How to become an Infuencer in 2023

Influencer marketing is all the rage in 2023. Don’t take my word for it. As per research from Google, 70% of teens relate more to YouTube creators than their favorite celebrities, while 4 in 10 say their favorite creators understand them better than their friends.

No wonder brands are swarming influencers to get a piece of their target audience’s attention. But what the heck is an influencer in the first place? How do you end up becoming an influencer?

In this exhaustive guide, we’ll unpack all you need to know about becoming an influencer, right from choosing a niche, promoting yourself, and monetizing your content. Next, we’ll take an in-depth look at how you can catapult to influencer status on popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and through channels such as podcasts, Medium, and blogs.

Let’s dive in.

Table of Contents

What is an Influencer?

We’re all familiar with influencers. We follow them on social media, buy products they recommend, read their bogs, and aspire to be like them.

So, who qualifies as an influencer, exactly? Generally, people with extensive knowledge about a specific topic or advanced skills in a niche or industry become known as influencers in those niches.

When their talent and knowledge is acknowledged by the public at large, they develop a huge fan following and hold great clout in their fields.

What’s more, several multinational, as well as national companies use such influencers to promote and expand their brand. Let’s see some examples of influencers below.

How Many Followers Do You Need to Be an Influencer

A lot of people search for this, eager to know if there’s a certain number of followers they need to be recognized as an influencer or get approached by brands. Are you ready for the answer?

The number of followers you have as an influencer, well, doesn’t matter. What brands look for most is the level of engagement your posts get and how invested your audience is in your content.

There are several ways to increase your follower count on popular platforms: buying followers, follow-for-follow loops, and so on. But the true measure of influence is how your audience reacts to your content, and how much they engage with each post.

Macro vs. Micro vs. Nano Influencers (Influencer classes)

Follower counts are not important, yes, but they are a popular way for brands to categorize influencers. As the image shows, even people with less than 10,000 followers can qualify as influencers, provided they have an engaged audience.

Nano and micro-influencers generally have a highly engaged following, and they exist in niche categories.

Macro influencers, on the other hand, have a huge following, but not as much engagement as nano and micro-influencers.

Is It Too Late to Become an Influencer

You might think the influencer market is all but saturated, but that’s far from the truth. As more people turn to the internet to seek answers for everything, from what to eat to what jobs they should take up, there’s always scope for meaningful content to become valuable in any niche.

The key to providing value today is going beyond beginner-level basic content, and proving valuable insights from the word go.

What Qualifies You as an Influencer

Your ability to influence people’s lives in a positive way qualifies you as an influencer.

This can be in any realm of your audience’s life: you might teach them a lucrative way to make money, a better way to style their outfits, or you could lead them on a journey to self-discovery. The point is, your content is valuable enough to them to make an impact on their personal or professional life, or both.

Qualities of a Good Influencer

There are influencers who are in it for the money, and there are those who genuinely care about their craft and wish to use it to enrich their audience’s life.

Good influencers put their followers before money, only recommend products they believe in, and have an element of truth in all their reviews.

Influencer Secrets

Before you start on your influencer journey, it helps to know a few tricks of the trade.

Remember that all influencers start small. They work hard to make connections, create content, and only then do they get a sizable following.

Also, it’s important to connect with your followers on a personal level. Interact with comments on your post, let fans know that you care about their presence, and make each individual interaction count.

Lastly, be sure to interact with thought leaders in your industry too. An endorsement from the biggest authorities in your niche instantly boosts your authority as an influencer and helps you become more popular.

Take the example of Rand Fishkin. Popularly known as the founder of SEO software, Moz, Fishkin’s blog only gained popularity after consistently publishing content for at least three years and helping people in the SEO community become good at their job.

How to Become an Influencer Overnight

You may be lured by viral successes online and think it’s possible to become an influencer overnight. The truth is, it takes several months and years of hard work to build a reliable, trustworthy brand.

There are no shortcuts on the path to becoming an influencer, and the only way to grow is consistent effort and perseverance.

Popular Social Media Influencers

Joanna Stevens Gaines

Joanna Stevens Gaines is an influence in interior designing in America. Joanna, along with her husband, started a popular TV series named ‘Fixed Upper’ in 2013. She owns a design/constructional company named Magnolia Homes, a discount store, Magnolia Market, and a restaurant, Magnolia Table.

Amanda Cerny

Another famous social media influencer is Amanda Cerny. She has a total of 25.4 million followers on Instagram and 2.81 million subscribers on youTube. She is a fitness professional and a famous TV personality. Amanda is also well known for her comedy sketches and has been a cover model for several magazines such as Playboy, Maxim, Elle, Health, and Wellness Magazine.

As you can see, becoming an influencer in any field helps professionals bag lucrative opportunities in TV, media, as well as the chance to launch successful businesses.

Let’s take a look at a few other reasons why you might want to become an influencer.

Why Should I Become an Influencer?

Here are a few more reasons why you might consider becoming an influencer in your industry:

1. Make money

There are several ways influencers earn money, thanks to their huge following. Social media influencers earn millions of dollars from brands looking to get their products in front of a highly engaged audience. Other than earning income from brand collaborations, influencers have also gone on to start successful businesses, launch new product lines, TV shows, and events.

How much do Influencers make?

Influencers with different numbers of followers get paid varying amounts of money. A nano-influencer, with 10,000-50,000 followers can charge around $1,000 per post.

Influencers with 1 million followers get paid $10,000 per post, depending on the platform, while those with more than $1 million followers are paid $100,000 – $250,000 per post. Certain platforms such as YouTube and popular industries such as gaming pay a lot more than others.

Social media influencer salary

On an annual basis, nano influencers can earn anywhere between $30,000 to $60,000 a year, while micro-influencers make $40,000 to $100,000 a year. Macro influencers make upwards of $100,000 a year, depending on their niche and platform.

Cassey Ho Net Worth

A good example of this is fitness instructor, Cassey Ho. Apart from being a popular pilates instructor on YouTube, she also has her activewear line and other fitness merchandise. She regularly collaborates with food and fitness brands on Instagram too. Her net worth in 2020 was reported as being $6 million, with her YouTube channel earning $1200 per day from ads on her videos.

Other ways for influencers to earn money include affiliate marketing, starting a Patreon page, and becoming a brand ambassador for a product or service.

2. Motivate people for a good cause

Influencers can also use social media to encourage people to contribute to a good cause. They can also share stories of resilience, bravery, and courage to motivate people.

One such example is Lewis Howes. Lewis was an American football athlete in the town of Delaware, Ohio. He went on to play arena football but suffered an injury that ended his career. Lewis slept on his sister’s couch for months. He felt defeated and weak with no money to spend and no place to go. Eventually, he pulled himself together and started interviewing successful people about their life. At the age of 29, he launched his podcast known as The School Of Greatness. He realized that he liked interviewing people and inspiring others. He now helps other people control their fears and motivates them to lead a better life.

3. Fulfill your passion

Many of us do work that isn’t in line with our values. We stick to the same safe routines – like the nine-to-five job – and so our work appears to require a huge personal effort.

When you do what you love, you live a happier, more productive life. You develop higher self-esteem because you keep reaffirming that you know what you’re doing.

Doing the work you love is the only way to improve your health – mentally, physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Most influencers are successful because work is no longer a chore for them, and they’re always learning and trying to improve their skills.

Is it easy to be an Influencer?

I must admit being an influencer is no piece of cake. The constant scrutiny of followers and the need to consistently post valuable content can be stressful for some people.

However, influencers who follow their passion and develop genuine relationships with their followers find it easier to maintain those connections over the long term and keep growing their following.

Top Social Media Influencers

Now that we know how becoming an influencer can help you reap myriad benefits, let’s take a look at some examples of famous influencers across different social media channels.

Zach King (Instagram)

Zach King is a 30-year-old influencer who has a whopping 23.9M followers on Instagram. Based in Los Angeles, he is best known for his video editing skills. He makes video editing look magical.

