How To Become An Influencer

empreender

• Verlag: Bibliomundi
• Jahr: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526029843
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Thema: Kommunikation & Rhetorik

This ebook explains the psychology behind influencers and explains why people choose to attach themselves to the creators they respect.You'll find a full, step-by-step program that will help you to build a powerful "personal brand" with a strong message that people respond to in a massive way. You'll learn to generate excellent content, and you'll learn about the signals that sponsors and brands look for.Once you do this, you'll build a highly resilient and stable business that allows you to generate cash doing what you love – and that opens up incredibly opportunities that go beyond your wildest dreams!With this ebook you will become the best version of yourself, build your tribe and earn money from your passions.

Step #1 - Choosing Your Niche – The Most Important Decision You Will Make

One of the most important initial decisions when you start to create a website or new social media platform is which niche you are going to target. This decision will dictate the nature of the kind of content you're going to include, it will impact on the web design and the look of your site, and it will impact on the demographic and types of visitors you will be targeting and dealing with.

There are many factors involved in this decision, and of course we will mostly make up our minds here based on what we think is likely to be profitable. Thus we will choose a niche that is a) popular enough to provide a large marketing, but b) not so popular as to be overcrowded.

But using just these two factors to make up your mind is a very bad idea, and doing so can result in your choosing a niche that is just plain unsuitable for your site and your SEO. Here we will look at why some topics should remain off-limits for your website and how they could be a big mistake.

Example: Technology and Hardware

So let's take the example of technology. As you're looking to work online you probably have a fair interest in technology and so it makes sense to choose this as your niche right? Well not if you're aiming to become a big technology site covering hardware.

Why? Because in order to compete with sites like the Verge and Engadget, you're going to need to have access to all the latest gadgets and tech as it comes out so that you can review it and take attractive pictures of it. I've seen too many tech sites that review perhaps just one phone every now and then and then wonder why they don't get many visitors.

Likewise, sites like the Verge and Engadget will also cover every piece of breaking news in that niche as soon as possible. They will be able to tell you the specs for a new device long before a one-man site possibly could and that again leaves your tech site with no real purpose.

There are more advantages these sites have too: such as receiving press releases and getting invited to tradeshows. There's just no way that you could start off with that kind of privileged access and so your site would always be a secondbest. And it's not just technology either: if you create a football site then people will expect you to cover what all the teams are doing and to get interviews, and if you create a comic book website then you'll need to buy every comic each month. And read them all…

The Solution To A Saturated Market

So does that mean you can never write about technology or any other niche that is fast moving? Of course not - it just means that you need to recognise your own limitations and specialise. Sidestep the problems mentioned above by writing not about

“technology,” but about “indie games,” or “'Kickstarter gadgets.” Or alternatively pick a topic that doesn't need to always be updated with the latest news like fitness. This allows you to create “ever-green content.”

Better than fitness of course is “fitness for over 50s.” Or “hardcore bodybuilding.” Or “fitness lifestyle for Mums.”

By honing in on a specific area within a niche, you will be able to speak to a far more specific type of person. You will have a smaller audience, but that audience will be far more engaged because you will be targeting them directly with something that really speaks to them. Your marketing will become far easier, because you will be able to use the “go-to market” strategy (identify where they spend time) and because you’ll know how to create something that your “buyer persona” will respond to.

So don’t just pick a big niche, pick a niche that is more specific to you. And pick one that will allow you to speak to a particular audience.

Choosing a Niche You Love and Know

One word of caution is that you should ALWAYS choose a niche that you know, love, and fully understand. One of the biggest mistakes that companies and “wannabe” influencers will often make, is to choose niches that they don’t really understand or have any stake in.

It is extremely common for someone with no understanding or interest in fitness to hire someone to write about fitness for them – who is also a generic writer with no fitness knowledge – and then to hope their content soars.

Firstly, you cannot become an influencer if you don’t practice what you preach and demonstrate the lifestyle that you’re promoting. No one wants to follow a fat and out of shape fitness influencer, or a makeup and beauty influencer who doesn’t wear any makeup!

