Introduction
A micro influencer is a smaller influencer – someone that has the power to drive buyer behaviour, to make a big impact on the fortunes of a brand simply through an endorsement, and that is able to build support for a movement or an idea.
When we think of influencers, we tend to think of the huge names on Instagram with millions of followers. These influencers can easily charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single post of themselves wearing some merchandise!
This is a wonderful aspiration to have. By becoming an influencer, you can potentially make a living simply by posting photos doing the things you love! And if you have your own product or service to sell, then you can become extremely successful.
But while this is a great ambition, it’s also one that might seem impossible for many. The good news though, is that you don’t need to become a global superstar to be an effective influencer. How about instead becoming a “micro influencer!”
A Micro-What?
A micro influencer is an influencer that has a few thousand followers, as opposed to a few million. The result is that the absolutely massive brands won’t want to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars to upload their posts.
But at the same time, they can still attract smaller brands and slightly smaller pay days. And they can still earn a living doing what they want.
What’s most key here, is that as a micro influencer, you have a small audience that nevertheless is still extremely engaged and loves the content that you put out.
Put it another way: it’s better to have 2,000 followers if 100% of them like every post and buy any product you create, than it is to have 1,000,000 followers if most of those disengaged from your brand years ago. The latter in fact can be extremely destructive!
Creating 2,000 loyal followers now is a very realistic goal. So how do you get there?
The Basics
Here are the basics you need to follow if you want to become a micro influencer. While there are other strategies, these basic methods will help you to get there quickly and in a way that is sustainable, profitable, and effective.
Create Your Platforms
Firstly, create your platforms. Again, there are lots of ways to do this, but I’m going to suggest that you decide to focus your main efforts on:
OR
YouTube
These are two platforms that let you be highly engaging with your audience, as well as very visual so that you can really express yourself quickly and get people to invest emotionally in your ideas and what you’re selling.
Then you are going to back those up with a Twitter profile where you will talk regularly and let people see some insight into your life and personality. AND you’re going to create a blog where you will regularly post content and where you will be able to sell products potentially in the future.
What’s really important, is that this blog be responsive (meaning mobile friendly), that it be quick to load, and that it has large text that is easy to read. You can use WordPress to accomplish all this, but the main goal is simply to ensure that your site is able to compete with the very best competitors in your niche. It must look professional, it must be quick to load, and it must work well.
Strong Branding
You will be your own brand. That means you’ll be create a “personal brand” which will use your name and image in the marketing. This is a great way to create more of an emotional connection with your audience and it will also be what makes you the influencer (rather than just a website owner).
You need to make sure that you are living the lifestyle that you are promoting and that you become a role model in that sense. People should see through you that your advice works, and that they should therefore be inspired to follow your advice to achieve what you have.
This is why it’s so important to pick a niche that you really know well and have lots of experience in!
What’s also important is to make sure that you have a strong message and purpose, and that everything you do is “on brand” and “on message.”
If you are going to be a thought leader, then you need to lead. That means you need to know your values, your key lessons, and what you’re trying to say. By being consistent with this, you’ll develop long term loyal followers, and all the content you produce will be coherent.
THIS is what makes those followers really rally behind you and get on your team.
How to Create Great Instagram and YouTube Posts
Once this is up and running, the next step is simply to post regularly to Instagram or YouTube, as well as your blog. You need to maintain a consistent stream of content, even when there doesn’t seem to be many people reading!
On YouTube and Instagram, the aim is to show yourself living the lifestyle that you are promoting and at the same time to help inspire and motivate your audience. That means focussing on the specific niche that you’ve carved for yourself.
So, if you have a fitness brand that is about being happy, fit, and healthy, then you might show photos of yourself jogging on your beach with your partner smiling. You might post images of yourself drinking smoothie, or relaxing in the sun. Underneath each post you can provide helpful tips and advice, while a little editing and some filters can help to make everything look really perfect.