His paid partnership with Oreo has more than 10 million views. An example of his mastery is an advertisement video for Coke, where he smashed the screen with Hulk’s hand to grab a coke. This video saw over 10 million views too.

Zach King net worth

As per one source, Zach King’s net worth is $3 million, as of 2020.

Instagram is a visual platform where content creators post photos about photography, travel, fashion, fitness, beauty, food, and more. These Instagram influencers prove highly effective for reaching out to engaged audiences. As these Instagram influencers have authentic connections with their followers, they help brands communicate with their target audience in a more intimate way.

PewDiePie (YouTube)

When talking about YouTube influencers, PewDiePie is one of the first that comes to mind. With 107M subscribers, this Swedish video game commentator has seen over 26 billion views on his videos.

Being one of the most subscribed YouTube channels, PewDiePie continues to receive sponsorship deals. One example is the partnership with LG in one of its videos. This video describes the features of the new ‘LG SIGNATURE OLED TV’.

PewDiePie net worth

As of 2020, PewDiePie’s net worth is estimated to be $30-$50 million. According to Forbes he managed to earn 12 million in 2017, despite the negative publicity directed at him

YouTube is one of the most powerful platforms available. Leading influencers on the video-sharing site are well-positioned to reach out to millions of followers and drive brand awareness and sales for brands.

Brands can work with YouTube influencers in several ways. One common way is by sponsoring the content of the video wherein the YouTube influencer integrates the name of the company, it’s products and services, directly into their video.

Pam Moore (LinkedIn)

An example of an influencer on LinkedIn is Pam Moore. She has over 25 years of branding and digital marketing experience, helping brands connect and inspire their audiences. With 351,582 followers, she is an international keynote speaker, consultant, trainer, and strategist helping event organizers and business leaders increase ROI. She has worked with some of the most successful brands in the world such as Loreal, Sony, IBM, and Hitachi Data Systems to name a few.

Pam Moore net worth

Moore has an approximate Net Worth of $10k to $100k dollars.

LinkedIn is a social networking website for professionals all over the world. It is useful to find sales leads, job candidates, jobs, hiring managers, as well as connect with influencers in various industries.

This platform has changed how businesses and careers grow. Users no longer have to leave their home and attend social gatherings to network. They can use LinkedIn from the comfort of their home and connect with anyone in their niche.

Charli D’Amelio (Case Study TikTok)

One of the most-followed TikTokers, Charli D’Amelio, was signed on by Proctor and Gamble to promote the #distance dance challenge. The purpose was to encourage consumers to stay home and show support for healthcare workers and curb the spread of COVID-19.

Charli D’Amelio net worth

Charli D’Amelio currently has a net worth of $4 million dollars and will continue to grow.

Tik Tok is a social networking as well as short video-sharing service owned by a Chinese company, Bytedance. Users can create and publish dance, short music, comedy, talent, and lip-sync videos on the platform. TikTok has a whopping 800 million monthly active users on its platform.

Organizations and brands can advertise directly on the platform or collaborate with specific creators to promote their products.

For example, Warner Bros. branded the hashtag challenge #WhatWouldHarleyDo to encourage its users to create original movie-inspired content, using the hashtag to spread the word about the film’s release.

Laura Clery (Facebook)

An example of a successful Facebook influencer is Laura Clery. She is a comedian with over 10M followers. She promotes several brands through her videos, such as the gaming app ‘Best Fiends’. During one of her live broadcasts, she played the game, and also encouraged users to download the game.

Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is an American online social media and social networking service. Although Facebook does not enjoy the same popularity as it did a few years ago, it still attracts brands for sponsorship.

Laura Clery net worth

Laura Clery’s has a net worth of $3 million

Shawn Stevenson (Podcast)

‘The Model Health Show’ is a podcast about health and fitness. Shawn Stevenson, the host of this podcast, has created over 300 episodes. He interviews world-renowned experts on the topics of health, fitness, nutrition, personal development, and more.

He earns money through sponsorship deals. For instance, in one of his episodes, he advertised ‘Four Sigmatic’, a US company specialized in superfoods, functional mushrooms and adaptogenic herbs.

Shawn Stevenson net worth

His estimated 2020 net worth is $1 to $12 Million.

Podcasts have more business potential than most brands like to believe. They allow brands to communicate with a highly captivated audience.

Amber Mamian (Blog)

Before the advent of social media, blogging was one of the primary ways for people to become influencers.

Bloggers earn money in various ways including display advertising, selling their products, promoting other people’s products as an affiliate, brand sponsors, and selling merchandise. Unlike social media posts, blog posts also get picked up by top-notch publications such as Fast Company and Slate for syndication.

Example of a successful blogger is ‘Rookie Moms’. This blog focuses on activities and products for babies, preschoolers, and toddlers. As the name suggests, the site is aimed at new moms who don’t have much knowledge and experience with parenthood. The blog earns money by advertising different kinds of baby gear such as strollers, car seats, carriers, and other baby products

Source

How to Become an Influencer in 2023

In almost every industry, influencers are rising at a fast pace and businesses are using their reach to amplify their brand value.

If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide to become an influencer in your industry, here’s one that includes everything you need to know.

1. Pick a niche

The first step to becoming an influencer is picking a niche.

Your niche can be anything from baking to adventure to sports to travelling and even movies. It’s important to pick a niche you are passionate about and have sufficient expertise in, as you’ll have to create a considerable amount of high-quality content before you become a successful influencer.

Let’s look at this diagram, derivated from the Japanese concept ‘Ikigai’, that may help you get clarity on your niche. The term Ikigai means ‘a reason for being’ and we use this here to create a concept for the “sweet life”:

As the picture above suggests, your ‘sweet spot’ is the space between passion, mission, profession, and vocation. It is an intersection between your passion, something you can earn money with, something the world needs, and what you’re uniquely qualified to do. It is a simple concept that helps figure out the best niche for you.

The picture shows that your passion is what you love and what you are good at. Your mission is a combination of what you love and what the world needs from you while the profession is a combination of what you can be paid for and what you are good at. And finally, the vocation part is when you think about money.

This image also provides a simple, but helpful framework for picking a niche.

2. Conduct audience research

Your target audience is the group of people who will most likely be interested in the content, services and products you offer. They are united by common characteristics such as age, professions, and likes and dislikes. Conducting audience research allows you to refine your assumptions about your target audience and provide them with valuable content.

Audience research helps you uncover answers to business questions, such as what interests your target audience, what are the problems they face, who are the other influencers they follow, what they think of existing products, and how they feel about branding and advertising.

How do you conduct audience research? Monitor social media channels for mentions about your industry and competitors. What are people most interested in learning about in your niche? What are their burning problems and ambitions?

Also, keep track of hashtags on Instagram and Twitter to find out what people are saying about specific topics in your niche and your competition. Tools such as Hashtagify, KeyHole, and RiteTag help you find the most relevant hashtags in your niche.

Platforms such as Quora and Reddit should help you discover topics people in your niche are interested in. Another good way to discover popular content topics is keyword research. Keyword tools such as Ahrefs, Moz keyword tool, and Google Keyword tool, should help you find keywords with high search volume and low competition.

Keyword research is not just for blogging, but to get a general sense of what people are interested in, in a particular niche, and what are the biggest problems they face.

To see if your target audience is big enough on Facebook and Instagram, use tools such as Facebook Audience Insights.

3. Competitor Research

Once you’ve done sufficient research on your audience, it’s time to analyze your competitors. Which are the most popular blogs and social media influencers in your industry? What kind of content do they post? What are the major keywords they target? Which hashtags do they use?

There are several tools such as SimilarWeb, SEMRush, and Ahrefs that help you conduct competitor analysis, find keywords that they rank for, and get a list of domains that link to them.

You can use tools such as Hashtagify and RiteTag to analyze hashtags used by your competitors on Twitter and Instagram, while tools such as Followerwonk can provide you with a complete analysis of your competitor’s followers. It can help you the demographics, interest, and job profiles of your competitor’s following.

To conduct competitor research on YouTube, search for your topics and see which videos rank first. Next, analyze the tags they use with the help of tools such as Online-Free-Tools.com. Use these tags in your videos to boost your chances of getting discovered.

