More companies are utilizing influencer marketing strategies than ever. They use this strategy to help them boost brand exposure, reach more potential customers and draw in more sales. The marketing technique has two sides, though – the brand and, of course, the influencer. Without effective influencers, the marketing strategy would not be efficient and would not provide any positive results for the customer’s brand. While the technique has been used for many years now, it only became very popular in the last few years. If you have ever considered to dig into this goldmine as an influencer, then this is the perfect guide for you. We will be looking at the five-step influencer formula and we will be discussing the best ways you can make money from being an influencer.
5 Steps Formula for Influencers
If you’re reading this post, then there is a good chance that you would like to become an influencer, but you are not sure how to step into this world and start to cash in on this billion-dollar market. Truth is, you are not alone. Just as you and many other potential influencers are unsure of how to get started, many brands are also uncertain about how they can implement an influencer marketing strategy into their business model to get better exposure for their brand. Fortunately, a five-step formula has been created that helps beginners enter the world as influencers. The formula explains everything that needs to be done – by following the steps, any person who has a passion for something can build authority in a niche and become an influencer.
Step 1: Passion
The first step is to have a passion for something. You may be passionate about maintaining a healthy weight, collecting model cars, building muscles, styling hair or something else. When it comes to being a successful influencer, it is vital that you are passionate about the niche you are targeting. Only then will you be able to become truly successful and make real money.
Step 2: The Platform
Once you have found a niche that you are truly passionate about, the next step is to decide on a platform to start out with. A lot of people try to target all possible platforms when they only start out, but these people often find it difficult to build a following and authority on multiple platforms in the beginning and give up. The key is to start out with a single platform – do some research and find out where the target audience for your niche hangs out, then start with that platform. Once you have mastered the platform and have a large number of followers, you can think about moving to other platforms as well.
Step 3: Likable Content
Deciding on a platform will help you determine the best type of content you can create. For example, if you decide to start out with Sound Cloud, you’ll most likely start out with podcasts. If you start out with Twitter, you’ll need to come up with catchy tweets and add popular hashtags to reach your target audience. If you decided to start a blog instead, then you will need to write in-depth expert posts on different topics in your niche. The important part is to create content that is tailored towards the platform that you have chosen to start with, but at the same time you should focus on creating content that is likable – this will ensure readers are more likely to share your content and follow your accounts.
Step 4: Distributing Your Content
Writing content is important, but distributing the content is often considered to be even more important as your content is worthless if no one is able to find it. Thus, implementing an effective distribution strategy is essential if you plan on reaching a large following and obtaining authority in your niche – which is the only way to become a trustworthy influencer.
Step 5: Converting Your Influence into Cash
Finally, the most important step of the five step formula to becoming a successful influencer – conversions. Without conversions, all of your efforts would be worthless. Conversions are your ultimate goal and are what will bring in the money. It is also the best way of building better authority in your niche – a brand will be keener to hire you as an influencer if you can proof to them that you can convert their strategy into real sales. If you are not planning on providing a service as an influencer, then you need to make sure you gain enough conversions to ensure your specific monetizing method brings in enough cash to call it a business.
Making Money as an Influencer
After you have implemented the five steps of this formula, you should continue growing your audience and following until you reach a number that will mark you as a trustworthy and noteworthy influencer in your niche. When you reach this milestone, you can start to implement certain monetization strategies to start cashing in on your network. These are the most effective ways of making money as an influencer:
- You can provide a service as an influencer – brands can pay you to post content that promotes them on your blog and social media channels.
- You can promote products for brands and they pay you for every sale you refer to them. This is also called affiliate marketing.
- You can sell advertisement space on your blog, if you decided to use a blog as your influencer platform.
- Once you have a lot of authority in your niche, you can offer personal consultations and training via Skype and other messaging platforms at an hourly or fixed rate.
- Individuals and companies can hire you as a marketing coach.
- You can start your own influencer marketing agency, just like Proven SEO did, and offer sponsored blog posts and social media outreach to brands, bloggers and other clients.
These are, however, only a few ways you can monetize the network you have grown.
See More: Influencer Marketing: Top 7 Reasons Why It’s the Future
Final Words
Becoming an influencer in a certain niche takes time, patients and a lot of work, but it can be very rewarding if you follow the appropriate steps that are needed. As an influencer, you will often help brands and bloggers increase their awareness by providing different types of outreach services – such as a post or mention on your social media channels, or a sponsored post on your blog.
