Social media influencers are people who have gained their own mini-celebrity status within a niche or even in the mainstream. They are the trendsetters, now given a platform to display the things they find most appealing or show things to those looking for that ideal in the first place. Social media influencers are perhaps one of the most surprising trends to come from social media, but when critically thinking about their rise you realize it’s nothing but logical. Popularity hierarchies have and always will exist, so of course, they will blossom on a platform that supports this form of social connection, and encourages positive interaction.

You might wish to make it as a social media influencer. This could be part of your business efforts or your personal wish for stardom. You might wish to champion causes, or become a cause of cool, or do all of the above with a great degree of versatility. There is nothing wrong with keeping these as goals.

However, to begin you need to consider some of the following options. Many of them adhere to the standard marketing template of success but are tweaked to work within that environment. We will also make the assumption that you are an individual running your own account, so as to be clear and direct with our advice.

Without further ado:

Positivity

Positivity is something that is usually infused in the content of people who are popular. Unless they have a morbid fascination, it’s rare that people look to social media to feel awful or horrified. This is not how you grow with a positive reputation. Instead, always focus on the good, providing a snapshot of life how it could be without worry or stress. You need to promote yourself living the life that others want to live. This is why the will follow you. It might be that you are the most energetic and enthusiastic about cooking, or that you give your heart and soul to your workout demonstrations.

Positivity also means spreading a comforting, inspirational or educational message. People will be happy to instinctively share, like or favorite your posts from then on, as everyone can get behind a positive moment of support. Your posts needn’t be overly emotional or draining in their positive content, just energetic, vibrant and varied. This will help more people care about your page than you expect. To make people believe in your page, you need to believe in it first. You do that realizing that positive emotion or potential often underlies this feeling, and using that to your advantage can help people feel their recreational time spent using social media was worth it.

Stories

Marketing has always considered repeated exposure to be a positive tactic in the search for a larger audience. This means while you should post every few days at a minimum, you can pepper your regular contribution by using the ‘stories’ feature offered by most social media apps. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram all offer this potential. It might be an image, a message of positivity, a video or a behind-the-scenes look at the influencer behind the camera. This helps people continually remind themselves of your presence without feeling like you are spamming their feed – as it will be their complete choice to clear notifications.

A great benefit here is that your stories will disappear forever after a set amount of time – usually around 24 hours. This can help you continually refresh your story feed, and encourage people to view the current offering before they haven’t the chance to anymore. A great tool for marketing professionals is to facilitate urgency to your advantage. Story features like this help you do that by always instilling the ‘fear of missing out,’ in your followers who care. Then, as they view more of your content, they begin to feel connected to you and interested in your presence. The cycle will continue in your favor.

The best part? All of this is ethical, because you are never gating access, or forcing people to view content in order to follow you. It is simply a nice addition, offered if users are looking to engage with this content.

Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience is important to growing as a social media influencers. Let’s say you’re a makeup artist. It might be that offering tutorials, conducting product reviews and showing your face in many different getups could be the content your audience is looking for. But how might you spice it up? You could visit makeup factories or headquarters and document the tour, learn the history of a certain brand and present that, or find hidden deals to promote.

Before long, you’ll find yourself connecting with companies to help you subtly expose products, and become paid for the promotion. This will all be clear for those who click the image, as social media offers the ability to suggest your post was in synchronicity with a business. Buy Instagram likes to help you buttress the weight of each post. This can help you monetize your profile.

Remember that each audience is different though. For example, it might be you run a history Instagram detailing the development of old-school blacksmith techniques in creating swords. Content changes depending on if you’re making yourself the main feature or the goods you’d like to show. You might also market differently, switching from products to history tours, or any other forms of saleable experience.

Know your audience, and you will know how to monetize your profile. This takes planning, experimentation, and a little assumption, but before long you’ll find a winning formula.

Edit Outside Of The App

Remember that you’re selling an ideal here. Marketing is all about selling the ideal. It’s about having someone think that with a certain product or good, they will find a solution to their current problem, or they will experience something memorable. This means that taking methods of showing this ideal is important.

For example, let’s say you are an Instagram influencer. Do you think leaving the filtering and image editing to the Instagram app is enough? If you’re to sell an ideal, it’s always worthwhile to edit outside of the app professionally, with a creative suite such as Photoshop.

This helps you stand above the competition and helps you provide the content people want to see, the content they weren’t expecting or gravitate to. This doesn’t mean you need to doctor images to make them completely different to the authentic source, but that sometimes, accentuating will take a little more effort. Consider your influencing platform an advertising platform. While it’s generated by human and relatable content, monetizing will always require that little extra.

With these tips, becoming known as a social media influencer will be a practical reality.