4. Select a channel (Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, blog, podcast, Facebook)

Now that you have a niche and have conducted audience research, it’s time to pick the right social media channel. It’s important to pick a channel that’s just perfect for your chosen niche and also popular with your target audience, to be able to build a large following in a short time.

Promoting your work on irrelevant channels might not give the required positive results in the end. For example, stand up comedians will see Youtube as their preferred platform, as it is the #1 video streaming platform. Instagram and Facebook are also good avenues for promoting comedy sketches. However, these videos would seem out of place on a professional platform such as LinkedIn.

Let your niche guide you about the best platforms for your work. Cooking and makeup content would do well on Instagram and YouTube, whereas business strategy content would do well on Twitter and LinkedIn

As such, it pays to play to your strengths. If you’re better at videos and photos, pick Instagram or YouTube. If writing is your superpower, opt for a blog.

Also, pick platforms where there are not too many influencers in your niche. This will help you stand out and earn followers faster.

4. Create irresistible content

This is exactly where you should spend a huge bulk of their time.

Creating the best content should be your number one priority of an influencer. Posting useful and relevant content is the only way to keep followers engaged. The more people find your content valuable, the easier it will be to influence them with your recommendations and opinions.

Considering that attention spans are always dwindling and people are more distracted than ever, great content must make a good first impression on users in a matter of seconds.

To do this, it needs to have a captivating headline and introduction.

A few ways to create irresistible headlines:

Ask intriguing questions (Is Multitasking Bad for You?)
Provide statistics and data (Research Shows Just How Harmful Multitasking Can Be)
Use personal experiences (I Stopped Multitasking and Here’s How It Affected My Productivity)
Provide Helpful Tips (X Ways to Skyrocket Your Productivity)

Take a look at this headline from HBR.

5. Promote and distribute your content

Remember, successfully promoting your content is the best way to ensure it reaches the widest possible audience.

Let’s look a few ways to effectively promote and distribute content:

Cross-promote

Content distribution is the process of publishing, sharing, and promoting a single piece of content on several social media platforms. For example, blog posts can easily be promoted as Twitter threads, Pinterest images, and infographics. Repurposing and promoting content in various ways helps it reach a wider audience.

Build an email list

Email continues to enjoy high levels of engagement, despite the rise of social media platforms. Whether you have a blog, YouTube channel, or social media pages, always look to divert followers to sign up for your email list. This helps you send them a quick link to your latest piece of content and also promote your latest products and services.

Kaleigh Moore’s newsletter for freelancers

Promote on communities such as Reddit and Quora

Communities have specific channels to promote content around different topics. It’s a good way to beat the noise and get your posts in front of relevant audiences. Find a subreddit specific to your niche and answer questions in Quora to get maximum exposure for your content.

For example, the topic “what is digital marketing” has over 100+ answers and over 800 followers.

Paid marketing

As you grow and have more of a marketing budget, you can also allocate resources to paid ads. Depending on the platform you choose to promote your ads on, paid ads can have a valuable return on investment, provided you target them to the right audiences. In the initial stages, paid ads can help you get in front of your audience and build a following.

6. Grow your audience

Now, it’s time to connect. You can find and grow your audience by applying what you know across channels and using a mix of strategies that evolve as you learn. Growing your audience can be one of the most difficult tasks in any business. A proper plan and strategy is the first step necessary for growing your audience. When you are aware of who your target audience is and how you are planning to reach them, building an audience becomes much easier.

Different platforms have different best practices for growing an audience.

For instance, Facebook influencers are most likely to create Facebook ads to boost the reach of their content.

On the other hand, the cheat sheet to growing an Instagram following is posting the right hashtags. Another strategy for growing an Instagram following is participating in engagement groups that help boost comments and likes on posts. Collaborating with other influencers is another way to boost your Instagram presence, though this works well across all platforms. This article provides a helpful resource for finding relevant engagement groups for Instagram.

On Twitter, threads, and practically useful content works best, while on LinkedIn, you may need to craft compelling stories for your posts to garner attention.

Platforms such as Instagram and Facebook also use strategies such as contests and giveaways to build a strong buzz around their brand. Generally, these contests involve tagging multiple people in the comments section, and those that invite the maximum engagement with a post get chosen as the winners.

Image source

7. Keep your audience engaged

Audience engagement can be easy at the start as you won’t have a big following. Responding to every comment, and following people back will not be difficult. Another way of audience engagement is by asking them a question and starting a conversation about a topic of mutual interest. Interacting with the audience will help build personal connections and solidify your position as an influencer. For the audience, you can give away free content, build courses, start a community, and even host live events or meetings.

So, you’ve built an audience. Congratulations! But here’s the crucial next step: keep your audience well engaged or they’ll soon forget you exist.

What are some good ways to engage with your audience in a consistent and meaningful way? Take a look.

Give away free content

Everyone loves free stuff, and one of the perks of following influencers is they often give away their expertise for free. Share as much knowledge about your domain as you can with your fans regularly. Talk about trends, share your opinions, and share results from your personal experiences. For instance, if you’re a fitness influencer, you may give away free content such as free diet and meal plans, discuss diets such as keto diet and paleo diet, and share your fitness journey with your followers.

Build courses

Courses offer a good way to keep people coming back to your blog or social media page. Have you accomplished something recently that other people would love to learn? Share your skills freely with your audience, in the form of courses. For instance, as a writer, you can share courses on improving your writing skills, or marketing your work, or finding new clients.

Start a community

Communities bind people together and give them a shared purpose and cause. More importantly, community members help boost the value of an influencer by keeping themselves engaged without much effort on the influencer’s part. Some platforms where you can build private communities and membership sites include Slack, Podia, and Patreon.

Host live events/meetings

Like communities, live events offer a great opportunity for your followers to meet and talk about your industry, further strengthening your value as an influencer. Platforms such as Meetup allow you to host and organize meetings for small groups of people in various parts of the world.

If you’re planning on hosting a large scale event, it might also help you earn money with sponsorship and ticket sales.

Owing to the pandemic, several events are now taking place online. Platforms such as Vfairs, Hopin, and Meetyoo by Ubivent allow you to host large events with various participants online.

9. Connect with brands and cooperate

There are many ways to make money as an influencer, but the most popular way is to establish partnerships with brands and promote their products and services.

There are several ways you can connect and cooperate with brands. To begin with, you can reach out brands with a simple outreach email such as this:

“Hi,

I’m XYZ, founder of the ABC blog on [platform name]. I’ve been following your brand for a while and love your products. Since we’re in the same niche and target the same audience, would you be interested in featuring your products on my page?

I have a highly engaged audience of [follower count], and regularly receive hundreds of comments on all my posts. Here’s an example of one of my latest posts:

[Post screenshot]

I provide several types of collaborations for brands such as unboxing videos, reviews, and interviews with founders. Do let me know if you’re interested in collaborating and I’ll send my rates for posts with you.

Thanks,

XYZ.”

To find brands to collaborate with, you can take a look at popular brands in your niche, see if they invest in influencer marketing, and then find relevant contacts at those brands using LinkedIn and Twitter. It also helps to check out your competitor’s feeds and take a look at brands they have collaborated with in the past.

Another way to find brands to collaborate with is to partner with agencies such as Viral Nation, The Influencer Marketing Factory, and LYFE Marketing, who help brands connect with influencers of all sizes. You can also take a look at influencer marketing platforms such as Upfluence, Tagger, and Instabrand to help brands discover your profile.

Finally, you can also check if your favorite brands have an affiliate marketing program. Most brands do, and they pay well for sales through affiliate links.

What Do Brands Look For in an Instagram Influencer?

There are a few prerequisites that brands look for when collaborating with influencers. Take a look:

Post interactions

This refers to the likes, comments, and shares that each of your post gets. An influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers with few meaningful comments is worth less than a small influencer with hundreds of interesting comments on each post.

Audience demographics

What is the age group, gender, profession, and social status of the people who follow your page and interact with your posts? This helps brands gauge if your page is a good place to promote their product and if there is a marked overlap in your target audience.

