By 
Social Media Influencers are people who build a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic. They make regular posts about that topic on their commonly used social media channels and generate large followings of interested people who pay attention to their products and services.
Influencers start and maintain social conversations, drive engagement, and set trends amongst a receptive and enthusiastic audience, allowing them to work with brands on sponsored content.
The definition of a social media influencer goes beyond the number of followers he can attract to your social media network or website. A brand must build engagement with your core audience and strengthen it slowly and steadily.
How to Become a Social Media Influencer
Here are a few steps that can help you in becoming a social media influencer:
1. Picking out a niche
One of the most critical steps before becoming an influencer is picking out a niche. You need to consider an area in which you are interested and make your target audience interested. It would help if you also considered topics to generate regular and quality content that keeps your audience engaged. Some influencers choose focussed subjects like fitness or beauty while others are more generic on the topics they write about.
2. Optimizing your Social Media profiles
After picking out your niche, the next step is optimizing your social media accounts. You need to make sure that you post regularly on your media accounts and keep in touch with your audience. Most influencers usually maintain one or two accounts and focus their efforts on them. Once you have decided which social media channels to work on, you can create new accounts or improve existing ones. Famous influencer Lele Pons started from the platform, Vibe, but ventured into YouTube after it closed in 2016.
3. Creating your profile
It is time to create an engaging biography, profile picture, and cover picture. These are the first things a person sees when clicking on your profile. It would be best to make sure that they engagingly explain your content and provide pertinent information such as your name, location, contact details, and areas of expertise. Your profile and cover pictures are essential in creating your brand identity. Select these pictures while keeping in mind that people usually recognize a brand by the logos or designs you make.
4. Building your audience
It is crucial to understand your audience. Influencers do not cater to all types of audiences but only to those with similar interests in the given niche. Most social media channels usually have built-in tools to help you through the process. It tells you what your followers mostly enjoy about your content, the amount of time they spend on your profile, the gender which follows your activity most, and much more.
5. Keep your posts regular and positive
Your content and interactions with your audience are often considered representative of your own personality. If you promise your audience that you will post at a particular time and then fail to do so, it creates a bad impression. Hence, keep your content regular and positive. Let people know you have an attractive, outgoing personality by your posts. Tell people about your achievements, or add engaging titbits about your personal life like travel and hobbies.
6. Be open to collaborations
Once you have a well-established brand, be open to collaborations with other well-established brands. This is one of the easiest and fastest ways to expand your business. You can label yourself as a brand that is interested in brand collaborations. You can do so by putting this information in your bio or providing your contact details to potential clients. Another option is to personally reach out to the brands you are interested in collaborating with by messaging them directly or tagging them in your posts.
Different websites provide tools that help you search for brands within the same niche. Collaborating with well-known brands is essential to build a name for yourself and expand your network. This may not lead to immediate results, but it will help you achieve your long-term goals.
Benefits of being a Social Media Influencer
1. Your influencer career can be a side job
One benefit of an online career is that you don’t have to quit your day job to pursue another career. You can start this career as a secondary hustle while keeping your regular job. It can also give you financial stability and another career to fall back on.
2. Financial stability
Once you establish yourself, you can make money out of it. Even if it is not much, you can still make a decent income from it and have fun doing it.
3. Most influencers work from Home
One of the main benefits these days is working from home. As most influence work is online, social media workers can enjoy working from the comforts of their home most of the time.
4. Flexible working Hours
As an influencer, you also have the privilege to structure your day any way you want. You can decide when you want to work and when not. This gives you an incredible feeling of freedom and much more productivity because nobody can dictate when or how to do your work.
5. You don’t need a degree to work
One significant benefit of becoming a social media influencer is that you don’t need a fancy degree or high educational skills to work. Your grades are not a concern as long as you keep producing content to keep your audience engaged. Thus, there are no barriers to who can become an influencer or not, and no one has any advantage over the other.
Some Famous Social Media Influencers
Some of the top social media influencers of recent times are:
- Cristiano Ronaldo: He is a renowned and respected football player. He is also one of the highest paid social media influencer and he gets paid $1.6 million per sponsored post.
- Addison Rae: She is an internet personality, actress, and model and rose to fame with her success on the video sharing app, Tik-Tok. She creates content on fashion, beauty, lifestyle and travel.
- Kylie Jenner: She is an internet personality and model mand has twice topped the Hopper’s annual list that ranks celebrities and sports stars according to how much they can earn for sponsored Instagram posts.
- Zach King: He gained popularity on the net with his funny vblogs and videos aimed to make people laugh. He is an illusionist, and filmmaker with over 24.6 million followers.
- Lele Pons: She is an actress, singer, model, and youtuber. She stated by uploading funny videos on the platform Vine and moved on to Youtube. She has co-authored a book, created a music video and also worked in a movies and television.
Start your journey towards becoming the next big social media influencer today.