How to be an influencer: 9 tips to reach people and have followers

The media have evolved and with them also the way to become famous. While singers, actresses and celebrities on TV are still quite admired figures, a new type of celebrity has emerged in recent years: influencers.

Influencers can be everything, but they all share the trait of being content creators. Drawings, music, film reviews, exercise routines... there are many types of content in the form of photos and videos that, due to their originality or because they have offered something of very good quality, has catapulted them to the fame.

Getting to be an influencer is not easy, but not impossible. There are several aspects that must be taken into account to ensure that our YouTube channel or Instagram account becomes influential. Next we are going to learn how to be an influencer.

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How to be an influencer: a challenge for thousands of people

With the rise of social networks and large content publishing platforms, more and more people want to be influencers

. Influencers are defined as people who contribute content on a certain topic, be it photos or videos, which are original, of good quality or simply have been successful and serve as a reference for many people. As these people have many followers, companies and commercial brands see them as a very effective platform to promote their products.

Today, influencers are admired people, on the same level as singers, actors and other celebrities. For this reason, many are those who enter the world of social networks, whether they are Instagram, Youtube, Twitter or Facebook, publishing all kinds of content and waiting to see if they get some fame. The problem is that they do not know how complex, competitive and select this world is, with which most end up failing in their attempt to become influencers.

Not everyone is an influencer or knows what to do. There are many aspects to take into account when publishing content that makes the posts, photos and videos that we publish have impact or not, and of course, if we do not get many people to see and interact with what we upload, we will not be able to earn the title of influencers. No matter how influential we are, if no one follows us, we are no one.

If the content that we post is not original and it is not competitive either, we will not stand out among the many users who try to be successful. in this community. Below we will see a few tips to make the content we publish, in the form of photos or videos, on any of the social networks that we can think of.

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Tips to be an influencer and manage your digital identity

Let's see some tips to become influencers or, at least, that our content attracts attention and not only provide a lot of "likes", but also a quality and relevant audience taking into account the type of content that we generate.

1. Set a goal

Before starting to publish content, we must first ask ourselves what we want to post. Not everything is fair, since an account that publishes highly diverse and unspecialized content tends to go quite unnoticed. We must set a goal when opening the account on the social network, choosing the subject and type of audience we want to attract.

It is essential to be clear about what we want to hang. Whether they are recipes, exercise routines, drawings that we have made... all of them are specific content that must be related to the name of the account or, at least, its biography.

We must also set ourselves the goal of publishing the content with a certain frequency.. Ideally, the frequency of publication should be between 3 or 4 days minimum.

2. Talk about the subject that we master

People have many skills but in some we are better and in others worse. We must know what our strengths are and what we are good at and start there. We can only be influencers if the content we post is of quality and shows that we master it. If we do, our followers and the brands that may advertise to us will be interested in us.

Whether it is of a specific training (p. eg, nutrition, medicine, psychology ...) as if it is a hobby (p. e.g. sport, music, art ...) our content must show that we know what we are talking about or what we do, which will allow us to compete with other accounts that offer the same type of content but not in as careful a way as ours does. Of course, we must try to have a certain originality, something special that makes our content a little different, something new.

3. Avoid diversification

Closely related to the previous point, we must avoid diversification, that is, talking about anything. It is true that there are many influencers who have channels and secondary accounts where they talk about content that is little or nothing related to their main account, however, We must not forget that these people became famous for the specific content they offered on their first account.. When they saw that they were successful enough, they dared to open more accounts.

We can't do this, at least for now. First we must wait for the first account that we have opened has some kind of repercussion. If this is not the case, what we should consider is changing the content type of the main account, not opening a new one. In case we get lucky and get famous with the first account, yes we can consider opening a new one with a different theme, but understanding that it is still an action risky.

4. Be original

As we have mentioned, there are many who try to be influencers and it always happens that there are thousands of accounts specialized in the same subject. Each of these accounts has it really difficult to offer 100% original content, since there are so many competition and there are so many contents that are offered it is very rare that something radically different from what the others is published offer.

We may see another author's content and get inspired to post something. For example, if we have a drawing account, we may see the art of another account and we want to make a drawing of his but with our style. That's fine as long as we give credit to original source, in addition to asking the author for permission and thanking him for allowing us to do so.

What we should never do is copy ourselves from influencers, or take content that has gone viral and publish it on our account hoping that some clueless user ends up in our account believing that we are the original source of the same. Copying is not only ethically wrong and users of the social network will see us as an unoriginal and honest account. In addition, all social networks have algorithms that detect SPAM, causing our account to be closed for violating the rules of the community.

