]The first few articles in this series covered followers and supporters. What are they, how to get some of each, and how to connect with them. By now you have a great grip on the differences between followers and supporters and what purposes they serve, so let’s get into what you really want. What is a social media influencer, how to influence them – and, by extension, how to get a little extra money.
Whether you want to be an influencer or not, at some point you’ll want to promote something to your audience. You may love a product and want everyone to try it, or you may land a sponsorship. Either way, you’ll need to convince your audience to buy something. And, sadly, a lot more goes into it than just posting a video. In this article, we’ll cover what a social media influencer is, what you need to do before trying to influence your followers and cover how you can influence them.
Creator vs Influencer ⚖️
Don’t worry, this isn’t us announcing a whole new blog series. (Yet!) We know this topic is going to bring up some questions about being a “creator” versus an “influencer”. Is there a difference, what is it, how can I tell which I am – the usual. So let’s address that and get on with the article.
If we’re going purely based on the definitions, a creator is someone who creates content. Their content may center around advice, showing off their art, making silly videos, or just creating aesthetically pleasing content. A social media influencer would, then, be someone who creates content with the intent to influence their audience. They might be a book reviewer or a lifestyle vlogger or even a fashion content creator. They want you to do or buy something – which isn’t a bad thing! There’s been a wave of organizational or wellness influencer content that has an overall positive effect.
The main difference is going to be that social media influencer is a type of content creator. You can be and do both. You don’t have to be a social media influencer to influence your followers. A lot of content creators have sponsors or create partnered content. Just because you identify more with one definition doesn’t mean you can’t dip into the other.
Influencing Your Followers 👑
You may think you can start posting content about things you love or use and immediately have people rushing to buy it. And, while you might not be entirely wrong, the chances of this are slim. Even if you already have a pretty good following, getting your followers and supporters to buy something isn’t simple. Let’s dive into some tactics you can use to make selling to your audience much easier.
Establish Trust 🤝
Let’s start with the vague one and work our way down! You have to establish trust with your followers. They have to know you have a good reputation and aren’t just trying to make a quick buck off them. How do you do that?
One way is engaging with them – something you’re likely already doing. Respond to their comments or DMs, go Live or host Radios so you can talk to them, really work on building a connection. This is an ongoing process, so you’ll want to find a way to connect that you can be consistent with.
The following tactics will also help you establish trust. Again, it’s an ongoing process, so a lot of what you might try will dog-pile.
Choose Wisely 🏹
Whether you’re partnering with a brand to promote a product or you’re promoting something on your own, really consider the item. Make sure it ticks your own boxes of something you’d purchase – or repurchase it if you already own it. Don’t find something random to promote, or select something you’ve never used before. If you’re going to tell people to purchase something because you recommend it, make sure it’s actually something you’d recommend.
Start With Things You Use Often 🥡
What items are you technically an authority on? Is there something for people in your niche that you use a lot? A writer might start off their influencing era talking about a software they use. If you’re an athlete or fitness creator, your first influencing video might be about your favorite protein powder and workout gear. If you lead with something your audience knows you work with often, they’re more likely to believe what you say.
Keep Your Audience in Mind 🧠
When promoting something to your audience, you have to think about what they would want. What’s something they’d care about, or naturally relates to their interests? Let’s go back to our fitness and writing examples. A writer looking to promote a product wouldn’t post about protein shakes or running shoes. A fitness creator probably wouldn’t talk about blue light blocking glasses or cozy slippers. That doesn’t fit with their audience.
But, they might both promote noise cancelling headphones! Writers and athletes alike want to listen to music and focus on what they’re doing. Those creators might also be interested in easy and healthy snacks, or in music and audio-streaming services. The point is: think of things your audience will use or be interested in. What’s something they would use that’s related to your content?
Avoid a Hard Sell 🤑
No one likes being advertised to – even you probably don’t like advertisements! So try coming out the gate with a strong “buy this now!” Ease into it a little. Maybe explain the problem it solves for you, or describe the product and why someone would want it. Add some personality, too!
Don’t Jump Into New Content 📸
If you decide you want to shift from the creator mindset into a social media influencer mindset, don’t immediately change all of your content. Don’t go from cooking vlogs to videos exclusively about pans and paid partnerships. Continue creating the content your audience likes, but work in new videos. If you post five videos a week, maybe only post one video promoting something.
If you do an immediate, hard switch into a whole new style of content, your audience will lose interest. Plus, such a hard shift will make your audience think you’re “selling out”, or that you only care about the money. If you continue creating your normal content, your audience will still be interested in your posts and will believe you’re genuine!