Influencer’s interest

What are the topics that you talk about in your posts? Your niche and industry must be relevant to that of the brand. For example, a protein bar company would likely promote their product on a page that discusses fitness and ways to be healthy.

Creativity balanced with respect for brand identity

The brand’s values should match that of the influencer. For example, if a certain brand promotes animal rights, then they would likely partner with influencers that use cruelty-free products and promote animal protection too.

How to promote yourself as an influencer

It’s important to position yourself well as an influencer. You’ll want to talk about the engagement level of your posts, any positive reviews that you may have received from followers, as well as any notable achievements such as getting an interview with major media outlets, getting your content featured in industry-leading publications, and collaborating with thought leaders in your industry.

How to Become an Influencer on Social Media

While we’ve covered the basics of becoming an influencer, each platform has its own set of rules and best practices to quickly grow a sizable following.

Let’s take an in-depth look at how to become an influencer on each of the major platforms and social networks available.

How to Become a paid Instagram Influencer

Here’s a complete guide to becoming a top-notch influencer on Instagram. You’ll learn how to start, grow, and monetize your Instagram account and more.

1. Get your business account

Getting a business account on Instagram is the first step to starting your influencer journey on the platform. Why a business account? Because this will give you access to important analytics and insights that will help you grow a following. You can also promote your business account with ads, as we’ll see below.

2. Create inspiring and beautiful visual content and videos

Being a visual platform, it’s a no-brainer that aesthetic, beautiful images and photos work best with Instagram. No matter what your niche, beauty, fitness, food, or travel, you can always find ways to make your content eye-catching.

Take the example of travel blogger, Dalinda’s Instagram feed, which is full of aesthetic photos.

3. Grow your Instagram account

Let’s dig into the best ways for growing an Instagram account:

Prioritize content

If there’s one rule to growing an Instagram account, it’s this: consistently posting relevant, interesting, and useful content for your followers. This is the only proven hack that results in constant engagement with your account and helps you grow a following.

Other than posts, you also want to make use of other Instagram features such as stories, polls, ask me anything sessions, and quizzes.

Be consistent

You can’t expect to grow an Instagram account if you don’t have the time to post content regularly. Develop a regular posting schedule, so your followers know what to expect from you. The idea is not to bombard users’ feed with content, but share just enough posts and stories to keep them engaged. As for when you should post on Instagram, publishing new posts in the morning always works, no matter who you’re targeting with your posts.

Tag larger accounts

Every niche has a certain number of accounts curating the best content for its audience. Getting your Instagram plag featured on a big page like this can do wonders for your account. Be sure to tag 3-5 bigger accounts in your niche in every post, to get on their radar Even if one of them reposts your post on their account or as a story, it can invite thousands of new followers to your account.

Use popular hashtags

Many popular Instagram accounts make use of hashtags to keep track of interesting posts in their niche. For example, large food bloggers may use hashtags such as “#foodporn”, “#foodmania” and “#fooddiaries”. When you use hashtags by specific bloggers, it tells them you like their content and it’s a badge of honour for them. These accounts may, in turn, feature your post on their account, or tag you in their stories. Ultimately, it gives you exposure to large audiences of other bloggers.

Organize giveaways and contests

Giveaways are a popular way for 5-10 influencers to offer different products as prizes to their audiences. Giveaways can be held by a single Influencer, but they work best when various influencers come together to organize a mega giveaway by grouping a bunch of related prizes. This helps all the influencers gain exposure to different audiences.

For example, Katie Dunlop of Love Sweat Fitness routinely organizes giveaways with other fitness bloggers on Instagram.

How many followers on Instagram do you need to make money?

Earning money on Instagram does not necessarily depend on the number of followers your account has. Why? Because there are several cheap ways to buy a bulk following on Instagram and various unscrupulous ways to boost the number of followers you have. Most of these methods will only result in getting you a large number of dummy accounts as followers, and not genuine, interested people.

Instead, a better metric to judge the marketing value of an Instagram account is to gauge the level of engagement that different posts generate and if there’s buzz about an influencer outside of Instagram too.

Brands are most interested in partnering with accounts with a high level of organic engagement and genuine comments on posts.

Again, engagement in the form of comments can be faked too. However, brands can smell such dishonest engagements in one glance.

How to monetize your Instagram account

There are various ways to monetize an Instagram account such as:

Directly reviewing and selling products for other brands
Selling your products
Affiliate marketing
Sponsorships and paid ads

Instagram offers various places where you can promote products and brands: posts, stories, IGTV videos, live videos, and reels (Instagram’s recently launched short video tool).

How much money can you make as an Instagram influencer?

There’s no fixed answer to this. As per an article from Later, influencers generally charge $100 per 10K followers, but this is only a starting point. They also have to factor in the time taken to produce a post, the told they use, and the level of engagement they can garner.

Best resources/courses for becoming an Instagram Influencer

Here are the top 10 resources I found to help you become an Instagram influencer:

Best tools for growing and managing an Instagram page

Many Instagram tools help in account growth and management. These tools enable users to handle their accounts professionally and with flexibility. Below are some must-try Instagram tools:

Socialpilot

Socialpilot is a pocket-friendly tool that helps you schedule updates to your Instagram account. It also helps you manage various social media platforms in one place and also view analytics for your posts.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social allows you to easily schedule your posts, monitor hashtags, and manage comments on Instagram.

This platform helps you to grow your Instagram account in many ways. Manage multiple Instagram accounts under one platform. Monitor hashtags for your posts and respond to every comment or @mention. Finally, discover your top-performing posts and create more high-value content.

Combin

Combin helps you manage and grow up to 15 Instagram accounts. Keep track of comments and all activity around your accounts, including comments and likes, from one simple dashboard.

How to Become a paid Influencer on Facebook

Want to become a top Facebook influencer? Here are the top tools, tips, and tricks you’ll need.

1. Create a Facebook Account and Profile

There are three types of accounts you can create on Facebook: personal profiles, business page, and groups.

To get started on your Facebook influencer journey, you’ll first need to build a follow-worthy profile. This means it should have more than just personal details and pictures.

You must make your niche clear in every aspect of your profile, right from the cover photo to your bio. For example, if you want to be a fitness influencer, use the right hashtags and keywords in your bio to attract the right type of followers.

Other than this, you’ll want to join groups relevant to your niche, share newsworthy content, and post about events and places that you’ve been to.

Other than a personal Facebook profile, you can also start a Facebook page for your brand. Pages offer more flexibility in terms of measuring the performance of your posts and creating custom event invites.

Lastly, you can also create a private group on Facebook to help audiences in your niche converge and have insightful discussions.

2. Create visual content and videos for Facebook

Video is the most popular type of content on Facebook, according to one study. To get the most engagement on Facebook, create content that is driven by story and has a human element. In general, inspirational, funny, and practical content gets the most comments and likes on Facebook.

Take a look at this popular Facebook video by Funny in Public:

3. Grow your Facebook page

Here are few ways to grow your following on Facebook:

Spread the word

The best way to grow your Facebook folding is to promote your profile, page or group as much as you can. A few places to promote your Facebook page:

Invite your friends, family, and coworkers to follow your page
Email contacts and customers about your page
Add your page to your email signature
Use Facebook ads to prompted your page

Interact with other pages

Commenting on and following other interesting pages in your niche is a sure-shot way of getting on their radar. A share from a large and popular account can help boost you following too.

Create and curate great content

With every platform, content is king. But on Facebook, you don’t get rewarded for creating great content alone, it also helps to curate interesting posts from other people. This helps build your value as a thoughtful curator in your niche.

Create contests and giveaways

Contests come with a built-in virality that helps spread your Facebook page far and wide. Various apps help you organize and monitor Facebook contests in an efficient way.

How to monetize Facebook?

There are different ways in which influencers can monetise their content on Facebook:

In-stream ads

This means including ads in your Facebook videos. These help influencers earn money by including short ads before, during or after their videos. Earnings are determined by factors such as number of video views and who the advertisers are.

