Becoming a social media influencer and making money from it is the dot com dream of new generations. Successful social media influencers have made themselves so relatable, authentic, and real that anybody thinks that they too know how to become a social media influencer. Bangladesh has recently seen an influx of social media influencers, making it one of the most up and coming career options for the youth. You might be confused as to how it could be a “career option” since all we regular folks see are photos and videos uploaded by these popular individuals. What we don’t see is the business behind it all. Influencers in social media are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic. They make regular posts about that topic on their preferred social media channels and generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views. Some of the well-known social media influencers in Bangladesh are; Tanvir Paros, Raba khan, MD Tanvir Tushar and there are many more. Social media Influencers can be divided into four categories, that is;
Mega-Influencers: the people with a vast number of followers on their social media.
Macro-Influencers: one who steps down from the mega-influencers, and maybe more accessible as influencer marketers.
Micro-influencers: are ordinary everyday people who have become known for their knowledge about some specialist niche.
Nano-Influencers: these people only have a small number of followers, but they tend to be experts in an obscure or highly specialized field.
As being a social media influencer can make you earn thousands and lakhs of taka each month, it became the most desirable career choice for the young generation of our country today. These days, anyone can become an influencer on social media, as long as they spend some time learning how to become a social media influencer and then put the work in. so, let’s focus on how one can become a social media influencer. Here’s what you’ll need to do.
Find a niche, the niche that you occupy is what will define your entire career as an influencer.
Select which social channels you’ll use, if your niche is educating small business owners, then you’re more likely to find your audience on LinkedIn than on Snapchat. If you’re a natural in front of the camera, then try creating some really cool YouTube videos or to set up an Instagram account.
Find and engage with a target audience, as a general rule engagement is measured in terms of likes, comments, shares and post clicks. Having large amounts of engagement on your content shows that people are interested in your brand and what you have to say.
Create and give away free content that has value worth paying for, Remember, when you’re posting to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or any other social network, you’re competing against every other content creator on the platform. You need to be at the top of your game if you want to cut through the noise, and the best way to do that is to create content that’s worth paying for.
Have a powerful message and story that you can share with your audience, your message and your story will depend somewhat on your audience and your personal brand, but it also needs to be grounded in authenticity and truth.
Create a content strategy, you just have to find what your people value and give them that. You might even find that sometimes your audience doesn’t care what the content looks like.
Consistently engage with your target audience, make sure you are actually building real relationships with people.
Be consistent and authentic, People can sense when you are being inauthentic. So, always be honest and genuine and people will sense that and want to do business with you!
Invest in good equipment, Filming video clips on your iPhone and bodging together thumbnail images for an Instagram post or a YouTube video are all well and good in the early days, but if you want to be a success in the long run then you need to place a higher premium on quality.
Network ALL of the time, you’ll notice that many well-known Instagram users collaborate with each other to create combined content, and this can only happen if you network with people.
Give value, support And a sense of community, Every single piece of content that you post on Facebook or to your Instagram feed needs to provide some sort of value to people.
Create a Facebook page to serve your community, Creating a Facebook page to serve your community just makes sense because it gives people another place to gather and to talk about the content that you’re creating.
Now that you know the steps that you need to follow if you want to become a successful influencer. Let’s talk about the ways to make money as a Social Media Influencer;
Advertising, This only works if you have a blog or YouTube channel. But you do have the ability to generate money by showing ads here.
Affiliate Marketing, As you begin to build up your following you can begin to slowly promote products and services to your community.
Social Media Sponsored Posts, once you begin to grow a larger following, brands might reach out to you because they want to access your audience through publishing a sponsored post.
Brand Ambassadors, Once you begin to make relationships with brands, they might want to create a longer-term relationship with you. This is what we refer to as a social media brand ambassador.
Events, Social media influencers can also make easy money by organizing or hosting events like bloggers’ meet up or influencers’ meet up.
Webinars, while webinars are not for everyone, they are yet another way for social media influencers and talented people to earn money should they have something to teach.
There are many paths to monetizing your influence. But the path you will take will depend on your niche, your passions and your skills.