How do I Become a Social Media Influencer?

This is the question we heard most and the answer is simple: Build a social media strategy, dont just post on social media accounts. Too often companies sell, promote, beg, bother, and plead with their followers, making as much noise as possible in hopes of gaining one more click. If your social media marketing strategy is throwing as much against the wall to see what sticks, you do not have a social media marketing strategy. You have an account that most likely is stagnant and a time-suck that is not getting the results you want.

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Evaluate Your Social Media Account & Choose Accounts that Can be Influencers

It starts by evaluating each of your accounts and understanding the value of each. You should focus on a very small number of accounts that offer the best return on investment, even if that investment is just your time. If you have 200 Twitter followers, you have a choice. Do you focus on it or cut it? If your YouTube channel gets 12 views per video, does the hour(s) it takes to produce that video really make sense?

Choose the social media accounts that reflect your business best and that you can commit to building into Influencer status. Find the personas below that fit your brand and your goals and choose social media accounts that help you attain the goal. If you can’t justify the time, de-prioritize the account.

Understand & embrace the commitment. Once you’ve evaluated which accounts you want to focus on, you have to put in the time and effort to be the best in your niche. The goal is to become an influencer, one of the accounts in your industry that everyone is following. Anything less and you are just more noise in a crowded room. This will not be easy and will take time away from 100 other things you can do to build your business, so think hard whether this is the path you want to follow.

Once you have pruned your accounts and pledged the time and effort needed to become an influencer in your industry, the hard work begins. Not all Social Media Influencers are built the same. Understanding what differentiates you from the crowd is key to building a social media strategy persona that will set you apart.

Here are five common social media Influencer personas to help you build your social media marketing strategy.

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The Smartest Person in Your Industry



Overview

Do you have the best resume and the most experience? Don’t let it go to waste. If followers know that you will always have quality posts that offer value, your influence will continually grow. With this Influencer persona, it’s vital that you maintain high standards for what goes on your account and you vet everything you consider posting.

Social Media Conversations

The Smartest Person in Your Industry persona requires a two-way conversation. Because you are the expert, you should welcome questions and engage in conversations on each of your chosen platforms. Whether this is in the form of an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session, following topics in your industry and answering questions, producing content & images that promote and encourage a conversation, being available will take you to a new level.

Building conversations around content that you did not originally create is a great way to broaden your reach and make connections. Always be on the lookout for guest posting opportunities, interviews, case studies, networking events, speaking gigs, mentoring opportunities, etc. that you can be a part of and attach your expertise. These type of engagements outside of your company validate you as an Influencer and will help you build your network.

Type of Content to Create & Share

This type of persona is best utilizing your personal brand. Whether you are promoting a business or service you work for or a company or site that you own, your personal brand is important. Creating content explaining trends, guest posting on industry leading sites, and speaking at national conferences should all be shared on your social media profiles. Understand what talent you have that sets you apart and build a content strategy around that.

The Smartest Person in the Industry also knows that they don’t have all the answers. When someone has a great idea, they will share it, make sure they understand the thesis and add to the conversation. Find and follow other influencers in your industry and share their work. Depending on your industry, you should often share more content created by others than content from your own site.

Be sure to always be moving the conversation along and add your expertise whenever it makes sense. Avoid being condescending when you disagree by finding the worth in others opinions and help build upon it rather than defeat it. If they are dead-wrong, use 3rd party sources to ensure you portray your influencer status rather than coming off as a jerk.

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The Industry Whisperer

Overview

Can you take topics that are very complex and make them simple? Do you have experience across multiple roles within your industry that give you insight into the whole picture? Viral content is content that has mass appeal, so the Industry Whisperer is a great persona if you can pull it off.

Social Media Conversations

The Whisper needs to be a researcher at heart, finding topics and ideas that others are struggling with and learn how they can simply. They should follow and network with the Smartest in the Industry persona to ensure they stay up-to-date on the cutting edge aspect and ensure they are part of the conversations and find ways to boil down the message to the essence.

These conversations often can depend on visual aids, infographics, videos, and other various mediums to help move the conversation forward. Think outside the box and understand your audience may be hearing the message for the first time on your social channels. Use your contacts and networking to help take them from initial idea to mastery of each and every concept.

Type of Content to Create & Share

The shared content should be easy to digest, with the use of visual aids, infographics, videos, and other various visual mediums. Explanations, guides, lists, and easily digestible content will help those new to the concepts. But part of the industry whisper’s persona is moving these users deeper. Build on your 101 content and develop or aggregate more advanced concepts.

