One of the most lucrative online jobs anyone can get into these days is becoming a social media influencer. It is not as simple as it looks, especially from the start. Growing an audience can be difficult at first, as there is a lot of competition on social media networks, and many influencers give up too soon. Services such as SocialGreg can be used to give your online presence a boost at the beginning, which helps the algorithm work in your favor.
Researching The Competition Before You Start
It is important that you take a look at other social media influencers in your preferred niche before you start crafting your social media strategy. This is not to say that you should outright copy other influencers. Use their content as a learning tool, so you can avoid their mistakes and learn from their successful posts. You can also take note of what is missing in their content, and provide it yourself. This is a great way to differentiate yourself from other influencers so that viewers will come to your channel or page instead of theirs.
Posting Regularly
The internet moves fast. If you stop posting on social media for as little as a week, you may quickly find that your viewers have forgotten you and moved on. If you want to be a social media influencer, you should be treating your online presence as a job, and constantly engage with your growing audience. As long as you have an engaged audience, you can leverage deals as an influencer.
How Do Influencers Make Money?
Everyone is on social media, but not everyone with a large audience is considered an influencer (in the professional sense). Influencers make money in a number of ways. Some social networking platforms such as YouTube allow people to earn from advertisements that are placed in and around their content. But that is only a small part of how influencers earn money.
Most influencers are able to leverage sponsorship deals, whereby companies and brands offer them a monthly “salary” to market their products in a non-promotional way. That means that instead of influencers openly advertising a product, they are using the product and commenting on it online, raising brand awareness and influencing the consumer opinion of their followers. Therefore, influencers with larger audiences are able to get better sponsorship deals because they have the potential to influence a larger portion of the population.
Another way that many influencers are able to earn their living is by posting affiliate links. This is an easier method because it does not require an exceptionally large following to work. The influencer simply reviews a product and adds the affiliate link somewhere in their content. Every time a viewer clicks on the link or buys the product, they earn a commission. Of course, a larger audience is still preferable here, but there is a lower minimum requirement because affiliate programs do not generally involve a contract between the influencer and the company that needs marketing.
