How to become an Influencer? Interest in influencer marketing has shot through the roof. And While we ourselves are still trying to figure it out we have done case studies on some of the best. In this article, we will be focusing on Mr. Neil Patel who is recognized as one of the biggest influencers in the Digital Marketing space. We will go over how Mr. Patel rose to fame as an influencer and how you can become an influencer in your own field.
1. Start by Becoming an Influencer in a Niche Field
The reason you need a niche is to start out as a micro-influencer in your specific niche. Micro-influencers generate strong word of mouth in small groups. Now they don’t have the fanbase like Ariana Grande or Kim Kardashian, but they’re much cheaper and can still reach enough people to make a difference in product sales. What’s more: research shows they generate double the sales of paid ads and with a 37% customer retention rate.
It’s not enough to just pick the field you want to influence. For example. Digital marketing is a huge topic, and Mr. Patel didn’t get to the top by focusing solely on a great keyword. His Agency Can Drive Massive Amounts of Traffic to Your Website (em…ours can too for a fraction of the cost)
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Content Marketing – our team creates epic content that will get shared, get links, and attract traffic.
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Mr. Patel started in the gully of SEO before learning content marketing, conversion rate optimization, influencer marketing, social media marketing, and more. He had to grind to get to nearly 300k Twitter followers. (By the way, you can help our grind by following us on Twitter) One day you might get to 300k followers too (Hopefully we do too); but to become an influencer, you have to start with one.
Start as the expert among your friends and peers. Work toward being the expert in your city and state. Then become an influencer from there.
2. Create a Content Strategy
Once you have a niche, it’s time to build your content strategy. Content strategy can be a vague concept, but for the purposes of this post, we mean things like publishing cadence, tone and voice of the author, and content elements (text, graphs, etc.). Even the Content Marketing Institute concedes there is no template for this because every person and brand’s needs and goals are different. Mr. Patel describes his content strategy as strict. He works hard to create a set amount of social posts on each network while maintaining blog quality and working on side projects. (Talk About Goals!!) Once you’re armed with this information, you can select your channels.
3. Select Your Channels
There’s no wrong answer for which social channels to be on and avoid. Facebook is the most popular, with 94% of marketers using Facebook worldwide as of January 2020, followed by LinkedIn with 76%. Facebook is by far the most popular, with a 61% market share in 2016. But that dropped from 65% in 2015, and other social channels still have validity. While we enjoy my time on certain channels more than others, We advise you not to play favorites when engaging your audiences. Do your best to show up everywhere. Besides Twitter, Mr. Patel is on Facebook. (So are we) His pages get a ton of traffic and which we imagine does wonder for his conversion rate. He is also active on LinkedIn and Pinterest, (which he thinks is even more visually appealing than Instagram but we wholeheartedly disagree.) And, last but not least, his unbelievable one million followers on his YouTube channel. Each channel has a different audience (and audience size) expecting different content. You don’t have to stay this active on so many channels, but pick one or two to start building out your influence. Think of each social channel as another platform for you to reach your customers (and the general public).
4. Network Within the Industry
In order to become an influencer, you need to make real connections. Everyone wants to sit at home on their couch and connect with influencers on social media. That’s simply not an option. Popular tech influencer iJustine, for example, has 1.2 million Twitter followers. She’s very active with her followers, but can’t possibly engage individually with all 1.2 million in any meaningful way. Where you can network with Justine Ezarik is at technology trade shows like CES, the Webby Awards, the Streamys, and several other events. You can follow her social accounts to see which events she attends. Event marketing is a big trend. Being able to boast about influencer attendance is huge. Why not make it a priority for marketing yourself? Get off the couch, get out of the house, and get to major events related to your niche. Or, even easier, attend online events, which are becoming more popular in the post-Covid world.
5. Participate in Off-site Forums
Becoming popular on one social network does have its advantages. For example, in 2020, the most popular YouTubers earn more than a billion dollars a year from advertisements and sponsorships. Not all of us can be that lucky. The rest of us have to venture outside social media and participate in forums, comment wells, and other online discussions so we can boost our following. Every discussion you can be a part of online enhances your reputation, influence, and connections.
6. Create a Website or Blog
(If you are not sure how to do this we would love to help…..Just click…..you know you want to…) Conversations don’t end on social media. You’ll always have more to say than can fit in a tweet or Instagram post. With a website or blog, you have a place to direct your social followers as you gain them.
Personally, We are huge fans of blogging. One of the best content management systems for creating either a website or blog is WordPress. Don’t be an influencer without a cause. Be prepared to lead your followers into your well-designed conversion funnel, starting by including a link to your blog in your social media posts. A link to your website or blog can actually increase your audience engagement on social media. And it goes without saying the longer blog content needs to provide even more value than a social post to get clicks.
7. Provide Value to the Conversation
If you’re not providing value to the conversation, you’ll never reach the ears of anyone influential. To become an influencer, you need to be the person people are talking to each other about. Word of mouth is the most influential element driving purchase decisions today.
If you can impress people enough with your knowledge and conversational value, they’ll sell everybody else on you. Then they’ll tell two friends, and so on…until you become an influencer!
8. Stay Ahead of Current Events
There are two types of content, evergreen and topical. Evergreen content stays forever relevant, such as an article about a historical event. Topical content is hot right now, but will soon be forgotten. Basically, everything happening today. When writing a blog post, I’d stay as evergreen as possible since you don’t want to have to update your content constantly. But on social media, staying informed about current events is the key to being shared. The Lafayette Company’s Ellen Carmichael’s biggest tweet of 2017, for example, combined the 2016 presidential election with the 2017 Super Bowl.
Using these timely images created a brand win for Carmichael by appealing to Super Bowl fans who remember the election. Staying topical is how you go viral on social media. You can use tools to stay on top of social media trends. You can also set a Google News alert to monitor the entire Internet for specific keywords and phrases. Do what you have to do to stay current.
9. Understand All Channels
Even if you don’t use a particular social media channel, if you want to become an influencer it’s still important to understand who does. I’m not a big user of Snapchat, for example, but I understand its 250 million+ (mostly younger) users can’t be ignored. Because the demographics of who uses each channel are so varied, each social network requires a different strategy. For example, here is a chart showing best practices for posts you can share on each channel during the Holiday season:
While minor, these differences make a world of difference in determining whether you’re a hero or a zero in your industry. This type of chart helps you prepare posts to schedule in advance.
10. Stay Authentic and On-Brand
Going back to the Super Bowl, it’s an interesting event. Why? Because brands have made the commercials as anticipated as the actual game. Many come through with epic TV spots that tell their brand story.
The takeaway: it’s important to be authentic and stick to your brand voice to become an influencer. Digital ad spend grew 18% in February 2021 compared to a year prior. TV ad spending declined nearly 27% over the same period. This means an authentic voice on social media is more critical than an expensive Super Bowl commercial.
It’s free to do, and it’ll help you rise through the ranks from nobody to micro-influencer to a major influencer.
Start as the expert among your friends and peers. Work toward being the expert in your city and state. Then become an influencer from there.
While minor, these differences make a world of difference in determining whether you’re a hero or a zero in your industry. This type of chart helps you prepare posts to schedule in advance.