If your brand is all about heavy lifting and serious hardcore strength, then your posts might be motivational things along the lines of “no pain no gain” and images of the gym, or you with heavy chains over your neck and a battered expression. Your comments might talk about not giving up in the face of adversity.
On YouTube, you’ll create videos that answer specific questions that are useful to your audience, but you’ll do so in a style that speaks to your brand. The editing should help to set the “mood” for example. Will you use fast editing with electronic, up-beat music? Or will you use a subtle haze effect with a more casual talking manner?
Will your backdrop be an immaculate desk set-up, or a lived-in living room? Will you wear a sharp suit and look serious? Or smile and dress casually?
Some Powerful Tips to Do Better
Find Ways to Optimize Your Posting
Creating photos and videos takes time, but it’s very important that you post regularly if you want to keep growing and hold onto your audience.
To that end, you should make it as simple as possible to create content. So you might stick to a 4-minute format for your videos for example, and keep an area of your home with the camera set-up ready.
You can also batch making videos and posts, so that you make lots of content in one go and then have it to upload gradually later on.
Engage With Your Audience
Succeeding on social media means not just posting out, but also thinking about what’s coming in. Speak with your audience and answer their comments. Invite them to make suggestions, or to DM you to chat.
Better yet, engage in other communities using your brand name. If you can make yourself known in these circles and better yet, become someone that people consider an “online friend,” then they will be far more committed to following your content.
Top Ways to Make Your Blog Content Better
Add an Overview
Writing a great article can be hard when you’re following all the rules which can sometimes be contradictory. One thing we are often told for instance, is that our articles should get to the point quickly and grab attention. Thus, we will often start out with an eye-grabbing opening line to really reel in the readers, but this then risks preventing us from carrying out one of the other instructions we are often given – to lead into what we’re saying with a well-structured introduction.
Both those things make it hard to follow the advice to include a keyword right in the opening paragraph!
How can you make your article grab attention when you are slowly leading up to all your points and playing it coy for so long? The solution is to use a short overview that will summarise what you’re going to say and act almost as an advert for the following article. For this piece then I might have written at the top in italics…
Writing articles for the web is a whole different beast to writing articles for magazines. Here we’ll look at how you can make the content on your site more effective and gripping so bring you online success.
That way I can then start out with a slow introduction that sets the scene, but readers won’t lose interest before I get to the point.
Make Your Content Longer
There are many reasons to make content longer. One of them is to satisfy Google – with many bloggers suggesting that their longer articles seem to rank higher than the shorter ones.
At the same time though, by making your content longer, you can make it look more in-depth making your pages into ‘go-to’ resources for that particular topic and beating off the competition.
A good length for articles online is generally thought to be about 800 words, but make sure that you think about the context and the topic – don’t string your text out artificially if you’ve run out of things to say. You should also try to use headings when your content is longer, in order to break it up more and to allow your readers to quickly scan through the text when they wish to (and of course each of these headings should be gripping and eye-catching in their own right).
Make it Gripping
Attention spans online are even shorter than they are out in the ‘real world’, so you need to work extra hard to keep up the energy and the interest. You can do this in a number of ways, one of which is to address the reader directly using the word ‘you’ a lot (something else that Google may be looking for).
Another way to make your content more exciting for readers and to keep them engaged, is to keep it in the present tense wherever possible. Go through your old articles and look out for uses of the past tense and future tense – could these be changed for a more active and relevant sounding present tense?
Keep Posting
So, you have a clear mission statement, you have a stunning website, and you have a social account with a strong message. You’re outputting great content, and you’re interacting with your community with every opportunity.
From there, it’s simply a matter of time and growing slowly. This doesn’t happen overnight, but takes consistent effort.
Don’t give up! Keep posting and you’ll find your follower-count grows bit by bit. And within the year, you’ll be what we consider a “micro influencer.” Suddenly, a whole lot of doors are going to start opening up and the only limits on the ways you can earn money and springboard new projects will be your own imagination!
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