Fan subscriptions

This means adding paid subscriptions to Pages. This is best for pages with a large and active following. Paid subscriptions allow audiences to directly support a creator’s work through monthly, recurring payments set by the influencer.

Collaborating with brands

Influencers can generate revenue by publishing content that features or is influenced by a business partner. Brands are always on the lookout for content creators that help them reach a specific audience. To make this more impactful and safer, Facebook has also created a tool: brand collabs manager. This tool helps influencers and brands connect.

Adding paid memberships to groups

Influencers can start small, private communities with paid subscribers. They can offer exclusive perks such as live training, e-books, Q&A sessions, and tips and tricks to paid members.

Best resources/courses for becoming a Facebook Influencer

One of the best courses available on the ‘Facebook for Creators’ site is the ‘Monetising your content on Facebook’ course. Influencers learn how to earn money on Facebook, check their monetisation eligibility status, and also learn to set up and manage their payouts.

A few other courses for facebook influencers you can check out include:

Best tools for growing and managing a Facebook page

Here are some of the best tools to help you monetize and manage a Facebook account:

ShortStack

This tool allows beginner influencers to create Facebook landing apps, campaigns, and pages in a hassle-free way.

Tabsite

This tool helps influencers manage custom Facebook pages, apps, and run promotions. They can also offer deals and run Facebook contests.

Heyo

Heyo is a tool for influencers to create Facebook campaigns that can be optimized for every device. Save time with pre-built free Facebook templates. The drag and drop feature gives complete creative control to users. Also, influencers can use the tool to drive engagement through photo contests, sweepstakes, group deals, and other Facebook page apps.

Woobox

This tool helps influencers easily create and run successful contests, polls, giveaways, forms, coupons, and more, on Facebook.

How to Become an Influencer on YouTube

Here’s a quick guide to becoming an influencer on YouTube. You’ll learn how to grow your subscribers, earn money, and manage your account like a pro.

1. Start your YouTube Channel

There are two main parts to becoming a YouTube influencer: create a channel and upload the most engaging videos you possibly can.

For your YouTube channel, you’ll need a cover image, a profile photo, and a channel trailer. A cover image should be straightforward and captivating. You can use a symbol and the channel name in the cover image. Your profile photo should represent your brand. Most influencers use their photos in this space.

A channel trailer is an introduction to the content of the channel. Most influencers don’t have a channel trailer but they do describe the channel in the ‘About’ section.

The next step is to create and upload videos. Optimising your videos to get discovered on YouTube is as important as creating them. This is a step we’ll discuss in the next few sections.

2. Produce entertaining, engaging videos

Before you start creating videos, choose the best type of videos that will help you stand out.

These are some YouTube content ideas that do well:

Funny or amusing videos: Think cat memes and dancing babies. People are most likely to share these on social media, says research.

Educational videos: These are great if your chosen niche is a complicated one such as SaaS marketing or programming.

Inspirational or emotional videos: These videos inspire people to take action and think about a topic differently. Think about what are the main problems of your target audience and how you can strike an emotional chord with them. For example, if your niche is choosing a career path, you may make a video about the value of finding your passion.

Comedy sketches: If you’ve seen any of comedian Sarah Cooper’s videos, you know what I’m talking about. Most comedy sketches revolve around famous personalities or pop culture events, but they can also be weaved around an original idea.

Vlogs: Several influencers also create vlogs about their day-to-day life, or behind-the-scenes at their workplace. If you’re looking to get started with vlogging, here’s a great resource to help you.

3. Grow your YouTube channel

Growing a YouTube channel involves a few important steps:

Optimizing videos for SEO

Creating great content is not enough. You’ll need to help people find your videos on YouTube.

Just like Google is a search engine, YouTube works like one for videos too. Using the right keywords in the description, video title, and video tags can help you garner a solid number of video views.

It also helps to use appropriate thumbnails to attract the right viewers.

While there’s no ideal length for videos, the sweet spot is generally 7 to 15 minutes. It’s long enough to improve watch hours, but also short enough to keep people engaged.

Don’t make a video longer just for the sake of making it longer because you’ll lose viewers.

Use the right tools

This means investing in a good quality camera, video editing software, and microphone. High-quality videos will instantly help you stand out among a bunch of amateur-looking ones.

Promote videos

Be sure to tell people to subscribe to your channel, so they can receive updates when you upload new content.

It also helps to promote your content on other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit to get the maximum eyeballs for your content.

How to monetize your YouTube account

There are many ways to make money on YouTube. These include:

Join the YouTube Partner Program

As discussed above, the Partner program allows creators to earn money on their videos by adding ads to them. The longer a video, the more ads it can have, and the more money it results in for creators.

Affiliate marketing

In this case, an influencer promotes, analyses or mentions a product in their video and provides a link to buy in the description of their video. If viewers click on that link and buy the product, the YouTuber gets a commission.

Sell your products

YouTube is also a lucrative place to sell your products if you have a large enough following. Most YouTubers create their accessories and clotheslines such as shoes, shirts, sunglasses, jeans, and other merchandise related to their niche. You can promote your products within your videos or use the YouTube Partner Merch Shelf to promote your products to viewers.

Brand partnerships

Sponsors generally partner with YouTubers that have a big or super-engaged audience. Influencers can directly integrate a product into the video, review and recommend a product, or simply add a “Sponsored by Brand” mention at the beginning of the video.

Best resources/courses for becoming a YouTube Influencer

YouTube Creator’s Academy has a few great resources for becoming an influencer on the platform. Some of these include:

Production: Before Your Shoot, During Your Shoot and After Your Shoot

Getting Started: The quickstart guide to YouTube course

Money & Business category: Is your channel ready to earn money?, Earn money with ads Part 1 & Part 2, and Earn money through YouTube branded content.

Channel Optimization: Get Discovered, Build the hype with premieres, Use comments to connect with your community, and Establish your fanbase.

Content Strategy: Get your music channel started on YouTube, and Create great content.

Best tools for growing and managing a YouTube account

Here are some tools to help you grow and manage your YouTube account:

TubeBuddy

This is a browser extension to manage your YouTube account. It helps you experiment with tags, titles, thumbnails, and descriptions to help you optimize your content. It also has a scheduling feature to upload videos and delete them.

vidIQ

vidIQ is also a browser extension that helps you track YouTube viewer analytics. You can find out who watches your videos the most and make videos based on those findings. It also provides SEO tools to compare your account with other accounts and observe keyword scores.

Camtasia

Camtasia is a screen recorder and a video editor. You can also add effects, notes, highlights, arrows, and captions to these recordings. You can also add narration in the background to your videos. It is a great application for making video tutorials.

How to Become a B2B Influencer on LinkedIn

Take a look at the best tips, resources, and ways to become a sought-after influencer on LinkedIn.

There are two main steps to get started with becoming an influencer on LinkedIn:

1. Understand your objectives

Why do you want to become an influencer on LinkedIn? Are you looking to attract more clients? Do you want to be seen as a thought leader in your industry? Are you looking to use LinkedIn as a platform to promote your site or business? Having a clear goal helps you craft relevant content for the platform.

2. Create an eye-catching account

Your profile photo must be your own, and not a stock photo. This helps establish credibility and trust. Also, your LinkedIn description is the place to showcase your expertise and skills. Be sure to use lots of relevant keywords in your headlines and bio, so your audiences can discover your account on the platform.

3. Build connections with the right people

LinkedIn is all about making connections with relevant professionals in your field. Apart from connections you may already know such as past coworkers, school and college alumni, and past employers, be sure to frequently reach out to other experts in your field.

Don’t simply send them a generic request. Explain why you reached out to them specifically, what interests you have in common, and why you’d like to connect to them. A well-tailored connection request is more likely to get accepted.

4. Engage with insights

What are some key insights you have learned in your professional journey? Would your network find these valuable?

Take a look at your past experiences, what you learned from them, and how they can benefit your community at large. Instead of posting formulaic generic content, sharing stories and insights from your experiences are more valuable on LinkedIn and lead to more engagement.

