The go to guide book
Are you dreaming of becoming an influencer, talent, content creator or profile? Or has your channel grown and you’re starting to see an opportunity to work professionally? Congratulations! The good news is that influencer marketing is a rapidly growing field. New and skilled creators pop up every day – and you can become the next big talent. The bad news is that you’re far from alone in trying to gain the attention of the followers on social media. If you’re new in the business we’d like to give you our best advice on how to stand out, increase your followers and become a professional influencer.
The main difference between a private person and a professional influencer is the content they produce. As a private individual, you might post glimpses from your daily life to update friends and family. This works well for those who already know you well and therefore have an interest in your everyday life. But if you want to outgrow this audience you might need to think wider. You need to find your area of expertise, X-factor or niche.
Can I talk about anything?
The first question any aspiring influencer should ask themself is this: what exactly should my content be about? Not interested in fashion, beauty or fitness? No problem! Today almost anything can be posted on your channels. There are YouTubers with millions of followers who bake and cut imaginative cakes. Or TikToker’s who only focus on trying out various types of slime. As long as the content feels interesting, relevant, personal and well-produced there will almost always be people who find it just as interesting as you do.
What topics are most popular?
Broad topics like for example beauty and food are appealing to most. But competition in these fields is fierce, and your content risks being a little all over the place. When trying to figure out what your niche should be, however, it can still be helpful and inspiring to take a look at the top ten trending topics on social media.
Beauty
Health & Fitness
Fashion
Food
Entertainment
Lifestyle
Gaming
Travel
Sports
Tech
How do I find my niche?
Finding your niche is a lot about narrowing down a popular topic and becoming an expert in that field. One example is that “food” as a niche is extremely wide and competition is sky-high. If you instead choose to focus your content on sourdough bread you have narrowed it down to a very specific field in which you are far more likely to succeed. Because it takes time to think of new things to post and create, you need to find a niche you are truly passionate about. Always use your own interests to build on and think about how you can spice up the topic. Perhaps it’s the way you film or present things that make your channel unique, or your wonderful personality? Use trial and error to find out what works best for your audience!
Streamer, podcast presenter, vlogger, blogger or Instagrammer? The way you communicate with your followers decides what platform suits you best. To cover a wider audience it is also common for influencers to be active on two or more platforms. Just keep in mind that the material created for one channel can be punished by the algorithms if it’s reused on a different platform too. In this chapter we will talk about the advantages of some of the most common platforms, to help you find the one that is right for you.
Blog
Do you like to reflect on things and can see news value in everyday events? Or are you an “expert” within a certain field? Do you prefer to write longer texts and are great at taking nice-looking photos? Then a blog is most likely the perfect medium for you. The first real influencers were born from blogs, and the medium is still very much relevant as a platform that can attract hundreds of thousands of followers. Today, blogs are about a lot more than just being a public diary – they are a source of inspiration and information where a lot of time and energy are spent on creating strong editorial content. Through blog portals like nouw.com you can get started quickly and reach a broad audience.
With more than a billion active users each month Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks in the world. So it’s no surprise that it’s the channel most professional influencers prefer. The platform supports editing both static, moving and live material which means great creative freedom. The opportunity to combine simple and temporary content with in-depth posts that last longer makes it a great base for any type of content you plan to release. There’s also the possibility to boost and advertise material to help it spread faster.
YouTube
Despite entirely user-generated content, YouTube is challenging most of the common streaming services in terms of number of viewers. Amongst one of the most popular SoMe-channels, the content is often well-produced and qualitative, making viewers stay for longer sessions. One reason for the high quality of YouTube content can be their advantageous model for advertisement partnerships in which they reward their content creators early on. Popular content also produce a passive income over time as more and more people discover the video. YouTube is perfect if you feel comfortable in front of the camera, can edit videos and have a niche or topic in which you can create regular content for your followers.
TikTok
TikTok is primarily the home field for Generation Z, but continues to grow among millennials too. The platform is entirely video based and lets users share and send clips that are between 15-60 seconds long – and the trend-sensitive content often involves dancing to various songs. Because TikTok is based more on views than followers, you as an influencer, need to develop a different strategy. It’s very difficult to cut through the noise, but if you succeed you can become a world wide celebrity overnight. The format is great if you follow the latest trends, are not afraid to be in front of the camera and know how to create fun, genuine content that can engage a wide audience on a daily basis.
Ever heard of pinfluencers? A year or so back Pinterest launched a format in which the users create their own content. Like Instagram, Pinterest has always focused on being a place for inspiration, but they have taken it a step further. The quality of the content often plays a bigger part than the person behind it. Because of that fact, the format is great for you if you prefer grander and deeper content, like recipes, DIY projects or guides on topics like fitness, home decoration and technology.
Partnerships with companies are turned into interesting content and made a natural part of the regular content. Through the platform, you can also link to and buy products directly associated with the posts.
Podcast
Podcasts have become commonplace in everyday life and offer an exciting format in which you have the full attention of your listeners. However, demands are high on both content and technical aspects like editing and sound quality. It’s also common for podcasters to use other channels to entertain and reach their followers in between episodes. To attract more listeners, a popular format is to interview interesting persons. That way the podcast is spread also through the channels of the person being interviewed, reaching their network in a way that has proven very efficient.
