Being a global influencer has become a big part of the business sector. It is the next marketing strategy being embraced by brands to expand their reach as well as land more sales for their businesses.
A decade ago, no one could have thought that a new word such as “influencer” would be added to the marketing terms. Prior to the evolution of the social web as a vital business tool, it used to be a platform for a virtual community. With social media accounting for not less than 3.6 billion active users, brands that seek to expand their reach, as well as drive sales, may collaborate with influencers. Do you know the reason?
Influencers, especially on social media platforms, are celebrities, social media users, or bloggers who have built and maintained a community of devoted large followers who anticipate recommendations and expert advice from them.
Beats by Dre headphones by Apple have gained so much popularity simply because celebrities, such as LeBron James and the Kardashians have promoted them in TV commercials.
Does collaboration with influencers really work?
The current market is already saturated such that introducing your product or service all by yourself may not do much wonders. One of the major marketing strategies employed by big brands to reach out to their customers is influencer marketing. The reason is not farfetched from the array of benefits that accrue to such a partnership.
Influencer marketing is a proven way to reach a bigger audience. This is because influencers are popular people with hundreds of thousands or over a million followers on Instagram or Snapchat, or YouTube and can establish personal connections with them. Another distinguishing feature of influencers is that they often add their unique and authentic voices to their content, which earns them the trust and loyalty of their followers.
As a strong medium of product or service promotion, influencer marketing helps to get more leads to a brand website, which, consequently, drives sales. The central idea of influencers revolves around impacting the purchasing decisions of consumers positively.
Leveraging your influencer gift for your business
Becoming a global influencer like GaryVee doesn’t just occur by chance. It requires serious effort, such as dedication, persistence, and positivity. You can leverage your influencer gift to educate and share your message with the world through the following ways:
1. Creating a brand with a feeling
As already established, no one becomes an influencer by sheer luck. Global influencers decide on their look and feel. They are not a jack of all trades. They are often experts in certain categories, such as travel, lifestyle, fashion, food, beauty, sports, technology, etc. You may have to ask yourself a few questions. What niche best aligns with your image or further represents your strengths? The niche you must select must be the one in which you have some level of expertise. Besides, being specific about your niche is critical to streamlining your audience while also adapting your content to suit their demands.
Of all the categories, there are some that could be paired with each other. Take, for instance, beauty and fashion niches align with each other.
Select your desired social media platform
After choosing your niche, the next is to select the social media platforms where you have the most of your audience. Remember that web presence is the core of influencer marketing. Certain platforms are suitable for certain niches.
For instance, Instagram and Snapchat will be the most suitable platforms for influencers that target millennials as audiences. Instagram or Pinterest, especially, will work best for a fashion blogger than other social media platforms just like Twitter will work best for influencers that target entrepreneurs, digital marketers, and content creators.
Notwithstanding, that does not mean you should not try out other platforms if you do not get the desired results on a certain platform. However, one to two channels are enough to get your focus and effort. After that, set your profile or optimize your existing one to suit the new purpose.
Create a compelling bio
Nothing could be more inviting than a well-coordinated social media bio. Remember this is the first impression your target audience has about you. Also, add a profile pic or cover photo as it is critical to creating your personal brand identity.
2. Share your personal brand story
As a global influencer, you are expected to have built a certain degree of recognition, accrued a certain reputation, or attained a realm of influence. Think of who you are and who you are not, personality traits that attract you to other people, your beliefs, your source of inspiration, etc. This is a way to understand your purpose and passion. Remember you want to engage and move your audience to share similar and abiding faith in your personal brand.
A compelling personal brand story aims at building a long-term relationship with your audience and one of the ways to tell it is through the pieces of content you post to your blog, website, or social media platforms. You should be able to weave your personality, values, and experiences into the content you provide to your audience, through storytelling. This becomes the foundation of how your followers form opinions about as well as establish relationships with your brand.
It is also important that you create your unique tone of voice by adding unique traits to every piece of content you create. This is the unique selling proposition (USP) that serves as your signature, distinguishing you from other influencers. Above this, be specific about your content posting frequency and schedule.
Create and post relevant content consistently
Becoming a global influencer requires you to publish unique and relevant content to your audience. Your content strategy should involve content that will provide value to your audience. When they like your content, they get hooked and engage with it. The more engagement you have with your audience, the more they, together with prospects, get influenced by your recommendations and opinions.
Usually, influencers do not mix their personal lives with their niche posts unless they are relevant. Take for instance; a food influencer might post recipes and photos of the restaurant visits they had to further drive home their message. They can also review restaurants and food brands.
Influencers that integrate a dash of their personal lives into their content get a better connection with their audience. This is because they seem relatable and more authentic. Irrespective of the content strategy you select, the goal is to make the type of content you prefer (blog posts, photos, videos, or podcasts) niche-focused and broad enough to cater for future brand collaborations.
3. Be your authentic self
Every day, influencers are faced with decisions that affect people’s portrayal of them as either authentic or inauthentic. Some influencers compromise their authenticity to get themselves ahead faster. However, their secrets often get blown within a short period. Authenticity is one of the most important traits required to be successful as an influencer. People are becoming so informed that they can easily puncture through any fake content or portrayal.
Besides, impacting others requires that you stay true to yourself by being authentic in your words, actions, and ways of living. Authenticity is about being real rather than fake. The community of customers and clients devote themselves to brands that are genuine, honest, and trustworthy in their dealings.
Just like a reality TV show, people are easily captured with true representation. As an influencer that seeks to impact the world through their message, your offline identity should not be in dissonance with your online representation where physical laws do not apply. Building a community of loyal customers that consequently trust a brand is not something that can be purchased. Rather, it comes from being real.
Being authentic also goes along with being vulnerable. Just like influencers are human beings, the audiences are too. You should be able to share your weaknesses too. It demonstrates you are relatable, thus making you more real.
4. Feed your clients what they are hungry for
Usually, influencers do not cater for every category of audience. Rather, they attempt to influence audiences that share similar interests with them. These followers are those that grow to become loyal clients. Thus, becoming an influencer requires you to know whom you are targeting – that is, in terms of their age, gender, religious belief, social status, areas of interest, among others.
To better understand your audience, you may have to carry out some analyses on your existing follower base to gain some insights. Such insights could be gained through in-built analytics tools as provided by some social media platforms. Twitter Analytics, for instance, provides insights into current followers’ genders, interests, locations, etc.
With this on the ground, you should engage with your clients in such a way that you understand their pain points and provide them with what they need to be satisfied. This can be known if you ask questions and seek their opinions. At those points, listen carefully to them and take action on reasonable requests they make.
Key Takeaway
Being a global influencer has become a big part of the business sector. It is the next marketing strategy being embraced by brands to expand their reach and land more sales for their businesses. Achieving the best impact requires you to employ the right platform and strategy.
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