The media has been evolving and with it the way of becoming famous. Although singers, actresses and TV celebrities continue to be quite admired figures, a new type of celebrity has prevailed in recent years: influencers.
Influencers can be anything, but they all share the trait of being content creators. Drawings, music, movie reviews, exercise routines… there are many types of content in the form of photos and videos that, due to their originality or because they have offered something of very good quality, have catapulted them to fame.
Becoming an influencer is not easy, but not impossible There are several aspects that must be taken into account to ensure that our YouTube channel or Instagram account becomes influential. Next we are going to learn how to be an influencer.
How to be an influencer: a challenge for thousands of people
With the rise of social networks and large content publishing platforms, more and more people want to be influencers Influencers are defined as people who provide content on a certain topic, whether photos or videos, that are original, of good quality or, simply, have been successful and serve as a reference for many people. As these people have many followers, companies and commercial brands see them as a very effective platform to promote their products.
Nowadays, influencers are admired people, on the same level as singers, actors and other celebrities. For this reason, many people enter the world of social networks, whether Instagram, YouTube, Twitter or Facebook, publishing all kinds of content and waiting to see if they get a little fame. The problem is that they do not know how complex, competitive and select this world is, so the majority end up failing in their attempt to become influencers
Not everyone has the makings of an influencer or knows what they should do. There are many aspects to take into account when publishing content that makes the posts, photos and videos that we publish have an impact or not, and of course, if we do not get many people to see and interact with what we post, we will not be able to earn the title of influencers. No matter how influential we think we are, if no one follows us, we are nobody.
If the content we post is not original and is not competitive, we will not stand out among the many users who are trying to be successful in this community. Below we will see a few tips to make the content we publish be in the form of photos or videos on any of the social networks that we can think of.
Tips to be an influencer and manage digital identity
Let’s look at some tips to be able to become influencers or, at least, for our content to attract attention and not only provide a lot of likes, but also a quality and relevant audience taking into account the type of content we generate.
1. Set a goal
Before starting to publish content, we must first ask ourselves what we want to post. Not everything goes, since An account that publishes very diverse and unspecialized content tends to go quite unnoticed We must set a goal when opening an account on the social network, choosing the topic and type of audience we want to attract.
It is essential to be clear about what we want to hang. Whether they are cooking recipes, exercise routines, drawings we have made… all of them are specific content that must be related to the name of the account or, at least, its biography.
We must also set ourselves the goal of publishing content with a certain frequency Ideally, the publication frequency should be at least 3 or 4 days.
2. Talk about the topic we master
People have many abilities but we are better at some and worse at others. We must know what our strengths are and what we are good at and start there. We can only be influencers if the content we post is of quality and shows that we master it. If we do so, our followers and the brands that can advertise us will be interested in us.
Whether it is from a specific training (e.g. nutrition, medicine, psychology…) or a hobby (e.g. sports, music, art…) our content must show that we know what we are talking about or what we do , which will allow us to compete with other accounts that offer the same type of content but not in as careful a way as ours does. Of course, we must try to have a certain originality, something special that makes our content a little different, something new.
3. Avoid diversification
Closely related to the previous point, we must avoid diversification, that is, talking about anything. It is true that there are many influencers who have secondary channels and accounts where they talk about content that is little or nothing related to their main account, however, We must not forget that these people became famous for the specific content they offered on their first account When they saw that they already had enough success, they dared to open more accounts.
We cannot do this, at least for now. First we must wait for the first account we have opened to have some type of impact. If this is not the case, what we should consider is changing the type of content on the main account, not opening a new one. In case we are lucky and become famous with the first account, we can consider opening a new one with a different topic, but understanding that it is still a risky action.
4. Be original
As we have mentioned, there are many who try to be influencers and it always happens that there are thousands of accounts specialized in the same topic. Each of these accounts has a really difficult time offering 100% original content, since as there is so much competition and there are so many contents offered, it is very rare to publish something radically different from what the others offer.
We might see another author’s content and be inspired to publish something. For example, if we have a drawing account, we may see the art of another account and want to make a drawing of theirs but with our style. That’s fine as long as we give credit to the original source in addition to asking the author for permission and thanking him for allowing us to do so.
