, income level, location, interests, and other key details. This information helps you create content that is meaningful to your audience and draws potential followers. It's also important to stay up-to-date on trends within your chosen demographic so you can create relevant and intriguing content.
Explore audience interests.
To find success as a social media influencer, it's necessary to research your audience’s interests and identify the types of content with which they are most likely to engage.
To help with this, take advantage of the native audience insight tools on your social media platforms. These tools allow you to easily collect data from your followers and analyze their behavior. For example, if you have a business account on Instagram, you can learn things like a user’s age, their location, interests, average engagement rate, and more. Understanding this data allows you to tailor content to your followers and potentially bring in new traffic. Knowing what type of content your followers engage with can also help you broaden your audience and use paid advertisements effectively.
One excellent way to connect with your followers — and build brand awareness at the same time — is to host a livestream event. With livestream events, you can interact with your audience in real-time and build personal experiences. Additionally, by hosting live events on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch, you can increase your reach. Livestream events can be an excellent way to drive traffic back to your website or other social media platforms. Do this by including links in the stream description as well as during the event.
Another effective way for you to understand your audience and create ideal content for them is via a social media poll or survey. Social media polls and surveys provide insight into which topics followers are interested in and can help you create content that speaks to their interests. Additionally, polls and surveys are a great way to understand what type of content followers like the most, identify areas for improvement, and increase engagement rates.
Lastly, consider asking your audience directly what they want to see. Simply posting questions on your social media platforms, like Instagram stories or Twitter polls, can help you better understand their interests and create more focused content. Asking questions also provides followers an opportunity to give meaningful feedback and build relationships between influencers and their followers.
4. Create and post relevant content.
Selecting only relevant content to post on your profiles is a vital part of any successful influencer marketing strategy. Content should connect you with your followers, draw them in, and keep them engaged. By creating and posting meaningful content tailored to your audience and niche, you can elevate your social media following and presence.
What your content should include:
Your top priority should be to share content relevant to your niche and your audience's interests. This means creating content that resonates with followers, draws them to your profile, and keeps them engaged. Doing so can help you reach a wider audience, in addition to increasing your influence within the chosen niche.
High-quality content that is memorable and unique will help you stand out from the competition, as well as build relationships with loyal followers. Additionally, it is a good idea to mix up the types of content you create to keep followers coming back for more.
Pull from high-quality resources that your followers will trust. By citing trustworthy references, you build your credibility within your niche and become a go-to source of information.
Ensuring credibility means creating content that is accurate and up-to-date with the latest trends. Using reputable resources fosters relationships with loyal followers and attracts new followers to your pages.
Another important aspect of becoming a successful influencer is to create content that is timely. Posting what’s trending keeps your existing followers informed. It can potentially create an even larger audience too, by building your reputation as a solid resource in your niche.
What you say in your posts is critical, but visuals can be key in catching your target audience members’ attention. To that end, include high-quality photos, videos, and graphics in your posts that accurately represent the topic or message you are trying to convey.
Remember to include the all-important hashtags! Including hashtags in posts can increase profile traffic and lead to new opportunities for collaborations.
What not to include:
First and foremost, you must avoid linking to your competition. Linking to your competition can bring a variety of negative effects, like reducing engagement and decreasing the trustworthiness of your content. Linking to competing profiles opens followers to leaving your profile for others. Furthermore, it's important to avoid posting content that is offensive or inflammatory, as this can drive followers away and damage your reputation.
Additionally, implementing paywalls for content is never a good idea. Creating a paywall could deter even dedicated followers from viewing or engaging with your content, as they may not be willing to invest in an influencer's content, and the effects can damage your opportunities with potential followers even more. Paywalls can also reduce the authenticity of a profile and lead to followers feeling misled.
5. Be regular and consistent.
A successful social media presence requires consistent content production. Posting routinely on multiple platforms can be the difference between keeping current followers interested and losing their attention overall. Create content consistently over time in order to build relationships with loyal followers.