5. Take care of the photos and videos we publish

It seems obvious that to be a good influencer it is necessary to take care of the photos and videos that we publish, but the truth is that many are those who do not. The quality of the multimedia contents of our site must be taken into account., since in many occasions they become the letter of introduction for new followers and, also, it is what our most loyal “followers” ​​look for. Poor image quality is synonymous with lazy content creator.

Regardless of the type of photo or video that we upload, the important thing to keep in mind is that it looks sharp, with a good composition and with the right light. If necessary, we must pass it through a filter, a functionality that all smart phones have in their camera. Taking into account the great facilities that smartphones offer us, Nowadays, making quality videos and photos is not something complicated at all.

6. Add and care for the text

It is highly recommended that the publications are accompanied by some text. The text should be short, direct and hooked. In case of happening to us with the extension, what can happen is that we waste a lot of time working on a text that nobody knows. is going to read, since when social networks are used, people do not want to read "textacos", but look at images and relax.

In addition to being short, the text must be well written, without spelling mistakes and using an appropriate register depending on the type of content we publish. Publication and text must be at the same quality level, since if the written part is not pleasant to read, it can give the feeling that the person who publishes it is lazy, lazy and ignorant.

7. Have quality followers

Many people believe that to be a successful influencer you need to have a large following. That is true, but only in part. The most important thing is to have quality content that has served to attract those followers, and not the other way around. However, many prefer to go to platforms that offer paid followers which are nothing more than bots, fake profiles that do not interact with the content and are highly susceptible to the page's algorithms eliminate.

Buying followers is not recommended at all. First, because it means spending money on something totally unnecessary. Second, because an account that has followers that are clearly bots gives the feeling that it is uninteresting, even a little illegal. And third, because we are going to lower the quality of our content, which will make our account uncompetitive and we will really have little influencers.

We are interested in having quality followers, real people who interact with our publications, provide content, criticism and suggestions, in addition to sharing our publications. These people are the ones who in real life will talk about our account, recommend it to their friends and through word of mouth they will make our page grow.

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8. Be honest with advertising

Influencers with the most followers are coveted by brands, and this is not a bad thing, quite the contrary.. Television and newspapers have begun to lose steam, being replaced by content creators, with which it has It is logical that companies have been interested in convincing influencers to promote their products in exchange for gifts and Payments.

The world is like this, and no influencer should feel bad because they “let themselves be bought”. Who has not wanted to earn money in exchange for doing what they like? Yes, it is true that there will be some followers who will frown upon their youtuber, streamer or blogger is promoting a product or service, but really what they are doing is their job.

However, if we want our followers to continue by our side, we must be honest with the publicity. If we have to talk about a brand, we must do so explicitly, clearly saying that we are promoting their product or service. Doing it in a more “subliminal” way can make our followers believe that we are trying to deceive them and feel bad and, of course, that they begin to stop following us; or it may even have legal consequences.

9. Use hashtags, tags and geolocation

Every time we publish a video or photo we must use hashtags, tags and indicate the place where that image has been published or made (geolocation). These three aspects They are something that characterizes the world of influencers a lot and, in fact, they are the elements that can give us more visibility, getting people who do not follow us but who are close or interested in the topic we are talking about start following us.

With hashtags and tags, our content becomes easier to find when using the search engine of the social network. These hashtags and tags are keywords that, by clicking on them, take us to all the public posts on the social network that talk about the subject in question. Geolocation is used for those looking for images taken in a specific place to leave ours and, if they are interested, click on our content.

Likewise, we must not abuse hashtags and labels. As we mentioned that nobody reads a long text, putting too many labels can give the feeling that our content is heavy and overloaded. The most advisable thing is to put at most 10 hashtags, all of them directly related to the content of the photo or video that we have published and the place and time where it was taken.

We should not put words that are not related to what we have published. This is quite bad, since users can interpret it as "clickbait", that is, use a word or thumbnail in a video that has nothing to do with what is actually published, making whoever clicked on that content feel cheated. No one follows an account that has made them feel bad.

Bibliographic references:

• Schouten, Alexander P.; Janssen, Loes; Verspaget, Maegan (2020). "Celebrity vs. Influencer endorsements in advertising: the role of identification, credibility, and Product-Endorser fit ". International Journal of Advertising. 0 (2): 258–281. doi: 10.1080 / 02650487.2019.1634898. ISSN 0265-0487.
• Rowels, David (2014). Digital Branding: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Strategy, Tactics and Measurement. Kogan Page.
• Khamis, Susie; Ang, Lawrence; Welling, Raymond (2017). "Self-branding, 'micro-celebrity' and the rise of Social Media Influencers". Celebrity Studies. 8 (2): 191–208. doi: 10.1080 / 19392397.2016.1218292. hdl: 10453/98736. ISSN 1939-2397.