Become an Influencer and Make Money in 2020
Become an influencer? Make money with your Instagram page or YouTube channel. It is the dream of many people. Have many followers and leave a positive impact. You are then an influencer!
Social media brings a breath of fresh air in the socialization life of the world community. Thanks to his presence, many people find it easier to socialize, add new friends, expand connections, and at the same time give more influence and become an influencer. Yes, for the last reason, you could say it’s a dream of many people who play social media.
Being a person who gives more influence aka influence can bring a lot of benefits, for yourself and also others. Many people are curious about how to become an influencer on social media. And that’s what this article is about. I will discuss how to become an influencer yourself, what you have to take into account, and how influencers earn their money.
What is an influencer?
Okay, first to the base. What is an influencer? It is funny that there is no direct definition of this online, so I will design one myself. We could now say that everyone is an influencer because everyone makes an impact on at least one person’s life. But for this article, I just delineate the term, because we both know that we mean something different when we use the word ‘influencer’.
“An influencer is someone with a large social media presence that results in a visible influence on his or her followers.”
Do you want to become an influencer? Then you will have to think from that definition. How can you make an impact on a large group of people? When you think from that side, the ways to become an influencer also make more sense. You don’t become an influencer by filming a boring life or taking pictures of it. Only the first influencers could do that (Enzo Knol and Co), but since the market is saturated, you will really have to come up with something better. What makes your life special and who is it fun to follow? We are looking for your niche while you become an influencer.
Target group or niche of an influencer
Back in the days, not long ago, you could just put a camera on your life, post videos on Youtube and Instagram, and you were an influencer. That was possible then because it was unique in itself. After all, not everyone filmed his or her life. But times now are different. Everyone has their own social media channel with good photos or videos. So basically everyone is an influencer.
It is for this reason that you will have to do your utmost to distinguish yourself from the crowd. There are so many influencers that you really don’t stand out with a normal boring life. So you will have to have something unique or communicate to a specific target group. In marketing we call this a niche 😉.
Just to explain that. The website you are currently on is for people who want to live as a digital nomad (a combination of work and travel). That is the ‘niche’ of this website. A niche is therefore literally a defined target group and that is important. As marketers sometimes say, when you sell to everyone, you don’t sell to anyone.
If you want to become an influencer you will have to choose a niche yourself on which you will focus.
As an influencer, it is wise to focus on a specific target group. They will feel more appealed when you make specific content (photos or videos) for this. So choose a target group/niche that suits you and you can get started with the next step.
The next step to becoming an influencer is to set up social media. First of all, of course, you have to choose which platform you want to work on. Here Instagram and Youtube are by far the most used. But you can also get started on platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Pinterest. When setting up your channel, choose a clear tone-of-voice (how to appeal to the followers). Regularly post appropriate content that matches the target group and becomes a ‘thought leader’.
Provide beautiful images or photos and ask yourself continuously, ‘why would someone in the target group want to follow me?’. If you have a correct answer to that question, you will get followers. If you only do it for the money, popularity, or lack of self-esteem, you’re not going to achieve anything. That’s the hard truth.
What you often see in the landscape of influencers is that many have become known without the goal in itself. The goal was to contribute positively to others’ lives and that gives people many followers. The goal was not to become a well-known influencer. Often they eventually became, but this is the approach.
Make Scheduled Posts
In making posts on social media, you should not plan suddenly or carelessly. You need to make the best schedule and according to your preferences. For example every day one post or in one week there are 3-4 posts. Adjust what you want.
Besides, do not just think of beautiful photos, but also think of a good caption in a language, neatly arranged, and can provide new insight to people who read it. Thus your posts can become a complete package that can make people inspired and continue to want to follow your activities.
