Over the past five years we’ve talked about everything influencer related from how to become an Instagram influencer to how to make money as an influencer, but somehow I skipped over the importance of how to be an influencer.

IE 264: How to be an Influencer in 2022 & Beyond

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Being an influencer goes beyond the tricks and strategies and speaks to the ethical and moral obligation that we are making when we put content on social media that is meant to represent who we are.

How do you become an influencer

We’ve talked about this plenty of times, matter of fact one of our very first episodes talks about being an influencer entrepreneur. 

This idea that as an influencer, it’s having an opinion and having the ability to have a platform that others can see and learn from.

All it takes to be an influencer is to be solving a problem for someone else, whether you’re talking about style, recipes, doing diy’s, or parenting.

And that others start to rely on you, or look to you to see what your opinion is, to see what it is that you are referring to them, what the products are that you are saying is going to be perfect for them, or what kind of content you are putting out that is going to continue to solve their problem.

It really comes down to solving a problem and having others see you as that expert.

As an expert, when having an audience all you have to be is two steps ahead, you don’t need to know it all, you just need to talk about it from your OWN experiences, and THAT is what makes you an influencer.

How many followers do you need to be an influencer

Or, more or less, how many followers do you need to be an influencer that makes money?

The answer is not one that everyone likes because to be an influencer, you can have as little as one hundred followers and as many as one million followers.

What makes a difference when it comes to being an influencer is that you have followers that actually engage with your content, that are there wanting to know your opinion.

Whatever your niche is, it’s not necessarily about the importance of the number of followers, it’s about the followers that are actually engaging with your content.

A lot of research is out there showing that you need a hundred true followers and you can potentially have a million dollar business.

Having those true followers that are going to do and buy the things that you recommend is all that you need.

So, in order to be an influencer, there isn’t a minimum number, you can have ten engaged followers, and be considered an influencer.

What do influencers do

Well, we see that influencers create content. That is the purpose of being an influencer, creating valuable content that is going to solve problems.

You don’t need to be solving the problems of the universe, you just need to solve the problems for your ideal person, that is two steps behind you in whatever it is that you’re learning.

So, knowing who your audience is and what you’re going to create for them is going to be extremely important.

That content can be on your website, it can be on social media, ideally you want to have that one place that is yours where you can then use your social media platforms in order to continue to drive people to your website.

To continue to grow that you are an expert on your social media platforms, they can then find that website where all the content is and all the value that you provide so that they can then see services, products, things that you recommend as far as sponsorships. 

Can anyone be an influencer

The answer is… Yes, absolutely! Of course anyone can be an influencer for any sort of niche, there are people that are influencers in the smallest niche possible as far as “the right cowboy boots to wear”.

There are very specific niches when it comes to content, so when it comes to being an influencer, it’s not a matter of are you ginormous in a very large, general niche, but rather the problem again that you are solving for the people in that more specific niche.

Why do people choose to be influencers

In this day and age where we watch and see “cancel culture”, we see people saying stupid things that they then get yelled at for or get teared apart on social media for, so really, why would anybody CHOOSE to be an influencer?

It goes back to why do people choose to create a business, because as an influencer you are looking to be a business owner.

So it should go back to your mission of trying to solve a problem for people. I recently had a client tell me they were creating this program, not because they wanted money but because they wanted to help solve this problem because they knew what it was like to be in that situation.

That’s ideally what it is, that’s what any business owner is doing and the money is of course what makes it a business, when people actually go to buy the products you recommend it shows accountability, it makes them actually follow through and do the things that you’re recommending.

If we just give free content and continue to do that until the end of time, they have no skin in the game, there’s no reason for them, they have no money in place where there’s a commitment.

 When they put money down they are more likely to listen to you and hear what you have to say because they trusted you in order to put the money down.

So when we’re looking at why you’re going to want to continue to make content for your audience that is solving that problem it’s because, again, you solve a specific problem.

When we’re looking at how to be an influencer in 2022, I want you to stand behind who you are, stand behind your values, your mission, for what you are trying to accomplish for your audience, stop relying on trends and random things that we THINK people want to see entertainment wise and start getting down to the problem that you can solve.

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