As far as influencers go, they can sometimes have a bad reputation. Whether it’s people simply not understanding how it works and how they can make a living off it, to examples where influencers have probably overstepped the mark.
With that being said, if you’re an influencer yourself and run a business from doing so, then it’s important you do everything right in order to help yourself gain every success and be liked at the same time. Here are six tips for running a business as an influencer.
Establish Your Own Goals
Establishing your own goals is super important as an influencer because it can certainly be challenging in such a saturated industry. With so many influencers popping up every other day, it’s important to stick to your own lane and figure out exactly what your own goals are first before comparing yourself to others. Everyone moves and progresses at their own pace and what works for you, might not work for another influencer. Your goals are going to help motivate you and it’s why everyone should have goals in life, whether that’s personal goals or work life goals.
Start off with goals that you can easily manage. There’s really no point in trying to hit goals that you’re just not capable of doing right now. Not to say that it’s impossible but you do want to complete goals so that you can have the satisfaction of putting a line through them. It’s going to show how far you’ve come and that can be important to look at when you’re an influencer.
Build A Community & Loyal Following
As an influencer, the reason you may be running a successful business or have even managed to start one is become you hold some influence. People might turn to you for advice on whatever it is you regularly talk about or promote. It could be fashion, fitness, beauty or perhaps you’re a tech influencer. There are so many niches that you can fall under or pick from and so it’s important to use your expertise and knowledge when building a community. A loyal following is going to help you achieve more and for many, once you start gaining the best fan accounts from loyal followers, that can help rocket your influence and image across the internet.
Focus on building your community and interacting with your followers on the daily. It’s important to make them feel a part of your journey and growth. Even though they don’t know you fully, they can build an online friendship with the person you portray across social media. Of course, not everyone can understand who you are within a 30-second clip or a photo of you, but they will judge your character based on what you post.
Be Gracious Of Opportunities
Opportunities for influencers can be significantly better paid than a lot of traditional jobs both online and offline. For those influencers who are reaching the hundreds and thousands, if not millions of followers, then the advertising rates you can charge are going to be a lot bigger. However, although this is a great way to make money and it can help you live your life more financially comfortable, always stay gracious. Don’t allow these opportunities to change who you are or to change the way you post content up. You don’t want to become an advertising platform where every single post is an advertisement. You still want to be authentic and it’s important to be appreciative of collaborating with both the small and big brands.
These opportunities could change how successful you are, so try not to let that go to your head as it can certainly lead to your downfall.
Don’t Expect Success Overnight
Success does happen overnight but it’s not guaranteed to happen for you. In the age of social media, you could fall asleep a nobody and wake up a somebody. Especially with platforms like Tiktok, where random videos could reach millions of views. As an influencer, the industry itself is tough and just because you have one viral moment, it doesn’t mean this is going to establish you forever. For some, they don’t even get their viral moment and therefore they have to work for it to get there themselves.
It’s the same when it comes to collaborations in that they’re not just going to land in your lap. You have to work hard to get those opportunities and there’s no guarantee that they’re going to happen again anytime soon.
Success over night is a rarity if it happens but it’s important not to sit around and wait for it. Get out there and start posting the content that hopefully will provide you with that viral moment. If not, then it’s another piece of content that’s going to get you closer to being recognized.
Build Long-Term Relationships With Brands
When you’re working with brands, it’s something that you want to try and establish long-term where possible. It’s important in order to garner more success and financial gain, you want to make sure that collaboration was a success for you and for the brand itself. When they see a return on investment, they’re going to want to work with you again and again, because it benefits them. That’s why you want to pick and choose your collaborations carefully. Pick too many and your audience might not engage with it as much as you’d want them to. However, if you pick the right ones and they do engage actively, then you’re much more likely to gain more financially by working with brands over and over again.
Brands also like establishing long-time partnerships with influencers because it helps them on their side too. If they have someone that’s benefiting the company’s sales, why would they bother looking elsewhere? Unless they need someone with a greater following and influence than you, you’re making it easier for them by working with you repeatedly. Make sure you work hard on every collaboration so that you can increase the chances of working with that company again.
Review Your Progress Every Twelve Months
Doing a review of your progress is always going to be beneficial to you as an influencer. Being an influencer is tough because you’re comparing yourself often to other influencers who perhaps are doing better than you. It’s a whole new level of comparison that can end up being tough to deal with when it’s your job. That’s why it can be good to check on your progress.
Whether you do this once a year or you do it every month, being able to see the growth in your work is essential. You may not have realized just how many followers you may have gained over the past year. Perhaps it’s your engagement levels that have gone up or the number of brands you’ve collaborated with in the last twelve months. These are all stats that you want to collect over the year or months so that you can see exactly what you’ve achieved. It’s important to be proud of your hard work, even if you’ve only got so many new followers or made a small amount of progress. That small amount of progress is better than nothing, at the end of the day.
Running a business as an influencer is definitely challenging and something that isn’t for everyone. However, it’s a career that can be life-changing, especially for those who really make something of their profiles. Use these tips to help run your business successfully.