5. Grow your LinkedIn following

There are a few tips and tricks to increase your LinkedIn followers such as:

Improve SEO

Use the right keywords to help relevant people discover your profile. Places to incorporate keywords include your bio, headline, and description.

Network with relevant people

One of the best ways to fast track your LinkedIn account to the top is to connect with relevant influencers and audiences in your niche. This helps your content get noticed by the movers and shakers in your industry. When they like or comment on your posts, their network gets to see your posts too.

Write on LinkedIn’s publishing platform

Publishing insightful content on LinkedIn’s publishing platform is a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche. The most popular pieces on LinkedIn are often promoted in LinkedIn roundups, and to followers of your account.

Create LinkedIn posts regularly

It’s important to keep publishing content on LinkedIn at a consistent clip if you want to capture the attention of your audience. Be sure to post at least 3-4 times a week for best results.

Engage with other posts

To get on the radar of other influencers in your niche, be sure to regularly leave insightful comments on their posts too.

Join relevant LinkedIn groups

Groups are a more intimate way to connect with people in your niche and have insightful discussions. They can also be used to occasionally promote your posts.

Check your Social Selling Index and improve it

Social selling index is a score provided by LinkedIn to your profile, based on how well you establish your brand on the platform, the people you connect with, and insights you share. All of these are factored into your SSI.

A high SSI score indicates a strong LinkedIn profile. To find your SSI score, log in to your LinkedIn account and click on this link.

How many followers on LinkedIn do you need to become an influencer?

Influencers with less than 1,000 followers are known as nano-influencers on LinkedIn, while those with 1,000 to 100,000 are called micro-influencers. These influencers have a highly engaged and captivated audience.

A few influencers have more than 100,000 followers. These tend to have lesser engagement on their posts. The most famous influencer on LinkedIn is Bill Gates, with more than 29 million followers.

How to monetize your LinkedIn account

LinkedIn is a platform for professionals to connect with others in their industry, find jobs, and look for sales prospects.

While there are no direct ways to monetize your LinkedIn account, there are a few indirect benefits to becoming a LinkedIn influencer such as:

Get lucrative job opportunities

Candidates with a large LinkedIn following enjoy the attention of recruiters globally and stand the chance to get job offers from large companies. Once brands see an individual as an authority in their niche, they are bound to reach out to them.

Establish yourself as a thought leader

Seasoned professionals can use LinkedIn as a platform to spread their ideas and opinions on major issues in their industry. This helps.policy issues that matter and place the influencer front and center in the minds of their target audience. Thought leaders in every industry enjoy the privilege of speaking at prestigious events, publishing books, and taking up other career transforming opportunities.

Win customers for your brand/service

An example of this is marketer John Bonini. He uses LinkedIn to boost membership to his private and paid community, Some Good Content. By promoting exclusive content from his community on LinkedIn, he can attract new members to his group and boost his income.

Best resources/courses for becoming a LinkedIn influencer

There aren’t too many good resources to learn about LinkedIn, but here are a few good ones I found:

Free LinkedIn Tutorial

21 Tips for Attracting Followers to Your LinkedIn Page

How to Grow Your Brand’s Organic Following on LinkedIn

Best tools for growing and managing a LinkedIn page

Here are some tools to better help you manage a LinkedIn page:

Oktopost

This tool helps you comfortably schedule updates and also post to groups.

Simply Measured

This is a LinkedIn analytics tool, acquired by Sprout Social. It helps you see the rate of growth of your audience and how they interact with your posts. It can also be used to compare your LinkedIn performance to other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Quintly

This is also an analytics platform that helps you visualise audience growth and engagement in the form of graphs.

Expandi .io

This tool helps you automate marketing on LinkedIn, send better outreach emails, and increase engagement with your content. It also helps you find relevant leads for your B2B company.

Le mpod .com

This tool helps you find engagement groups for your LinkedIn posts. Connect with people who are likely to engage with your LinkedIn content through meaningful comments and likes. You can find the best engagement pods for your industry as well as location.

How to Become an Influencer on TikTok

Here is a guide to becoming an influential TikTok creator:

1. Create your TikTok Account and become a TikTok Creator

For those in the dark, Tiktok is an app that lets you create videos of yourself using different soundtracks and voiceovers.

The platform favours short, amusing videos, though many influencers from niches such as fitness, education, and cooking are now using the platform to spread their work.

2. Create engaging original short videos

While TikTok started as a way to lip-sync on popular videos, it can also be used to create original content. The best influential TikTokers have a healthy mix of original and lip-sync videos on their page. Be sure to have a consistent publishing schedule, so you’re always top of mind for your viewers.

3.Grow your TikTok followers

There are myriad ways that can help you grow your following on TikTok. Some of them are as follows:

Piggyback on popular social media videos

Watch out for trending videos and soundtracks on social media. These increase the chances of your own TikTok being shared on social media.

Collaborate with others

Collaborating with other influencers on TikTok helps you gain access to their fan following, and vice versa. It’s a mutually beneficial exercise, and one of the best ways to grow your followers.

Experiment with video genres

TikTok is a place where people come to unwind. Therefore, it helps to try a few different types of videos and not stick to one particular kind to get the best results. A part of your target audience may enjoy dance videos, while another may be interested in videos with an emotional appeal. Try to create 3-4 types of videos that can appeal to a wide target audience.

How many followers on TikTok do you need to make money?

TikTok influencers need at least a 1000 followers to be able to conduct live streams and earn virtual coins from viewers.

As for sponsorships, most brands prefer to work with TikTok influencers with a large enough following.

It’s even better if a TikTok influencer has a sizable following on Instagram, as this can help them offer combo deals to brands for both platforms.

How to monetize TikTok

There are a few popular ways to earn money on TikTok such as:

Brand collaborations

Leading brands across the globe are recognizing the potential of TikTok as an advertising platform. Influencers on the platform can earn sponsorships from brands, and even directly promote products in their videos for a hefty sum.

Tips from fans

TikTok allows creators to earn tips from viewers during live streams. Users can pay in the form of coins, which are available for purchase in the app itself. Fans provide these tips to thank and appreciate TikTokers for live content. TikTok gives creators 80% of the total tips collected during the live stream.

Promote your products

The third way to earn money is by selling your products or services using TikTok. For example, if you sell makeup products, you can create a DIY makeup video and display all your products clearly with all the details in the video itself.

Best resources/courses for becoming a TikTok Influencer

There are a few good resources for TikTok influencers to improve their craft. Some of the best and most useful ones are listed below.

Best tools for growing and managing a TikTok page

There are many services on the internet that provide complete control and management of your TikTok account. I would like to recommend the top three services that you all should try anyhow.

Tok Upgrade

This is an excellent tool to help you grow your followers. Like posts from people similar to you, engage with audiences in real-time, and get a dedicated account manager to help you grow your presence.

Toksocial

This tool helps you target genuine, engaged audiences on the platform and avoid fake and spam accounts. It’s advanced filters help you blacklist suspicious-looking accounts and hashtags, and get discovered by potential audiences.

How to Become an Influencer with a Blog or on Medium

Before the advent of social media, blogging was one of the primary ways for influencers to establish their authority and earn a living. Even today, it remains one of the most popular ways to become a thought leader and influence people.

1. Pick your Blog platform

There are four major ways you can start a blog. You can choose to launch a self-hosted website on WordPress.org, or you can build a website with the help of WordPress.com. The former allows you to manage your website content, but you have to buy a domain name and hosting service such as Bluehost.

On the other hand, WordPress.com is a website builder platform that provides you with a custom domain, hosting, and a security certificate.

You can also start a website using a platform such as Ghost, which is a paid platform that helps you publish a blog, launch a paid membership site, and email newsletters.

Finally, there’s Medium, which is a blogging platform for writers and creators. In this case, all you have to do is set up a profile and publish content. You don’t have to worry about customizing themes or the look and feel of your blog.

The difference between WordPress.com, WordPress.org, and Ghost, and a publishing platform such as Medium is that, in case of the former, you get a custom domain and your content belongs to you. You can monetize it any way you like. On the other hand, Medium allows you to monetize content only through its partner program.