Keep learning
Yes, in life, of course you have to keep learning. Likewise, when you want to become an influencer. There are many many things that you must learn slowly. It can start from how to make a good photo, make a good caption, what angle should be sought to become a post on social media, as well as other things. Following the other influencers’ way is also the right way to become an influencer. Don’t be afraid to learn from others. By continuing to learn, your efforts to become an influencer can be more open and have a better future for this.
That’s the way to become an influencer on social media that you can do right now. Do the above so that your business can be even more effective. Don’t forget to give your comments about this article and don’t forget to share this article on your social media too. May be useful!
More and more followers as an influencer
The next step, of course, is to keep posting content and hope your account grows. Of course you will initially have friends and family who want to support you as an influencer, but how do you get those 100K followers? That is a good question, and the internet answers it as follows.
- Provide (a lot of) interaction with the followers
- Use hashtags
- Post only valuable content, quality over quantity
- Get inspiration from other influencers
- Link your social media together
- Ensure a clear brand through recurring colors and styles
- Use location tags
- Talk along with current events in your niche
- Get interactive with top influencers
- Look for collabs with people with more followers
- The maintainer also wins here
What you notice especially in the growth of followers is that it never runs linear. Assume that you put in as much effort at the beginning as after a few years, but that you don’t get anything in return at the beginning and that you get more in return after a few years than seems logical. Accounts on Instagram and Youtube are growing exponentially. Your first thousand followers as influencers are as much trouble as your next ten thousand.
It is for this reason that many novice influencers drop out before they achieve success. They do not have the patience and do not persevere long enough. They give up, because all the work they put in does not pay off at that moment. That is frustrating, of course, but something you have to go through to achieve success while you become an influencer.
Become an Influencer and Make Money
Okay, so I’m a marketer, and I sometimes have to deal with influencer marketing. That is literally marketing via influencers. A company wants to sell a product and asks an influencer to promote this product via his or her social media. The influencer promotes the product, gets paid for it and the company sells more products as a result.
Companies have recently been literally jumping to work with more influencers. Influencers, as the word says, have an influence on their followers. Influencer marketing is therefore super-efficient and often cheaper than, for example, television campaigns.
Another advantage of influencer marketing for a company is that it is very clear who is the target group of an influencer. The company then immediately knows whether this is going to match well with the product. Many other types of media such as newspapers and television are more shooting with hail in that respect.
To earn money with influencer marketing as an influencer, you must first have a large number of active followers. Not only the number of followers is important, but especially how active these followers are with your content. Do they share and like a lot? Then as an influencer you can earn more money.
You can of course approach them to find these companies, but networks have also been set up for this. They make it significantly easier for you and the companies to find each other. But to find it (I’m not going to promote any of it here) it’s best to google ‘influencer marketing’.
Other ways to make money as an influencer
But it doesn’t stop with those collaborations with companies. There are many other ways influencers make money. Namely in the following ways.
Affiliate marketing
Influencers link to products or services. If a follower purchases the product or service via that link, the influencer will receive a commission for this. > Read more about affiliate marketing
Merchandise
Influencers can sell merchandise of their own. Think of the Yes Theory clothing line with ‘Seek Discomfort’ on it.
Own online product
Some influencers also start selling their own e-book or video course.
Speaker at events
If you have a speaker talent or are skilled, you can also contribute to events as a guest speaker.
Membership content
As an influencer you can also earn money by having part of your content protected against payment. This makes more sense for Youtubers than for Instagrammers 😉.
Donations
It does not sound like a logical one, but there are certainly opportunities as an influencer to make pure money from donations. If you do the right thing, people want to give something for that.
Conclusion To Become an Influencer
You don’t become an influencer, but you are. Actually, that often goes without saying. You are an interesting person and share interesting content. People find you fascinating and will automatically follow you. Before working on your number of followers, it never hurts to work on your personality first.
Take yourself seriously and don’t become an influencer because you like to make money, because there are better ways to do that online. Become an influencer because you want to contribute to the collective. Because you know your ideas are worth hearing.
Good luck!