Not only this, but the quality of content will always be FAR higher where the writer or creator actually understands and loves the subject.

THIS is the real key to becoming an influencer. To be an influencer, you need to be a thought leader. That means you need a message, and one that is interesting, challenging, and engaging.

The best writer in the world who doesn’t fully understand the fitness niche, will write articles such as “how to get abs” and “how to build big biceps.” These are entirely un-exciting subject matters that have been tackled countless times before across hundreds of websites. Suffice to say that this is not enough to build a big and engaged audience.

What’s worse, is that the writer might well rely on resources that are now out of date – not being fully aware of the most recent trends and developments in the fitness space.

Conversely, writing yourself as someone who knows and loves the subject will result in content that breaks new ground, that is challenging, and that offers value for other people who know and love the topic. THIS is how you build a following.

Finally, you need a niche you love simply because you need to write/talk/post about that thing every single day for years to come.

If the topic is bland to you, you won’t manage this.

Creating a Mission Statement and a Logo

Finally, you also need to create a mission statement and logo for your brand. You’ve chosen your niche, and you’ve honed in on one angle to make it unique and specific to you. Now all that is left is to create a brand from that concept.

You are the brand remember, so there’s no need to come up with a company name (probably). But what you might also consider doing, is creating a mission statement.

A mission statement is a statement of intent. This is what will define the purpose and message behind your content. What are you trying to say? To who? And why?

In other words, is your content about “getting filthy rich online and living the baller lifestyle – wearing suits, getting women, and

kitting out your apartment” or is it about “making money online doing something you love, so that you can spend more time with your family and kids.”

There is a HUGE difference here in the way that you will therefore market yourself, that you will promote yourself, and who you will target. What’s more, is that this will change your “value proposition.” That’s the kind of lifestyle you are promoting and offering, the kinds of benefits that someone should be able to gain by acting more like you and by following you.

Your logo should then speak to this. That is to say that your logo or at least the design choices you make around your website and your social accounts should all reflect this. If you handle your branding correctly, then someone should be able to look at your site or your social media account and instantly know if the content you are putting out is right for them!

 

Step #2 – Identify Your Content Style and Choose Your Platform

Now you know what you will be posting about, it’s time to decide how you’re going to do it. In other words, what is the best platform for you, and what type of content will you be creating?

Of course there is a massive difference between running a blog and writing blog posts, versus owning a YouTube channel and making videos. Instagram is very different again.

Which is the right platform for you?

The first thing to recognize is that you don’t have to stick to just one platform. I highly recommend that all influencers create a YouTube channel for instance. But it is also a very good idea that you have a Facebook account, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

The more platforms you’re on, the more ways your fans will have to engage with you. Not only that, but by being on multiple types of social media, you will constantly be popping up in their feeds.

This means that you’ll enjoy greater brand awareness – you’ll be on your audience’s minds more, and they’ll therefore feel more connected to you and what you have to say.

BUT with that said, it also makes sense for most creators to choose a “primary” platform where they will put in the most effort in order to create the biggest following and impact.

Which one should you choose?

Picking Your Platform

The answer might well be dictated by the type of brand you are creating, and the type of content you want to create. It also depends on what you’re confident doing.

Visual marketing works extremely well for influencers. A picture can “tell a thousand words” as they say, and that means that uploading a single image to Instagram can do much more to communicate your message or to create an emotional reaction in your audience, as compared with simply writing a fact.

This works particularly well for visual topics. That means things like fitness, like beauty, like art, like interior design. It also works well for promoting a lifestyle, so if you have a make-money topic, it will work well for showing off suits and more.

But you also need to be confident to put yourself out there on the platform and you need to “have the look” or at least be able to fake it.

One big plus of Instagram though is that it is very quick to create content, meaning that you can simply carry a camera with you to keep uploading new images. If you already lead the lifestyle you are looking to promote, then this becomes even easier!