What we should never do is copy from influencers, or take content that has gone viral and publish it on our account hoping that some clueless user ends up on our account believing that we are the original source of it. Copying is not only ethically wrong and users of the social network will see us as an unoriginal and honest account In addition, all social networks have algorithms that detect SPAM, causing our account to be closed for violating the community rules.
5. Take care of the photos and videos we publish
It seems obvious that to be a good influencer it is necessary to take care of the photos and videos we publish, but the truth is that many do not do so. The quality of the multimedia content on our site must be taken into account , since on many occasions they become the letter of introduction for new followers and, also, it is what our most loyal “followers” look for. Poor image quality is synonymous with lazy content creator.
Regardless of the type of photo or video that we post, the important thing that we must keep in mind is that it looks clear, with a good composition and with adequate light. If necessary, we will have to pass it through a filter, a functionality that all smart phones have in their camera. Taking into account the great facilities that smartphones offer us, Nowadays, making quality videos and photos is not something complicated at all
6. Add and take care of the text
It is highly recommended that publications be accompanied by some text. The text should be brief, direct and with a hook If we go too far with the extension, what can happen is that we waste a lot of time working on a text that no one is going to read, since when social networks are used, people do not want to read “textacos”, but rather look images and relax.
In addition to being short, the text must be well written, without spelling mistakes and using an appropriate register depending on the type of content we publish. Publication and text must be at the same quality level since if the written part is not pleasant to read, it may give the impression that the person who publishes it is lazy, lazy and ignorant.
7. Have quality followers
Many people believe that to be a successful influencer it is necessary to have many followers. That is true, but only in part. The most important thing is to have quality content that has served to attract those followers, and not the other way around. However, many prefer to go to platforms that offer paid followers which are nothing more than bots, fake profiles that do not interact with the content and are very susceptible to being eliminated by the page’s algorithms.
Buying followers is not recommended at all First, because it means spending money on something totally unnecessary. Second, because an account that has followers that are clearly bots gives the impression that it is uninteresting, even a little illegal. And thirdly because we are going to lower the quality of our content, which will make our account uncompetitive and we will really have few influencers.
We are interested in having quality followers, real people who interact with our publications , provide content, criticism and suggestions, in addition to sharing our publications. These people are the ones who in real life will talk about our account, recommend it to their friends and through word of mouth will make our page grow.
8. Be honest with advertising
The influencers with the most followers are coveted by brands, and this is not a bad thing, quite the contrary Television and newspapers have begun to lose strength, being replaced by content creators, so it makes sense that companies have become interested in convincing influencers to promote their products in exchange for gifts and payments.
The world is like that, and no influencer should feel bad because they “allowed themselves to be bought.” Who hasn’t wanted to earn money in exchange for doing what they like? Yes, it is true that there will be some followers who will frown upon the fact that their YouTuber, streamer or blogger is promoting a product or service, but what they are really doing is their job.
However, if we want our followers to stay with us, we must be honest with advertising. If we have to talk about a brand, we must do so explicitly, clearly saying that we are promoting their product or service. Doing it in a more “subliminal” way can make our followers believe that we are trying to deceive them and feel bad and, of course, they begin to stop following us; or it may even lead to legal consequences.
9. Use hashtags, tags and geolocation
Every time we publish a video or photo we must use hashtags, labels and indicate the place where that image was published or taken (geolocation). These three aspects They are something that greatly characterizes the world of influencers and, in fact, they are the elements that can give us the most visibility getting people who do not follow us but who are close or interested in the topic we are talking about to start following us.
With hashtags and labels our content becomes easier to find when using the social network’s search engine. These hashtags and labels are keywords that, when clicked on, take us to all the public posts on the social network that talk about the topic in question. Geolocation is used so that those who search for images taken in a specific place will find ours and, if interested, click on our content.
Likewise, we should not abuse hashtags and labels. Just as we mentioned that no one reads a long text, adding too many tags can give the impression that our content is heavy and overloaded. The most advisable thing is to put at most 10 hashtags, all of them directly related to the content of the photo or video that we have published and the place and time where it was taken.
We should not put words that are not related to what we have published This looks quite bad, since users can interpret it as “clickbait”, that is, using a word or thumbnail in a video that has no relationship with what is actually published, making whoever has clicked on that content feel cheated. Nobody follows an account that has made them feel bad.