An influencer wears many hats and managing their brand is one of the most critical tasks. Like in any job, influencers use a wide variety of tips, tricks, and tools to make sure their brand stands out—after all, they not only need to convince other businesses to work with them, but they need to connect with and grow their audience. The most successful, high-quality influencers will focus on a few particularly important details for the greatest impact.
Building A Legitimate Audience
With a bit of sleuthing, you’ll likely find that most of those “followers” who follow influencers are inactive or bot accounts. In the world of influencer marketing, your follower count is a big deal: many brands won’t even consider a partnership unless you’ve accumulated X number of followers. But, even so, the best influencers know that it comes down to more than just that simple metric. Audience engagements—like likes, comments, and shares—are ultimately more important to your brand’s growth and success. It takes effort to build an active, engaged, legitimate audience but it’s an essential tool in an influencer’s arsenal—avoiding inauthentic, purchased followers is key.
Taking High-Quality Images
When you think “influencer,” your mind probably goes to Instagram almost instantly. With such a visual platform at the forefront of many influencers’ marketing strategies, it’s no surprise that images are key. A good photograph, in terms of influencer marketing, does many things: it catches the audience’s eye, it entices them to read the caption, and it tells the viewer in an instant that it comes from your brand. From distinctive styling to consistent editing, what appears to be a simple photo is a crucial part of your brand every time. More often than not, getting that perfect shot takes a whole range of shots—more than your SD card or PC’s storage space can realistically manage. To keep an effective archive and ensure their photos remain consistent in quality and style, the most effective influencers will take advantage of a digital picture storage device to archive their best images. This way, they’ll always be at hand, even if a laptop crashes or social media platform goes down.
Utilizing Live Stream Video
With the rise of platforms and features like Tik Tok and Instagram stories, it’s equally unsurprising that video, particularly live streaming, is a particularly powerful tool in building an influencer’s brand. One of your goals should be to build a trusting relationship with your audience. Try as you might, it would be hard to do that without letting them get to know you in the process. Live stream video does just that—it gives your followers a chance to connect with you virtually, in a way that feels authentic. You can fix your makeup for an impromptu live video or plan ahead and make an event of it, hiring live stream production services for top-quality videography (and one less thing to worry about on your part).
Creating Engaging Content
You’ve backed up tens of thousands of perfectly-shot photographs, planned live stream events that rival Broadway productions, and worked to grow your following but, if your content isn’t engaging that audience, it’s ultimately ineffective. From blog posts to tweets and captions, every bit of content an influencer produces should strive to engage their audience. Getting your content seen is one task—ripe with hashtags and SEO—while getting your followers to like, share, or comment is another. It may take some trial and error to find what best engages your target audience, but it will pay off in leaps and bounds.
Networking
Being a one-person show doesn’t mean you won’t make connections as an influencer—in fact, you need to. Networking with other content creators builds engagement, brings opportunities your way, and creates a sense of connection that will inevitably help you both grow as brands and businesses. From large-scale collaborations, which will expose you to a whole new audience, to simply engaging with their content and letting them do the same, networking with other influencers, brands, and social media personalities will help you develop and manage your own brand.
From finding a storage solution for the photos clogging your computer’s hard drive to outsourcing video production for the best live stream possible, influencers inevitably find the best tips and tricks for growing and managing their personal brand in an effective way.