EGO’s Ultimate Guide on How to Become an Influencer

So, are you wondering how to become an influencer? Want to switch your 9-5 in favour of something you LOVE? Think that being an influencer is your calling in life? Or are you just looking to set up a seriously cool side hustle? Whatever your reason is for wanting to become an influencer, we have all the answers you could possibly need and more!

If you want to follow in the steps of Molly-Mae, Addison Rae, Jordan Lipscombe and Saffron Barker, then you’re in the right place! We’re gonna fill you in on EVERYTHING you need to know in order to become an influencer. In this in-depth guide, we’ll share all the tips, tricks and steps you need to take to become social media’s next big thing.

Do you want to naturally grow your following, create and share inspiring content and get paid to do it all? If so, then keep scrolling and check out our guide on how to become an influencer.

What is an influencer? 

(Source: @zoesugg)

The first step in our ‘How to Become an Influencer’ guide is understanding exactly what an influencer is. 

An influencer is someone who has the power to influence people’s buying decisions, because of their knowledge, appearance, or relationship with their audience. Successful influencer’s opinions are held very highly by their audience. As an influencer, the key to success is growing an engaged following of people who value and trust your opinions and would purchase products based on your actions and opinions.

Different types of influencers

Ok so now we know exactly what an influencer is, let’s talk about the many different ‘types’ of influencers. 

Believe it or not, there’s not just one ‘type’ of influencer out there, in fact influencers are often split into four sections depending on their following: mega-influencers, macro-influencers, micro-influencers and nano-influencers.

Despite the fact you may only follow one type of influencer yourself, there’s actually a lot of different genres of ‘influencers’ out there, from fashion and beauty, to food and fitness, there’s influencers for just about every topic or niche out there. 

(Source: @chyldn_)

How to become an influencer

Ahh, here we are. The question we ALL want to know the answer to! If only the answer was as simple as ‘do this’ or ‘post that’. But fear not, we’ve got the answers you’ve been looking for. 

From creating strong content, to finding your niche, there are a lot of key factors that go into becoming a successful influencer, all of which we’ve covered in this guide to ‘become an influencer’.  If you start working your way through our list and tick off every point in this article, you’ll be well on your way to finding your feet in the influencer world in no time!

(Source: @missjoslin)

How to find your niche

This part is SO important! Think about what you love, something that you genuinely enjoy, something you look forward to doing or talking about and would choose to do in your spare time or for fun!

It’s important to decide your niche early on, so you can consistently create and post content you’re interested in. If you don’t decide on your niche your content may appear disjointed and messy, which can be off putting for your audience.

It’s always beneficial to have some sort of knowledge or expertise in your chosen niche area, this will help you stand out from other influencers, and assert a sense of authority over your following. Letting them know you’re here to share your knowledge will entice them to stick around and become invested in your content. Sharing your knowledge adds value to your content and you’re sharing expertise with your audience, not just a pretty picture.

It’s important to have a genuine passion for your selected niche, so it can remain your focus and you don’t lose interest after a couple of weeks. Whether you love fashion, beauty, cooking, dancing, dogs or DIY hacks, once you’ve decided on your niche, everything will start to fall into place. 

Your love for your chosen niche will shine through and set you apart from those who are clearly posting for the sake of it. It will make you more relatable and you’ll enjoy your journey to becoming an influencer too!

(Source: @mrshinchhome)

How to understand your audience

Before you begin posting on your chosen social media platforms, it’s important to think about who your target audience is. Try and understand your audience; what they’re looking for, the type of content they enjoy, what they engage with. It’s important to cater to your audience, not just post for the sake of it. If you know who you’re targeting and why, it’ll help you to develop a clear plan of action. 

Having a strong understanding of who your audience is, why they’re following you and what they want or need from you will help you to grow a loyal and highly engaged following. 

So, where to start? You need to analyse your current follower base and make an effort to get to know your audience using analytics tools. The majority of social media platforms have built in insights which are invaluable when researching your audience. Finding out your audience’s age, interests, social media habits and much more will help you create a clear picture of who your followers are and what kind of content they engage with.

How to boss your socials

Possibly the most important part yet, becoming a social media expert! Now there’s a few key points to this, so we thought we’d split it into sections:

(Source: theempowermentagency)

Select your social channels

Once you’ve nailed your niche and figured out your audience, the next step is deciding which platforms you’ll be posting your content on and why. 

Selecting your social channels should be based on a few key things; the type of content you enjoy creating and where it performs best, which platforms other influencers in your niche have the best engagement on and which platforms your target audience use. It’s best to choose just one or two channels to focus on, so you’re not spreading yourself too thinly across multiple channels. You’re more likely to succeed if you consistently post strong content across one or two channels, as opposed to sporadically posting across 6.

Post consistently

Being consistent is key. By consistently, we mean posting somewhere between once every other day, or twice every day.

The majority of social algorithms will work in your favour if you post consistently. Your audience will become used to your consistent posting habits and start to expect or look out for your content. This adds to your reliability as an influencer.

Posting consistently will also increase your reach as the more you post, the more people are seeing your content.

Switch to a business account 

This will set you apart from other users and also allows great insight into your following and engagement, as well as access to additional tools or features.