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YouTube has many of the same benefits and weaknesses as Instagram. Being a visual medium, it is very easy to make a BIG impact quickly. At the same time though, it is also a very personal platform, meaning you need to be confident in crafting your look and now also speaking on camera (more on this in an upcoming chapter).

The other thing to think about, is how you are going to create these videos. These are much more time-consuming seeing as you’ll need to edit, you’ll need to record separate audio and video… There are ways to make the model more scalable. For instance, by recording more videos on your phone and having a more “personal” approach, you can create more content more quickly. But this doesn’t necessarily always fit.

If you can manage all that, then YouTube is a fantastic platform for really getting to know your audience, seeing as you’ll be speaking to them directly, with music and editing there to really hammer home the emotional points. You can create lots of unique content and target specific keywords and subject matters that others are not, and this can allow you to build an audience quickly.

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Creating a blog is another excellent option for influencers. This option is ideal for those that don’t want to go on camera themselves as much, or for topics that are more “cognitive.” If you want to write longer explainers and essays, and if your subject matter is less visual; then having a written format may make a lot more sense.

To create a blog, you can use a tool like WordPress and then buy your own hosting. This is surprisingly quick and easy to do, and if you make something that looks professional and provides lots of value, then you might be surprised at how quickly you can build an engaged and loyal audience.

Websites also lend themselves extremely well to a host of monetization methods and more. You can create an eCommerce store for instance, or you can link your site to your other social media accounts to show an Instagram feed or a Twitter feed right

in your side bar. It’s also easy to share posts you create to your social media accounts.

BUT creating this type of content again takes lots of time, it requires a little technical skill and writing ability, and it is far less

“immediately” impactful. What’s more is that getting noticed through a blog alone takes a lot longer and is much harder, owing to the lack of “platform.”

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There are plenty more options for influencers, from Snapchat, to Twitter, to Vine. However, all these options are a little less suited to being the “main” platform for one reason or another. In most cases, the type of content created is either very short, very temporary, or even live. This means that you will provide less value for advertisers and sponsors, and it will mean it’s harder to build up momentum.

While Twitter is an essential tool for getting to know your audience and giving them some insight into you every day for instance, it is much harder to BECOME an influencer on Twitter – so it is recommended that you choose YouTube, a blog, or Instagram as your main platform. The same is true for creating a Facebook page.

 

Step #3 – Create Content!

The next step is the most important one: actually creating content!

Why do people visit your site or your social accounts? Because they want information or entertainment. And how do you provide that? Through content!

Content is what will help people discover your site, and what will ensure they come back time and again. And the best way to create great content is to make sure that it provides value of some sort. A good question to ask yourself is always: would YOU read this?

Here are some tricks that will help you to create great content, regardless of the platform you’re on.

How to Create “Addictive” Written Content for a Blog

Want to write your articles in a way that will make them compelling, emotive and almost addictive to read? Want to sell more products and get more clicks by reall...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• What is an Influencer? And Introducing the “Micro Influencer”
• What Makes You An Influencer?
• Do You Have to Be a Celebrity?
• How to Become an Influencer – Knowing Your Strategy
• Creating Your Personal Brand
• The 3 C’s of Influencers
• Step #1 - Choosing Your Niche – The Most Important Decision You Will Make
• Example: Technology and Hardware
• The Solution To A Saturated Market
• Choosing a Niche You Love and Know
• Creating a Mission Statement and a Logo
• Step #2 – Identify Your Content Style and Choose Your Platform
• Picking Your Platform
• Step #3 – Create Content!
• How to Create “Addictive” Written Content for a Blog
• How to Create Professional and Engaging YouTube Videos
• How to Make Amazing Content for Instagram
• Taking Great Photos
• Step #4 – Engage Your Audience
• Interactions
• Different Mediums
• Engaging With The Community
• Step #5 – Network and Collaborate
• How and Why to Network as an Influencer
• Closing Thoughts – The Road to Influencer