Determine what you will post.
It’s time to determine what type of content you will post. Knowing the types of posts that are most likely to be meaningful to your followers and lead them to your profile can help you make posts that keep them engaged. Understanding the topics and language used within your chosen niche boosts reach by optimizing posts for search engine listings.
Planning out content helps you stay organized and ensures that posts are logical and consistent. Before making content, consider the topics and interests of your followers and create posts accordingly. This helps you avoid posting duplicate content or swamping your profile with too much information.
Vary the type of content you post to keep followers engaged. Posting a variety of different types of content, like videos, photos, reels, blogs, podcast episodes, or graphics, can help you snag new followers. Creating a mix of content also helps you reach diverse audiences and opens opportunities for collaboration with other influencers. Most importantly, varying your type of content helps keep followers looking forward to your posts and may even increase the chances of them sharing your content with others — who may become followers themselves.
Mix up your message with different headlines, images, and other content. Adding different headlines or images helps draw attention to posts and creates a unique point of view that stands out in the minds of your followers.
One effective approach is setting up Google Alerts with keywords. This helps gain insight into what’s popular and can even help reveal potential collaborations.
You can set up Google Alerts to deliver emails whenever certain keywords are mentioned online, allowing you to track what is being said about your brand or organization, as well as with what topics and content followers are engaging. Setting up Google Alerts also allows you to stay informed about the latest trends within your niche and determine which topics and content will be most meaningful to your followers.
Create your schedule.
Establishing a schedule is essential for any successful social media influencer. Scheduling your posts and content allows you to stay organized, be consistent with the frequency of posts, and maximize reach. Having a plan for when to post helps ensure that followers are constantly getting new content and encourages them to come back for more. Scheduling ahead also helps prevent redundant content or sending too much at one time.
Posting one to two social media posts a day is considered optimal for most platforms. This allows followers to stay engaged with your content while avoiding the possibility of overwhelming them. Posting too frequently can result in followers tuning out and losing interest, while posting infrequently may make it difficult to build relationships with loyal followers or bring in more.
To keep yourself on track, a scheduling tool can be indispensable. A consistent schedule ensures that your profile is regularly updated and active. Scheduling posts ahead of time allows influencers to plan out content and post at optimal times, as well as ensure that followers are getting fresh content regularly.
It's also necessary to determine the best time of day to post content. Posting at optimal times ensures that followers are seeing your posts and engaging with them. You also need to understand the primary time zone of your followers. This helps you post content when most of them are available to view and interact with it.
You should also post content on numerous channels rather than focusing on just one. Posting regularly on multiple platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube helps followers see your content and encourages them to interact with it. By spacing out content throughout the day on multiple platforms you reach a wider audience and maximize the visibility of your content.
An important rule is to avoid scheduling content too far ahead of time. This can limit the relevancy of posts and reduce engagement as followers may have already seen similar content in the past. Overscheduling future posts can also lead to followers feeling overwhelmed and losing interest. Plus, it can make it difficult to stay up-to-date with your chosen niche — after all, trends could easily change in just a matter of weeks.
Optimize post performance.
Optimizing post performance is crucial. It’s not just about implementing optimization strategies — you must track the performance of posts in order to ensure that they are getting noticed. Tracking metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and views can help you understand which topics are resonating with followers and optimize posts accordingly.
Understanding how followers are engaging with posts can also help to determine the effectiveness of content and adjust if necessary. Monitoring followers’ reactions to content can help you gauge how successful campaigns or collaborations are and create a better understanding of what followers want to see more of in the future.
Don't be afraid to change your schedule if your audience's needs change. Adapting a schedule in order to meet the needs of followers keeps posts relevant and engaging. Understanding what topics and content followers want helps create higher quality content with which they are more likely to interact.
6. Grow your audience.
Obviously, growing your audience is a major part of becoming a successful social media influencer. Gaining followers and building relationships with them requires creating relatable content. Understanding your followers’ interests helps you generate content that encourages them to keep coming back for more.
