“Content must always provoke a reaction whether it is a smile, laughter, an opposing point of view” -Peter Springett.

You are probably here because you want to succeed at what it is you do: influencing.

As it is, influencing marketing works.

In fact, it works so well and is found to be a lucrative career by many that almost everybody wants to become a social media influencer these days. Unfortunately, not everyone can make the cut and succeed as a brand influencer. Needless to say, there is no clear-cut and straightforward path to becoming a successful influencer. After all, anyone can become a social media influencer if they put their minds to it. To succeed, however, is another thing. What you need to keep in mind is that if you wish for your career to take off, it takes a bit of time, a bit of patience, and commitment on your end.

In any case, if you wish to learn how to become a successful exceptional media influencer, read on below to discover the proven ways how to do just that:

WAYS TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER

As said above, becoming a social media influencer is not a career that takes off overnight. It requires your patience and determination. One thing you need to keep in mind is that the industry has no shortage of influencers. More importantly, there is rising competition with virtual influencers. With all these considered, you need to make brands see what makes you tick and what makes you different from the rest.

Below are just some of the tried and tested ways to make it big in the social media influencer industry:

1.) Choose a niche

Before anything else, you should begin your foray into the world of influencing by choosing a niche. Ensuring that you select a niche is paramount, as, without it, you will have a difficult time building an audience of engaged people who will be interested in what you have to say and post. No matter how good you are, you are not a jack of all trades. So, choose one niche and focus on that.

Every social media influencer you see on various platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and the like has a niche. Without clearly defining what your niche is, you do not have the edge over your competitors because you have to compete with everyone for even just a speck of your audience’s attention. Also, you will be speaking and marketing to a very generalized audience, which will result in you reaching absolutely no one.

Choosing a niche may sound intimidating, but by asking yourself a few choice questions, you will soon find it is pretty easy to determine. Some of the questions you should be asking yourself are:

* What do I love, and what am I good at?

* What am I most passionate about?

*What interests me the most?

*What do I enjoy doing?

*Do I have any weird or unique quirks?

No matter what niche you choose, be sure it is one that you actually enjoy doing. People recognize and gravitate towards authentic energy. If you do not enjoy what you do, people will take you for a sham, and you will end up losing your audience.

2.) Choose your central platform

Ask yourself what channel you want to use. Do you wish to constantly put out videos on YouTube? Photos on Instagram? Microblog on Twitter? Create weekly content for TikTok?

These are salient questions to consider before you begin your journey of becoming a social media influencer. This is because you need to have a presence on the profiles you choose. While you can use a myriad of social media networks, it is imperative to choose one main platform where you are going to focus most of your content. Keep in mind that your main channel should reflect the type of niche you are into. Consider all the factors that go into which platform you should be choosing to help you determine which social media platform is best for you and your content.

3.) Define your audience

Apart from choosing the right niche, your success as a social media influencer depends on finding the right audience or community. This same community is composed of people to support you. Essentially, they are the bloodline of your career. Without fans, followers, or subscribers, you do not get any engagement, and no engagement means you are virtually useless on social media. So, before you start posting on your chosen social media platform, be sure to define who your target audience is. Focus on the people and communities who will propel your brand forward on social media. Keep in mind your audience greatly depends on the type of market you are in. Some of the critical factors to note when defining your audience are:

*Demographics

*Challenges

*Motivators

*Pain Points

*What is in it for them?

With the factors above, you will be able to zero in on a target audience on social media and find them where they are already hanging out.

4.) Develop a content calendar

Social media influencers need to regularly and consistently create valuable content that their audience will love. Beyond your audience, however, you also need to take into account how search engines and social media algorithms will interpret the content you create as well.

Your audience values consistency and commitment to social media influencers. That said, you need to keep showing up with a consistent message and produce content that is both useful and relevant to your audience. Once you have an idea of the type of content you need, create a content calendar to help you consistently create content. From there, decide on a posting frequency on each social media platform and choose the best times to post your content where you are likely to get the most engagement from your audience.

5.) Strategically generate traffic

More traffic generated on social media means the closer you are to becoming a success. As your follower count grows, other people will jump on the bandwagon and start following you too. These numbers are significant as you will be able to leverage the power of social proof to reach an even bigger audience of fans and followers.

To begin, however, you need to strategically generate traffic to get the momentum going. Some of the easiest and most effective ways to do this are:

* Make your content shareable so that your audience can share it as well.

*Tag others and use the right hashtags

*Post content at times when your audience is most active

*Regularly interact with your audience

*Invest in social media advertising

*Write compelling CTA (calls to action)

*Engage with other industry influencers to help boost your authority and credibility

*Add plenty of eye-catching visuals to make your content stand out

6.) Collaborate with other influencers

Partnering and collaborating with other influencers in your niche allows you to tap into their audiences. In turn, you can gain fans from their communities. There are different ways to work with influencers in your niche, and one of the ways to do this is to pay them to promote your content.

If you are just starting out, however, this may be a little difficult. That said, you may want to start out by engaging with them organically. From there, you can feature influencers in your content by covering their stories, doing interviews, or creating articles regarding them. Then, you can tag them and share the post. To make this strategy work, you cannot just do it once and be done with it. You need to do it often so that you can continue to gain fans from other influencers’ communities.

7.) Engage your audience

Constantly and consistently engage with your audience on social media. Your audience needs to stay engaged with you, or they will lose interest in your business and brand. Regardless of how great your content is, without engagement, it would not matter.

Keep our audiences engaged by letting them feel like they know you. Let them know that you always appreciate them and thank them regularly for their support.

8.) Make it easy for brands to contact you

Brands should not have a hard time reaching out to you. There is money to be made in every industry and on every social media channel, but the brands need to find you first. That said, make it easy for brands to find you by ensuring that all of your contact information is written clearly and concisely in your bio.

It would also help if you wrote a compelling About Me page that announces to brands that you are an influencer and that you are open to any collaborations. Making it easy for brands to find you gives you more opportunities for partnerships. If potential clients find it difficult to contact and connect with you, it is very likely that they will simply go with a different influencer than go through the hassle of just trying to reach you.