From Influence to In-Their-Hands 🛍️
Once you’ve established trust and have their ear, you’ll start literally influencing your followers. You could be influencing them as you’re building trust, which is the idea! But a lot of times it’s a two-fold system. You may find you have more luck if you focus on building trust and then focus on influencing them.
Getting people to buy is hard, any brand will tell you that. And when you first start trying to influence your followers it’ll be especially hard! You’ll get better as you do it more, but here are a few tips to get you started on the right foot.
Be Clear 🔍
Clearly talk about the product, what it is, and why someone would want to buy it. A classic format for that is stating a problem, introducing the product, and explaining how it’s the solution. “I was having trouble sleeping at night, and I’d wake up so groggy. But I recently found this mattress, and I love it! I’ve been able to sleep through the night and have so much more energy to tackle the day.” If your audience clearly hears what it is and how it will improve their life, they’re much more likely to buy it! Don’t be afraid to share if other people in your life have had tried out the product and love it. Testimonials go a long way!
You also want to be clear about where to go to learn more or snag their own. Is there a link in your profile? Will you be sharing information with people that comment? At the end of your video, clearly state what the next step is and how they can accomplish it. Give them a call to action, like “Head to the link in my bio to learn more!”
Make It Easy 👍
In general, the fewer steps you give people, the more likely they are to do something. That especially goes with buying something: if you ask them to do more than necessary, they’re less likely to follow through. And on social media, where people already have a shorter attention span, time of is of the essence.
If you’re promoting something and want people to purchase it, make really easy for them to find. Clearly stating where it is will help a lot, but put it in an accessible place, too. Link it in your bio or add it to your Linktree. If you’re selling the product, direct them to your Shop!
Show It Multiple Times 📺
This will vary: if you’ve partnered with a brand to promote a product, they may only want you to post one video about it. Or they may only be paying you for one video, so you may not want to post more. That’s fine! A brand will never care if you want to talk about their product more than the once, but don’t expect to get paid every time.
But if you’re just sharing a product you like, or you have an ongoing deal with a sponsor, mention the product several times. Going back to the writer, they can make an initial video promoting a writing software, a vlog that mentions the software, and another step by step guide showing how they use the product. This keeps the product on their followers’ minds and shows that the creator does use it. Even something as simple as mentioning the product a few times can grab the audience’s attention.
A Quick Run Through 🚶
Let’s put it all together! A brand sends you a water bottle to try out and promote: they give you the product for free and pay you to create the first video. You also get a special link, where you earn commission each time someone clicks or buys the product. So you create the first video and post it, no problem. You add the link to your profile, direct viewers there, and the brand tells you that people are clicking and buying! But you want to keep making sales and earning commission, so you decide to make a few more videos showing off the water bottle. You want one of them to feature it more prominently, and the second to be very lowkey.
For the lowkey version, you may go on a walk and take the water bottle with you. You vlog the walk, everything you see, and at some point clearly show the water bottle. Or maybe you just do a daily vlog and show clips of the bottle going everywhere with you! You can drop where to find the bottle in the caption, hit post, and you’re good to go.
For the more prominent one, maybe you challenge yourself to drink a certain amount of water in a day. Maybe you can try out a few different water or beverage flavor combinations to see which you like best! Or you order some fun stickers and create a video of you decorating the bottle. This way you aren’t directly promoting the water bottle, but you’re still showing it off and keeping it at the front of your audience’s mind. Since you’re making more content, people are more likely to buy the product, which means you’d earn more money.
And that the brand will likely want to work with you again. It’s good to build those partnerships, too!
Be Real ✨
We’ve touched on this a lot in the rest of this article, but we want to clearly say that it’s important to be real and honest with your audience. You’ve worked so hard to build a connection with them – don’t throw it down the drain now. Think of your followers like your friends: if you wouldn’t recommend a product to a friend, don’t recommend it to your followers. Do your best to research products before you promote them. Even if you can’t try it out before you agree to make the video, looking into the company and what people are saying about them can help you figure out if you want to work with them or not.
Sometimes you do have to promote a product you aren’t crazy about. That’s fine, it happens. Try to find the positives and why you’d recommend it – or maybe who you’d recommend it to.
The Wrap Up 🎀
In this series, you’ve learned how to get followers, how to turn them into supporters, what kind of perks you want to offer them, and how to influence them. No two paths are the same, but we hope we’ve given every creator and social media influencer a whole new set of tools to achieve their social media dreams. If one tool doesn’t work for you, don’t be afraid to put it down and try another – or to combine two and make your own!
If you’ve followed along and are wondering what to do once you’re successfully influencing people, check out our Road to Verification series. These articles will take you through all levels of social media verification – on Clapper, and beyond.