Optimize engagement.
Personalizing content by including your family, team members, pets and so forth is one way to draw followers in and encourage them to interact with your posts. Incorporating elements from your personal life humanizes the account, making it easier for followers to connect with you. Additionally, personalized content offers a unique point of view so you stand out from the competition.
Effective hashtags are another must-have for drawing attention to posts and optimizing engagement. Hashtags allow you to organize content into topics, making it easier for followers to discover related posts and join conversations. Think in terms of hashtags that are specific to your niche. Using popular hashtags can spark interest and trigger exposure on different platforms as well.
Sharing your ideals and company culture is another way to engage your audience. Showcasing your beliefs and mission helps followers understand who you are. By sharing stories of how your brand or organization is making a positive impact in the world, followers connect with you on a more personal level and are more likely to become loyal supporters.
Social media stories are another great tool for optimizing engagement and bringing potential followers to your profile. Posting stories on platforms like Facebook and Instagram allows you to share updates, experiences, or collaborations with others in an engaging and timely manner.
Stories provide an opportunity to interact with your audience thanks to elements like polls, questions, and countdowns. Stories can also be used to showcase products or services in a creative way that is less intrusive than a traditional ad.
Customer testimonials are a great way to lend credence to your brand and help grow your audience. Share stories of how customers are positively impacted by your products or services to boost your reputation as an influencer. Feature customer testimonials to create more personalized content that encourages your audience to engage. It’s a great way to showcase how you’re positively affecting the world.
Look for collaborators.
Collaborating with others helps establish your authority by illustrating your expertise and knowledge on certain topics. It’s a great way to demonstrate that others believe in your product or service. Plus, partnering with other influential people or organizations can result in access to resources like marketing tools and promotional opportunities that would otherwise not be available.
Mining other social media profiles can be key to finding promising partnerships. Look at who your competitors are collaborating with. This can help you understand the landscape and spot advantages. Track how other influencers in your niche are engaging with partners, brands, and organizations to gain insight into what strategies are working — and which ones aren’t.
Tracking the performance of competitors’ collaborations and brand deals can bring insight into topics and content that resonate with followers and which of your strategies may need to be adapted. Understanding who your competitors are collaborating with can also help you hone in on potential partners that align with your goals.
By connecting with other influencers and brands in related fields, you can bring in new followers from different audiences as they learn about your work. Even partnering with a nano-influencer may expose your profile to a whole new audience of people who didn’t know you existed. Moreover, this type of collaboration provides an opportunity to share resources and gain access to a larger network of potential followers, minus the conflict of competing interests.
Asking your followers and subscribers to become collaborators with you is another great way to grow your audience, gain exposure, and create meaningful content. It’s an opportunity to showcase your proficiency on key topics and bring about opportunities for mutual growth. Additionally, partnering with your followers allows you to gain access to their networks and build relationships with them.
To open doors, make a contact form for potential collaborators on your website. This is an efficient way to connect with potential partners and find out who may be interested in associating with you.
By including information like your name, email address, and social media handles on the contact form, it's easier for potential collaborators to identify you as the influencer and learn more about your work. Having a website contact form allows you to reach out to promising partners in a timely manner, ensuring that collaborations are strategic and successful.
Consider making a media kit. By assembling not only your contact information, but also highlighting achievements, upcoming events, and FAQs, you can provide a tidy package that interested parties can review. It’s a handy tool for outreach when you want to impress a potential partner, collaborator, or audience member.
Becoming a social media influencer in 2023 might feel like a tall order, but with the right mindset, dedication, and a thoughtful approach, anyone can do it. Whether you are just starting out as an Instagram influencer or hoping to amass a large enough number of followers to make it into the coveted ranks of a macro-influencer, turn your passion and interest into a career while also influencing and inspiring others to follow their goals and aspirations. The future of social media influencers is looking bright, and it's time for you to join the fun and push ahead on your influencer journey!
This post was updated on June 26, 2023.