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How to Become an Influencer in 2020

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If you’ve ever wondered how to become an influencer, you aren’t alone. Influencer marketing is on the rise as consumers and social personalities can now get paid to review brands to their audiences, promote glamorous lifestyles, and receive free products and services, including the luxury of complete wardrobes and travel accommodations.

Millennials and GenZ rely on these everyday people to provide valuable information within their realm of expertise. Companies are increasingly setting budgets aside to capitalize on this growing field of marketing. In 2017, over $2.1 billion was spent on influencer marketing on Instagram alone. The demand for social media influencers is anticipated to increase, especially for micro-influencers with less than 100k followers.

Influencers are the credible voice of this generation. Although everyday people, these consumers have positioned themselves as experts in their respective industries, earning the trust and attention of hundreds of thousands of follows, followed by contracts that pay real money. 

As an influencer, you can use your voice to share information relevant to your passions or help your peers with purchasing decisions by reviewing products. While it may look like glitz and glamour from the outside, influencers can attest that they are required to be “on” 24/7 to cater to their brands, promotions, and audiences.

Inevitably, more people are looking to explore the world of influencer marketing. Despite the glamour, influencers are free agents who must create content that is both intellectually and aesthetically pleasing. They perfect the process of publishing and promoting content online and learn how to monetize their content. While the role is creative, it is also data-focused. As consumers grow more selective about who they follow, it is impertinent that influencers provide value, remain authentic, and indulge in the continuous task of having a robust and engaged following.

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin

So how do you become an influencer in 2020?

First, define your brand, niche, and audience. Your brand should have a unique, consistent voice that reveals to the audience what you want them to know about you. A successful influencer finds a niche, a subject in which they are an expert and are passionate about it. Journalists and thought leaders in a variety of industries have successfully crossed over into influencer marketing by consistently providing valuable information in their niche. Your brand should speak to who you want to appeal to.

Next, choose your social media channel and develop your content strategy. Your voice should reflect the sponsorships you hope to receive, even in the beginning. Consider blogging, guest posts, and curating content from other thought leaders and similar accounts when developing your content strategy.

For influencers hoping to build an audience using career, job, or academic-focused content, LinkedIn would be a great platform. For influencers seeking to post a video or photo-based content such as tutorials, sponsored endorsements, or other content that might relate to a brand or product in a variety of industries, Instagram would be the platform of choice.

Now, you must organize your content so that it is published efficiently. Content scheduling allows you to schedule ahead and prepare in case of unexpected distractions. Your content schedule should have a month’s worth of pre-planned content; a content calendar can ensure your content is consistent and also track your performance and engagement.

“Numbers are hollow. It’s all about community and involvement” – Andrew Steinthal

What’s the best time to post on social media?

Have you ever wondered the best times to post on each social media platform? The answer varies with every social network and the type of audience being engaged. According to an article on the best time to post, “Facebook and Twitter both see high engagement at 9 a.m., whereas one of the best times to post on Instagram is 5 p.m. LinkedIn caters to B2B audiences, with an ideal posting time of 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Pinterest sees high engagement as late as 4 a.m. With many businesses facing a growing global audience, varying time zones have become a growing concern, especially when it comes to the best times to post.

After you’ve created your schedule, it’s time to focus on your followers. Find 50 similar accounts and make them your besties! Get from behind your device and make friends face-to-face. You can host and attend events, or even take a social media class to apply to your new platform. It also helps to learn how to pitch yourself, your metrics, website visitors, and engagements effectively to companies you’d like to pay you for your social media posts.

Speak at conferences, be a guest on a podcast, and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Just keep in mind that it takes time to see success from influencer marketing, as most influencers report months or sometimes even years of hard work before landing contracts. You must be willing to build relationships over time, and not just digitally.

It’s easy to become an influencer as the entry barrier is very low. It’s not so easy to really become an expert in your field. This takes time. Niche down as much as possible, stay consistent and most importantly, have a great vision in place which can change this world for the better. 

Have you ever thought about being an influencer? Share your thoughts on it below!

Tina Dahmen helps coaches, consultants and purpose-driven entrepreneurs to gain more influence in their space. She helps influencers to scale their online presence by creating digital products and implementing automation so they can serve more people, make more money and have more free time in their lives. She is also the founder of Coach Marketing Hub (CMH). CMH is an all-in-one marketing platform that replaces all other tech subscriptions you are currently paying for as well as reduces tech-overwhelm, automates mundane tasks and increases profits.  

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Success Advice

How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements

Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.

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Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.

There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.

Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.

Embed the strength of AI and ML.

AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.  

Bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.

ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses. 

In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.

Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities

Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased. 

Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information. 

Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place. 

In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.

Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development

You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.

You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.

Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.

Developing key skills to achieve goals

Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.

Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.

Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.

Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.

Development/Coding Knowledge

Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.

Hacking proof framework

There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.

Communication Abilities/Soft Skills

Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:

Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.

Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.

Agile Implementations

It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.

  • Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds. 
  • Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
  • Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
  • Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them. 
  • Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.

  • Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
  • Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
  • Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.

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Success Advice

Understanding the Power of Yes and No: How to Create Boundaries For Success

These words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds

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Creating legal boundaries
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The two smallest yet most powerful words in life, “Yes” and “No,” have a big impact on our growth on both personal and professional levels. In addition to affecting the choices we make every day, these words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds. (more…)

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Motivation

From Couch Potato to Go-Getter: A Step-by-Step Motivation Plan for Everyone

By understanding what motivates you, you can turn your dreams into reality

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How to be motivated
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Are you tired of feeling like a couch potato? Do you want to transform your life and become a go-getter? You’re not alone! Many people struggle with motivation, but the good news is that change is possible. (more…)

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Success Advice

10 Micro Financial Habits for More Wealth and Peace of Mind

The World Economic Forum still reports that half of U.S. adults lack financial literacy

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micro financial habits
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You’ve heard about developing financial habits, but what about micro-financial habits? Micro habits are the tiny things you can do every day with minimal effort that, together, transform your future. (more…)

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