To begin with, it’s best to launch your blog on a platform such as WordPress and repost your content on Medium for a wider reach.

If you’re not very comfortable handling the technical aspects of blogging, you may want to choose a website builder such as Ghost or WordPress.com to start your blog, as WordPress.org has a steep learning curve.

2. Pick a suitable topic/niche

As discussed earlier, you want to select a blogging niche that lies at the intersection of your skills, the audience’s interests, and subjects you’re passionate about.

Your niche decides how big your blog can eventually grow and what the earnings potential of the blog will be. Don’t worry about selecting too small a niche though. Having a highly engaged audience in a specific niche such as welding and HVAC is better than having thousands of mildly interested readers in a broad niche such as fashion and styling.

3. Set up your blog and choose a template

As discussed earlier, you can choose to host your blog on a dedicated blogging platform such as WordPress or Wix. For this option, you’ll also need to buy a hosting plan for your website.

The advantage of starting a WordPress blog is the ability to choose from thousands of free and paid blog themes, customize the look and feel of your blog, and own your audience. With a platform such as Medium, you’ll be subject to the rules and regulations of the platform to scale your blog.

Quick tip about blog design: make sure it’s simple, easy to navigate, and conveys your expertise in an obvious way. For example, if you’re a designer, you’ll want a sassy design that showcases your skills, while a blog about writing will have the copy as its main focus.

4. Do Keyword Research

People search Google for almost every conceivable query, and when they search for a topic in your niche, you want to make sure your blog shows up. Keyword research helps you figure out the most relevant and popular search queries in your niche, and helps you get a leg up in search results.

This guide from Ahrefs is a good starting point if you’re looking to earn more about keyword research.

5. Write great blog posts

Writing share-worthy blog posts is both an art and science. You want to be engaging and helpful, interesting and precise, and most importantly, you want to connect with readers onna personal level.

Great blog posts have a distinct voice, share useful information, and back up all claims with examples and statistics.

Good blog posts don’t have to be lengthy. You can convey helpful information in short posts, provided you back it up with data and practical examples.

6. Develop a consistent publishing schedule

The key to growing a blog is publishing regularly. Don’t expect readers to grow overnight. It can take years of high-quality content to grow a blog to achieve recognition.

How much traffic do you need to monetize a blog?

The answer to this question is that it depends on the ways you are using to earn money from blogging.

If you primarily earn money from advertising, you’ll need at least 1000 page views on your blog before you start monetizing. Earning from ads is simple but also a slow process.

If you are using affiliate marketing to earn, then it depends on the quality of visitors to your website and whether they click through to buy a product. In this case, it is more important to attract relevant readers who might click and purchase from your affiliate links.

If you publish your posts on Medium, you can join Medium’s partner program to earn money for your work. There are writers on Medium who earn more than $20,000 per month and those who have earned more than $6,000 per story.

How to grow your blog readers

Growing a blog is a laborious and time-consuming process. Here’s how it works:

Keep it simple

Unless your blog is about Shakespearean times and ideas, keep your language simple and accessible. Avoid using language full of fluff, or jargon. Explain concepts simply with examples and images. Also, it helps to make it easy for users to navigate your blog.

Focus on content quality

As far as blogging goes, there’s no substitute for content quality. No matter what your niche, there are probably hundreds of blogs already present. The oy way to stand out and build a loyal following is to create content worth people’s time and attention.

Optimize for SEO

Once you’ve done keyword research, make sure to optimise your blog’s meta description, titles, and headings to focus on your main keywords. Note you don’t want to stuff your post with keywords, but it should be fairly obvious to Google what it’s about.

Optimize site speed

Make sure your hosting service provides you with quick page load times. This will keep readers coming back. A slow, lagging site experience can deter them from returning to your website. You’ll want to ensure that it works well across all devices too, including mobiles and tablets. A few factors that result in slow site speed include heavy themes, multiple images, and too many plugins.

Use high-quality images

Blog posts with images get 180% more engagement. Thus, it is recommended to use a high-quality image every few paragraphs to break up the text and give the reader a better understanding of the topic. Use plenty of screenshots, infographics, and original images, to ensure you convert your point clearly to the reader.

Promote, promote, promote

Publishing content is only half the piece of the puzzle, the other half is promoting it far and wide. Be sure to have a blog promotion checklist ready before you hit publish.

A few ways to promote your blog posts:

Create social media posts
Send it to your email list
Create infographics and images to share on social media
Partner with other influencers for co-promotion
Use paid ads
Post on communities such as Reddit and Quora
Guest blog on other blogs
Perform Link building tactics like Skyscraper, Resource Link Building

How to monetize your blog

Here a few ways to earn a reliable income from a blog:

Advertisements

This is one of the most popular ways to monetize a blog. Most bloggers use PPC or paid per click advertising to earn money. While there’s no fixed number of page views you need to start running ads on your blog, most bloggers recommend at least getting 1000 page views.

Affiliate marketing

To successfully earn money from affiliate marketing, you’ll need to drive relevant traffic to your blog who might be willing to purchase your recommended products. For instance, if you put Amazon affiliate links for books on your website, be sure to attract readers who are avid readers to your blog.

Sell your products

Marketing and selling your products is one of the best ways to earn money in blogging. A blog serves as a great outlet to promote your products, describe its uniqueness, and drive people to buy. It’s one of the most popular ways software companies use to get new customers.

Blog Coaching services

Influential bloggers often sell one-on-one coaching services in their niche. For example, Kaleigh Moore sells coaching for freelance writers, while Melinda Emerson sells coaching services for small businesses. Coaching services exist in various industries such as career, life, money, finance, relationships, wellness, fitness, and leadership.

Best resources/courses for becoming an influential blogger

Here are some top-notch resources to help you level up as a sought-after blogger in your niche:

Best tools for growing and managing a blog

Here are some blogging tools to help you to save time and reach more readers.

WordPress

If you want to get a blog up and running in no time, WordPress is your best bet. It gives you a place to host your blog with your domain name, provides you with free themes to choose from, and provides plugins for collecting email addresses, setting up forms, enabling comments on your blog, and doing a lot more with your blog.

Google Docs

One of the simplest tools to write, edit, and polish your blogs before uploading to WordPress. If you’re working with various collaborators to write your blog such as a designer, an editor, and so on, it makes for everyone to leave comments on posts too.

Grammarly

This is a simple and free document editor that quickly helps you catch any typos and wordy sentences, so your writing is clear and error-free.

Google Keyword Tool

Another one from Google, this one helps you find out which keywords get the most searches per month, what is the competition for those keywords, and which other popular keywords you can target in your niche.

Unsplash

This is a great tool to find high-resolution images that don’t look like stock photography. It’s also free of cost.

How to Become an Influencer with a Podcast

If you post a story on Instagram, it may capture somebody’s attention for 10 to 15 seconds. Now imagine if you have half an hour or a full hour with your audience. This is exactly the kind of intimate connection a podcast helps you establish. This is also why podcasts are highly popular with brands, influencers, and advertisers.

Here’s a complete guide to becoming a podcast influencer:

1. Start your podcast

There are various tools and platforms to get started as a podcaster. For starters, you need to pick a suitable topic and market. Next, select a good microphone and podcasting software. This will be used to prune and trim your podcast. You’ll also need a platform to host your podcast.

As for the content of your podcast, be sure to prepare podcast scripts in advance, so you don’t fumble during the show. That’s it.

When you’re ready, just hit publish.

2. Do it Solo or Invite guests

Most podcasts follow a set format: they either interview guests or the host shares their thoughts and recommendations.

Both formats work well, if you have a unique and interesting angle to cover. For example, Jocelyn K Glei has a podcast called Hurry Slowly, where she interviews guests about working in a more meaningful, unhurried way. The interviews are longer, 45-50 minute episodes, while she also shares short episodes where she tackles an important topic herself.

