Becoming an influencer means you get to build your audience and followers by doing what you are best at. An influencer’s brand is themselves, so they need to look and be an expert in their chosen niche.
In today’s digital era, there seem to be a lot of people who claim to be “online influencers” either as social media strategists, SEO guru, or content master. It is easy to claim to be one but proving it takes effort and determination.
One of the key benefits of becoming an online influencer is getting a wider audience. A wider audience means better income for your brand. Additionally, there are large companies who give sponsorships or free items to influencers in exchange for just having their names mentioned. It’s like being a celebrity in the digital world.
But what does it take to be one? If you genuinely desire to become an online influencer, here are some of the ways you can do.
Understand your audience
Define your target market. Invest a considerable amount of time in finding who your audience is. If you can understand them, you’ll know what type of content you should be focused on creating
Create personas. This will help you to get to know their needs as readers deeply. You can look at the data on your blog or social media profiles. They provide data you can analyze to help you understand your audience better. Then, personalize every group you come across to.
For example, give each persona a name, a career, demographics, and likes. Then, if you have created enough personas, try to make sure that your future content will be geared to those people.
Creating content
After understanding who your audience is, you will need to create what type of content you will be making. But if you want to establish authority, you’ll have to focus on building share-worthy content that is not only relevant to your audience but also highly valuable to them.
Social proof
Social proof is a huge factor in how readers determine you as a blogger. Are you another blogger who popped out of nowhere, or do you have people who do vouch for you?
If you don’t have it yet, don’t do a fake one. Try to offer some free or discounted services to others in exchange for their testimonials.
Be active on social media
You’ll usually notice social influencers get a considerable number of comments and shares on whatever they post. That is because they’ve already established themselves and has developed a community of their own.
Promote yourself
To be an influencer, you need to have people to influence. You cannot expect people to go to you when you don’t introduce yourself to them.
There are many ways you can market yourself to your audience. You can do guest blogs, do Quora marketing, or go to the paid advertisements platforms like Facebook Ads or Pay Per Click Ads.
Promotion is essential when you are just starting out, once you’ve established your credibility and authority, people will come to you naturally.
Step up your SEO game
While quality content still is the most important, you also have to consider how search engines read your blog. Unlike before, keyword-stuffing can do more harm to your search rankings.
Collaborate with other influencers
Don’t worry if you haven’t established yourself as an influencer yet. Because one way of achieving that is to be friends with other established ones.
You can collaborate with those within your industry but doesn’t sell something that you do. When you contribute on their blog, you are also tapping the audience that they have.
Professional design
Design anything that’s related to your brand professionally. It’s fun to give your website and social media pages some personality, but still give it a more professional look. You can do this on your own but hire someone who does this for a living is not a bad idea.
Take it offline
The combination of online and offline presence will deliver greater results to boost your online authority.
Go out of your comfort zone. Do some classes, attend talks, get interviewed, or socialize in events that are related to your industry.
Conclusion
Becoming an online influencer doesn’t happen overnight. It will take you months, even years to get to a point where people recognize your name without them having to search for it. But with hard work and a right amount of luck, you will surely get there.
Read More: Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success – Book Review