Write an engaging bio

Remember this is the first thing people will see when they visit your page, the first thing they’ll learn about you! It’s important to include your name and any other information you want your audience to know about you. Bios are unique to you.

Profile Prep

Ensure you have a strong profile picture and cover image. Think about what you want the first impression of you or your business to be when people view your profile. Does your chosen photo capture what you want to focus on, does it clearly show your niche? Is it the kind of image you want your following to associate you with? Make it personable, this helps too!

How to grow your following

Once you’re bossing your socials, it’s time to grow your following! There’s SO many ways that you can grow your following, but it’s important to cover these key 7 points:

• • Post consistently  (at least once a day)
  • Use all Instagram’s features (stories, feed posts, reels, etc)
  • Research your hashtags
  • Create strong, relatable, inspirational or educational content
  • Collaborate with others
  • Engage with your audience
  • Use your analytics

How to create great content

(Source: @saffronbarker)

Content is key! You want your content to look good, to be of high quality and keep people engaged. You need to produce content that has real value, that will make people stop scrolling and engage.

If you’re wondering how to do this for your chosen niche then ask yourself, what do you want to see? What type of content would you engage with? Research what works for other influencers with a similar audience to yours.

It’s important to consider the type of content you’d like to produce and research all your options before you start. You’ll need to decide whether you’d like to stick to one content type i.e. still images, or use a variation. The content style you chose should be something you both enjoy creating and can create. Consider how you’ll continue to create your chosen content type on a regular basis and try to avoid choosing something you may find challenging or too time consuming to create as this will make it difficult to post consistently.

It’s also important to consider your aesthetic, do you want an aesthetically pleasing, perfectly planned feed? Or would you proffer your content to be more authentic, natural and personable? It’ll be beneficial to decide this early on, so you’re not changing your content and confusing your following.

While some influencers tend to stick with their chosen niche and keep their personal lives separate, other influencers like to mix it up with personal posts. Posting personal content can make you seem more relatable and personable to your audience, helping them to get to know you and trust your opinions. Ultimately personal content can strengthen the connection you have with your audience.

You should aim to consistently create and share content that’s focused on your chosen niche, with personable or educational content included throughout.

(Source: @lucymountain)

How to engage with your audience

It’s important to build a strong relationship with your audience. After all you can’t just ignore them, then expect them to consistently engage with your content. You need to give them a reason to stay and engage!

If you consistently engage with your audience, you’ll build a connection with them. This will make them want to continue to engage with your content. It’s great to get into the habit of replying or reacting to your followers comments or messages, especially if they’re asking you a question. If you’re posting strong, engaging content that your audience resonates with and they ask questions you persistently ignore, they’ll eventually get fed up and stop following you or engaging with your content. Something as simple as ‘liking’ your followers comments can make a huge difference.

Another great way to engage with your audience and build a strong relationship is by asking them questions. You could post a story asking them something, include a question in your content or simply ask a question in your caption, whatever you feel will work best for your target audience.

How to attract brands

(Source: @leabroc)

Finally, the section you’ve been waiting for! How to attract brands? Think about what type of brands you want to attract, what content they like/engages well for them and whether your content matches that. 

One simple, yet really important thing you need to do in order to make yourself available for brand collaborations is make it really easy to contact you! Whether that’s using your chosen social platform’s ‘contact’ features, or just including a contact email in your bio.

If there’s a specific brand you’d like to work with and feel your audience would like, then there’s no harm in reaching out and pitching a collaboration to them. It’s important to tell them why you think a collaboration would work and how your content and audience is relevant for their brand.

 

How to measure your progress

Analytics are your best friend! As mentioned in the ‘How to understand your audience’ section, the majority of social platforms have their own built in insights or analytics features. These are SO helpful when it comes to measuring your progress. Analytics tools offer you invaluable insights into your follower growth, content engagement, reach and much more. If you spend time analysing your insights, it’s so easy to figure out what is and isn’t working for you content wise and what steps to take in order to improve this and continue to grow your following.

 

EGO’s fav influencers and why

If you’re looking for a lil inspo, then why not check out our favourite influencers?

@winnieharlow

@mollymaehague

Molly-Mae is literally the definition of an influencer. Just incase growing her Instagram following to over 5 million wasn’t enough, she’s also got almost1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and thousands more across her TikTok and Twitter accounts, this girl is unstoppable!

Shop Molly-Mae x EGO HERE

@bethdevonx

We’re forever obsessing over Beth’s effortlessly chic style. She certainly knows how to style up a killer pair of boots!

@jillyisabella

ALL Jilly’s outfits are iconic. She’s our go to for seriously chic street style. Steal her style with our Oozy Flat Mules HERE

@addisonraee

What’s not to love about everyone’s favourite TikToker Addison Rae? If you wanna know exactly why we’re so obsessed with Addison, have a read of blog post Who is Addison Rae? Meet TikTok’s Highest Earner

Our top tips for standing out from the crowd

Just be yourself! It’s important not to just copy what other people are doing because it’s working for them, you have to be unique in your content and approach. That’s how you become personable with your following, by being your own unique self, not following the crowd. It’s you they’re interested in, not your version of someone else’s work.

Ok, so now you know EVERYTHING about how to become an influencer,  it’s time to upgrade your wardrobe. Shop new in influencer must-haves HERE.

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