3. Grow your podcast downloads

Some useful tips to grow your podcast’s popularity:

Publish regularly

The best podcasts thrive on a consistent publishing schedule. Pick a schedule you think your audience will enjoy. If you’re serving a particularly busy niche such as marketers, you may choose to publish once a week. Whereas, if your target audience is teenagers, you might choose to release two episodes per week.

A note on publishing schedules: simply because you’re publishing by the calendar, doesn’t mean you can compromise on content quality to meet a deadline. Pick a cadence that allows you to do your best work.

Use the right tools

Investing in a good quality microphone, editing software, and publishing platform will help your podcast come across as a professional and polished piece of work, and not an amateur experiment. This is a crucial step for those looking to establish a large following with a podcast.

Submit your podcast to popular platforms

Google Play, Spotify, and iTunes are some of the most popular platforms to submit your podcast to. They help interested audiences discover your podcast.

Promote on other platforms

Use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and communities such as Reddit and Quora to build buzz about your podcast. If you have an email list, be sure to promote new episodes to your list as well.

Collaborate with other podcasts

Podcasters often collaborate with others in their niche to get access to a wider audience of listeners. See if there are any podcasts With roughly the same or slightly larger audience than yours. Don’t aim for the big guns initially, as they may not be interested.

Garner feedback

Identify your most engaged audience–those who consistently comment, like, reply, and recommend your podcast to others. Ask them for feedback to improve your content.

Ask the audience for reviews

In every episode, be sure to implore audiences to review and rate your podcast.

How many podcast subscribers do you need to make money?

Podcasters with a highly engaged audience can for him to monetise their show in lucrative ways. Generally, you’ll need at least 3,000 to 6,000 listeners before you can start pitching your podcast to sponsors and advertisers.

If you have a super-engaged audience in a specific niche, it is also possible to monetize a podcast with 1,000-2,000 listeners.

How to monetize your podcast

Podcasters can make money in two different ways: Direct monetization and indirect monetization. The direct way of monetizing your podcast is by selling your show. Simply just create original content, repurpose it, and grant exclusive access to paying members. The indirect way is to use your podcast for selling other things.

Let’s delve into each of these below.

Direct ways to monetize your podcast

Ask listeners for support

An engaged audience should be more than happy to support you for the great content you provide. Patreon is a popular platform to help you do this.

Paid membership

If you have exclusive content such as backstage prep, exclusive interviews, and more, listeners will be ready to pay.

Sponsorships

Podcasters often start their show with “This episode is brought to you by …..”. Brands and sponsors relevant to the podcast’s audience pay for these ads. There are three main types of ads: pre-roll, post-roll, and mid-roll.

Advertising networks: Networks like Midroll, AdvertiseCast, and Podcorn act as the middlemen between the sponsor and the podcaster. When you join advertising networks, they help you find sponsors and in turn, take a cut from ad placements in your show.

Indirect ways to monetize a podcast

Selling products

Listeners who love the podcast might also be willing to buy merchandise of the show. Podcasters can sell branded swag such as mugs, t-shirts, or stickers for connecting with their audience.

E-courses

Educational podcasts that teach new skills can also earn money by creating an e-course. In this case, the podcast can serve as a perfect place to promote your course.

Selling affiliate products

This is another popular way for podcasters to make money. Instead of promoting brand-sponsored products, promote products you wish to sell as an affiliate, and pop the link in your podcast description.

Best resources/courses for becoming a podcast influencer

How difficult is it to get started? What kind of equipment will be required? How can you grow your listeners?

You’ll find answers to all these in some of the excellent courses below:

How to Start A Podcast Using Your Smartphone
(Udemy)
Podcast Audio Editing Ninja (Udemy)
Podcast Influence & Revenue Course (Udemy)
Podcast Host Masterclass (Udemy)
Producing Podcasts (LinkedIn Learning)

Best tools for growing and managing a podcast

There are several useful podcasting tools (platforms and apps) for producing and distributing a podcast.

Libsyn

This podcast network helps podcasters in creating, hosting, publishing and promoting their podcast.

Podbean

This podcasting platform has all the features needed for starting a podcast, promoting the podcast, and monetizing the podcast.

Buzzsprout

Buzzsprout claims to have helped over 100,000 people start their podcast. Podcasters can host, promote, and track their podcast through this platform.

Anchor

This all-in-one platform allows podcasters to create, distribute, and monetize their podcast from any device, for free.

How to Become an Influencer on Twitter

Twitter is a place for smart folks to converge and discuss topics that interest them. Here’s how you can establish yourself as an authority on the platform:

1. Create your twitter profile

To get started, you’ll need a welcoming profile photo and bio that interests readers. Avoid getting too creative with your bio and using cheeky language such as “Chief Content Ninja” or “Saving the World from Boredom”.

That’s it. That’s all you need to set up your Twitter profile.

Growing a following, of course, is another matter, which we’ll discuss below.

2. Tweet out to the world

Twitter is a place to share your thoughts and opinions with the world. Not random, fleeting opinions that no one would find interesting.

You want to share genuinely helpful and insightful posts that cause people to stop and think. Keep track of important topics in your niche and let followers know if you have an unusual take on the topic. You can also retweet relevant content in your niche and be seen as a thoughtful curator.

3. Grow your Twitter followers

Here’s a quick guide to growing your following on Twitter:

Post at least 3-5 times a week

Some influencers post multiple times a day, but at the very least, you should post a tweet at least a few times a week. This helps you stay on top of mind for your target audience.

Time your tweet well

From personal experience, I can attest that tweets that don’t get much engagement in the first couple of hours are not shown to more users afterwards. This makes it important for you to tweet at a time when your followers are most active and likely to engage with your tweets. Experiment with a few different times to find your ideal time to tweet.

Be interesting

People on Twitter are looking for ways to improve their life, productivity, and work. The best tweets get to the point quickly (you only have 280 characters) and say something meaningful. This means no obvious insights, quotes that everyone’s read, and plagiarized advice.

Add visuals

According to Buffer, sharing images in tweets increases retweets by 150%. It’s official: images and videos help you reach a wider audience and better engage your audience.

Interact with influencers

Leaving insightful comments on tweets of influencers in your industry is a great way to get noticed. If they choose to reply to your comment or even like it, it gives you a chance to be seen by the hundreds of followers they may have.

Add your Twitter profile everywhere

Be sure to include your handle in all other social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and also Medium, your contact page, and your email signature.

How to monetize your Twitter account

Here are the best ways to earn an income from your Twitter account:

Promote products/services

Twitter is a great place to market your products or services. You can also recommend and sell products from other brands, as an affiliate.

Sell paid content

Twitter is a place for creatives and professionals who are always looking to better their skills and learn new things. This makes it a great place to sell paid content such as newsletters, books, courses, and research.

Twitter influencers are also known to sell memberships to paid communities and coaching services.

Best resources/courses for becoming a Twitter influencer

Here are some comprehensive guides to become a Twitter influencer:

How to Become a Twitter Influencer: Science and Practice

How to Become a Twitter

Influencer: 40 Tips from a Normal Guy with 500K Followers

How to Be a Twitter Influencer in 2018

Best tools for growing and managing a Twitter account

Some tools for managing your Twitter account effectively:

Twesocial

Twesocial helps you gain authentic followers quickly. The best part is there are no fake followers or bots. It also helps you to promote yourself to a particular audience.

Socialpilot:

This is a cost-effective tool that helps you schedule updates to your Twitter account. It allows smooth collaboration between your social media management team, shows analytics at a glance, and helps you manage various social media accounts in one place.

Buffer

This tool helps you schedule your tweets in advance, create high-quality images for Twitter, and track analytics for your tweets.

Hashtagify

This tool provides you with a detailed breakdown of the most popular hashtags, trends, and influencers to connect with in your industry. It also provides suggestions to drive more engagement for your tweets.

Are You Ready to Start Your Journey to Becoming an Influencer?

I hope this guide serves as a good starting point in your journey to becoming a renowned influencer.

Create quality content consistently, promote your work far and wide, and be sure to listen to your audience every step of the way.

Always keep in mind, there are no shortcuts. Growing your reputation as an influencer can take many months and years of hard work and dedication, but the rewards are worth toiling for.