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The Witty Observer or LMAO Comedian

Overview

These personas couldn’t be more different in execution, but they are strikingly similar in strategy. The witty observer or the LMAO comedian bring levity and intrigue to their audiences. These personas are not for everyone and creating consistently witty or funny content is not easy. If done incorrectly or ineffectively, this type of content can quickly turn an entire audience. But if you get it right, this can be the most viral of the personas.

Social Media Conversations

Context is key. Without the conversational context, even the most clever comment or most well-executed joke can fall flat or be flat out inappropriate. Take for example DiGiornos Pizza as a cautionary tale. Their playful, bantering voice often times played well on Twitter until they stepped into a PR nightmare with one tweet out of context.

#WhyIStayed You had pizza

In isolation, nothing wrong with this tweet… until you find out that the #WhyIStayed trending hashtag was for domestic abuse survivors to tell their story. Not so clever in the context.

Humor and wit can be powerful tools and nail home the perfect message. But always understand the context of the conversation and ensure you stay out of a PR nightmare.

Type of Content to Create & Share

Create content that is interesting and presents information in a new, unique way. Use viral mediums like images, videos, vines, graphics, GIFs, etc. to help make a point. Touch on ways that your industry can be described using other mediums, from movies to tv shows to sports and the entertainment world. Creating interesting, viral content consistently can put you ahead of the curve.

Share content that both enriches your position and juxtaposes your points. Share opposing ideas and allow add your wit to debate your points in a productive way.

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The Outsider

Overview

Are you outside the echo chamber? Do you have experience in complementary markets that give you a fresh perspective? You may be The Outsider persona. The Outsider can bring a unique perspective to their social following by offering insight that may never have been discovered.

Want an example? Say you are a professional graphic designer with a beautiful portfolio and looking to become an Influencer. You have options.

You can try to be the Best in Industry and offer tutorials, lessons, and feedback to other designers.

You could be The Industry Whisperer and explain how and why you chose the colors you chose and help break down the hottest trends so other designers can learn.

Or, you can be The Outsider and focus on how design is used in different industries. You could create a series on how to improve your retail site conversion rate by using certain colors on the CTA and utilizing more whitespace to improve your ROI on your landing pages.

The Outsider allows you to take your knowledge and apply it broadly to industries that need it.

Social Media Conversations

Find conversations where industry experts are discussing an idea or an issue and not touching on your specialty. You can elevate the conversation by being the expert outside their industry. Partner and network with Influencers in complementary markets and offer your time and talent. Be the first person they think of when they are writing an article, looking for a launch partner, or doing a PR campaign.

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The Santa Claus

Overview

In the spirit of Christmas, this type of influencer has gifts for everyone on the Nice List. This type of Influencer has lots to give, literally. Whether you have products, services

As a stand-alone type, the Santa Claus may find it hard to build value outside of “free” products, but it can be a way to grow your networks quickly. If you are interested in Business to Business (B2B) connections, this may be more valuable than if you are trying to sell directly to consumers. If companies know you can get their samples into a huge audience, you will become valuable.

This can be a productive secondary influencer type and can help you network with companies in your industry to promote their products and services, as well as promoting your influencer status as they help promote your accounts.

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Social Media Conversations

It is vital that you find the right mix here. Giveaways are great, but even Santa only comes once a year. If he gave you presents each and every day, it wouldn’t be special. Find events, launches, and gatherings as springboards for giveaways and understand that giveaways are never free, there is opportunity cost each and every time.

Type of Content to Create & Share

The simple answer: Only create a share giveaways that are valuable. A bad giveaway is a reflection of your brand and your business. The negative PR about a poorly executed contest can hurt many times over what you gained by running it.

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So Which Persona Should You Choose?

Well, that’s likely a trick question. If you haven’t figured it out by now, you should mix and match all the personas and think about your Social Media Strategy from every angle. Not everyone will use each persona and you may have a knack for a certain type of persona over the others, but you should always be looking for ways to incorporate new and interesting content in your social strategy at all time.

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How Often to Post

So you’re now ready to put together a strategy, so how often should you post?

No matter what persona, an Influencer should be active on their social media accounts and have a set schedule that provides a baseline. This doesn’t mean you have to stay online all the time, rather you can utilize tools like Buffer and Klout to schedule your evergreen content up-front. Each network is different and there are tons of resources available for setting the right balance, so do your research and find a schedule that works for you.

Aside from the base content, spending some time answering questions, responding to direct inquiries, and following the trends should be scheduled often. You can’t be an Influencer if you’re not part of the conversation, so build it into your day and prioritize this time. A major part of being an Influencer is being a consistent voice within the industry, providing relevant and timely information.

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