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Nowadays we are living in the most technologically developed world, yet we have never been closer to each other. We are constantly connected with our families, friends, and strangers who are located all over the world. According to Statista, the United Kingdom is a home for 45 million social media users which translates to 66% of the whole population!

Having a social media channel means that you are already an influencer! How does it sound? When you are going for a pint and post it on your Instagram, you are influencing every single follower who sees it. A percentage of those people will visit the same pub, simply because they saw you there and because you referred to the place. However, how can you monetize your following base? How can you become a true influencer? Let us have a closer look at this topic.

Before you will start creating and posting your pictures, videos, and stories you must pick your niche. Just narrow down areas that make you tick, and you are passionate about it. It is going to be easier for you if you start with a theme that is close to your heart, simply because it will motivate you even further than just money. And you really must be motivated to succeed here.

Make sure that you can create content related to your niche and that you have some knowledge to back it up. It would not be wise to start influencing people who are into coffee if you’re not a big coffee drinker. Just make sure that you narrow down to a niche that excites you and you have some knowledge and expertise on it.

I do believe that proper research can significantly boost your chances to succeed in any field. The same with becoming an influencer, you must research your potential competition, your favourite influencers, and those who are not. It will give you a perspective on how successful and unsuccessful influencers differ, what mistakes they do make, and how they gain the edge. Ask yourself a few questions such as:

• What do you think about your favourite influencers?
• Why do you like them? 
• What do influencers in your niche post?
• How many people influence in your niche in your area? 

You need to develop your game plan however first focus on understanding how this market works.

Once you picked your niche, did your research, and understood the market you’re entering its time to optimise your accounts. Depending on the amount of time that you would like to invest you can work on various social media channels. To maximize the outcome, you must optimise all the accounts that you own. You must consider the following:

• Switching to a business account
• Profile picture
• Your bio

Switching to a business account will open the doors to many new options. It will allow you to promote your business, target a certain audience and it will give you access to analytics. Setting the right profile picture will boost your chances of getting clicked on. Consider something that fits your niche or showing your face – that really resonates well on Instagram. Since people want to deal with people, a shot of your beautiful smile will attract a lot of traffic to your profile.

So, you have picked your niche, done your research, and optimised your accounts. It is time to start creating engaging content that will draw the attention of your target audience. Make sure to develop your content strategy with a mix of different posts such as video, pictures, stories, etc. You can play here and test various content, create different effects, and different formats. Just make sure that your audience likes it! 

It is important to post things related to your niche, not a personal one. Let us say that you are a coffee lover and decided to post coffee-related content. In this case, you should consider posts regarding how to brew a coffee, what are the different types of it, what is the difference, etc. Just please, please, do not post every Saturday evening when you’re out and drunk!

After you have created content that you think will resonate well with your audience you can start posting. Start posting regularly. Use various scheduling apps that will help you upload your content in advance and help you plan your posts for the future. So, you can plan your whole month’s posts, in a single day.

Consistency is key in social media. Instagram requires regular posting to gain additional exposure. The algorithms always pick posts that you and an audience engage the most and show it first since it is the most relevant to the receiver. The time of posts matters as well, so it would be wise to notice when your posts gain the most traffic and engagement and to start repeating it. So, keep posting, do not stop.

Imagine this scenario, you are a massive fan of Ed Sheeran (I know, I know we all are!) and you comment on one of his posts. Maybe a little video after the concert you just attended. Imagine how happy you would be if he started to engage with your comment, thank you for being there for him and saying how much it means for him. I bet it would mean the world to you! And yes, we all would like to have a chat with Ed.

So, start engaging with your audience! Whenever somebody leaves a comment under your post, or DMs you (unless they are super creepy) do answer back! This is how you really build your audience. It is called SOCIAL media because we are supposed to create there a community and in a great community people do have conversations daily.

Now you need to show that you are available for collaborations with various brands. You can do it by simply showing your interest in your bio. When a brand sees you and they do like your content that is related to them they are more likely to drop you a DM.

Another great idea would be connecting with various brands and offer partnerships. However here you would probably have to message hundreds of companies to get one or two ‘yes’s’. But hey, it is a great way to be noticed!

Finally, there are many influencer marketing platforms where you can register and start advertising your services. It’s a great way to gain exposure but keep it in mind that you will have to pay them a little piece of your income.