What comes to mind when you think of being an Instagram influencer?
The huge following you could have? The paid promotions? The impact and reach you could have with your loyal community?
While gaining that first couple of thousand followers on Instagram may have been pretty easy, growing your brand to officially reach influencer status is a lot more difficult. If you want to seriously be an influencer on the gram, you need a huge group of loyal fans who regularly want more content from you. Let’s take a look at some of our secrets on how to become an influencer on Instagram.
What Is An Instagram Influencer?
So, what exactly is an Instagram influencer, then? Well, let’s break it down. An Instagram influencer is someone who has built up a community of people based on their specific industry or niche. They usually have high-quality content and which helps to keep their following engaged. There are many different industries that have Instagram influencers, but the most popular ones we’ve seen are lifestyle, food, fitness, fashion, travel, and beauty.
How to Become an Instagram Influencer
Choose What You’re Passionate About
When you’re first starting out on the journey to become an Instagram influencer, it’s important to select an industry or niche that you feel personally passionate about. Not only should it be something that you think resonates with you, but it should also be something that you know a little about, at least to begin with. You can even have a combination of niches that you link up together. Remember this, however – don’t just choose a niche to go with because it’s trending. You need to build a following that’s based on what your interests are for it to last.
Create a Great Bio
The best influencers make sure that their profiles stand out in all the right ways. That’s why you must, generate a social media bio that leaves a lasting impression on anyone who visits their profile, which will hopefully turn them into a follower. This is why it’s good to really think about what you want to say in your bio – it needs to tell your story in a fun, creative, unique way.
One of the most important things to make sure you can become an influencer is to get your hashtags right. The better you know the hashtags that are used – and not used – in your industry, the better you’ll be able to give your niche a good base. This is because hashtags determine whether someone can find your content or not based on their searches, so the more connected your hashtags are to your content and niche, the quicker you’ll be able to build an audience.
Be Consistent
While you may feel like your content is high quality, this is only half of what you need. What’s just as important – if not more important – is that you’re consistent with posting your high-quality content. You can follow everything else we’re telling you, but if you’re not being consistent about your content, your profile isn’t going to see a lot of growth.
We recommend posting to your Instagram account at least three times a week to keep it looking exciting and fresh for both potential and existing followers. If you’re serious about your Instagram growth and really want to stand out, we recommend figuring out the best time to post as well. If you have a business Instagram account, you’ll be able to check out the analytics to pin this down.
Create a Business Account
There’s no reason why you can’t become an influencer with just a normal, personal account, but if you want to give yourself a slight advantage, we do recommend trying a business account out. This is because a business account can help you with features like page analytics, which includes things like website and email clicks, post impressions, and specific details about the demographics of your audience.
Not only is a business account going to help you gain a better understanding of when it’s best to post your content, but you’ll also be able to figure out who is most interested in your brand.
Connect With Your Followers
While all of the advice we’ve given above is great and going to steer you in the right direction, there’s also another important aspect of being an Instagram influencer – and this is interacting with those followers you’ve worked so hard to attract.
Posting content every day is great and recommended, but interacting directly with your followers is going to help your brand grow stronger. This is because the entire point of you being an online influencer is to engage and connect with the people who care about you.
This is why we suggest that you reply to comments on your content, and even message people back when they DM you. You could also use influencer tools like host a contest or giveaway, and include a call to action in your captions, encouraging your audience to engage with your further.
Tag Brands
Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of becoming an Instagram influencer is that you get paid sponsorships and free products from brands. The great news about this is that you don’t necessarily have to wait until you’ve gained a six-figure follower count to benefit from this.
If you have at least 1000 followers so far, we suggest that you get the ball rolling by contacting the brands you want to work with directly. We also recommend that you tag your favorite brands in your photos. This will get your attention and may even tempt them to reach out to you.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are many factors to consider when trying to make it as an Instagram influencer. While some of us enjoy the connection, we can make with our followers, others appreciate the paycheck that comes with those paid posts.
The last thing to take away from this is that it’s going to take longer than a day, a week, or even a month to become an Instagram influencer. If you’re consistent with your content and patient with that follow count, you will start to see real results.