Twitch
Do you love playing video games? Are you so comfortable in front of a camera that you don’t mind live-streaming several nights per week? Then Twitch is a great channel for you. Here, it’s important to build a loyal community which requires that you interact a lot with your followers. Schedule the times at which you broadcast and the games you will be playing to give your followers the opportunity to see you. Besides having to invest in an expensive gaming computer the format also requires additional gear to improve the quality of your broadcast.
Combination
As a famous influencer, you will be expected to be active on more platforms than one. This allows you to vary the way you express yourself and adapt your content based on what the platform offers. If you develop your own channel strategy you can for example market your main channel through other channels to get a wider reach. Some influencers also have multiple accounts on the same platform to target a different niche with each one.
How do you cut through the noise and become a popular influencer? The simple, but also very difficult, answer to that question is that you need to continuously create qualitative content. But what is “good” content, anyway?
How do I create content of high quality?
Key to all influencers’ success is the ability to quickly build a feeling of genuineness through their content. Being genuine is how you build a strong and lasting relationship with your followers. This means that you need to be honest and personal in your communication with the followers – just as you would a close friend. But to be personal and honest is only a part of the puzzle. Your content needs to engage, inspire and feel meaningful to the followers. By staying relevant and interesting they will continue to turn to you for your opinion.
What gear do I need?
A professional camera, studio microphone and additional lighting? Being an influencer can quickly become a costly affair when it comes to buying technical gear. And sure, great gear makes a huge difference, but no one has ever succeeded only because their material was shot in 8K UltraHD. Depending on what platform you’re on and the niche you’re active in you’ll often make it far using just a good phone camera. If your ambitions are to become a streamer, create a living food montage on YouTube or record a podcast, however, you will soon need to find the gear that will elevate your production value.
One of the foundations for creating exciting and strong content is to have a deep understanding of your target audience. As an influencer, it’s your task to match and package your content in your niche based on the target audience’s needs and curiosity in that field – whether it’s clever life hacks or the recipe for the world’s best apple pie.
Get to know your followers
Who are your followers? Mostly men, women or mixed? How old are they and where in the country, or the world, do they live? In Instagram analytics, for example, you can quickly find answers to some of the general characteristics of your followers. To access them, however, you need a company or creator account – something all influencers have changed their accounts to. In the analytics section, you can also get an overview of follower statistics and other metrics that can be good to know. The built-in analysis programs of the platforms often provide sufficient data, so start there before you purchase expensive programs from the app store.
Build a persona
Do you speak the same way with your parents as you do with your friends? Probably not. To better understand who you’re talking to you can steal a trick that marketing experts call a persona. Based on what you know about your target audience, their interests and personalities, you try to create one or several fictional characters that represent your target audience. Perhaps the personality of the persona reminds you of someone you already know? Perfect! Now it’s easier to know how you would make that person happy and engaged, but also what opinions or actions they would interpret as negative.
Listen to your audience
Like in any relationship, great friends find the time to listen to each other. By regularly interacting with your followers you can gather crucial insights into how they perceive you and your content. But you can also invite them to be part of your creative process and let their wishes inspire you when you create your content. Perhaps many are wondering about the same thing which can be the foundation for the next perfect guide? Or perhaps you have identified a fun, daily life, problem many have and can come up with a smart solution or a fun twist? Listen to your followers and let the inspiration flow!
On platforms like TikTok you can become famous overnight, but normally it takes time and hard work to attract new followers. There are however ways to speed up the process and reach more people faster. Keep reading to find out what you should think about, and the mistake you absolutely must not make.
Pick the right hashtags
As you probably already know one of the oldest tricks in the book is to start using #hashtags. But how do you do it effectively? Try to avoid using hashtags that are too broad with a lot of competition in them, like “fitness” which right now yields 395 million photos. Instead, break things down to what it is you’re showing, like ”#PTpushups”. You should also be aware of new hashtags and trends in your niche, or invent your own unique hashtags associated with you and your account. Then encourage your followers to produce their own content and use your hashtags.
Use new features
When platforms are updated they sometimes also launch new features. Be quick to use these new formats as the platforms award those who dare to try. This also gives you an opportunity to create new content and express yourself creatively. Being first in something can, in other words, lead to becoming the biggest in that thing – so dare to test it out!
Make the algorithms work for you
Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and TikTok – all of the biggest platforms are run by algorithms that work for (or against) you. What we know about the Instagram algorithm in 2022 is that you should often share Reels, engage the audience through Stories Stickers, strategically work with hashtags and use a high-quality phone camera when filming. If you succeed in all this your content has a greater chance of cutting through the noise, but since everything can change in a single update it’s important to stay informed about what currently applies.
NEVER buy followers
A common mistake to make is to buy followers. You want to grow organically – not take shortcuts that will end up harming you. As an influencer, your entire future career is based on you being a trustworthy person, and fake followers make you a fake. It will both sabotage your future collaborations with companies and harm the image your followers have of you. Another aspect is that your fake followers don’t interact with your content, which brings down your statistics. The interactions that take place can instead be overwhelmed by BOT spam which can lead to all kinds of things you don’t want to tarnish your brand with.
Create a content plan and update it regularly
Plan, plan, plan. You will soon discover that life as a professional influencer is all about planning content in advance. Your followers are as attention-demanding as hungry children, and to feed them with exciting content you need to produce regular updates. Create a content strategy in which you decide the activities for each day of the week in advance.
Fill the week with a strong combination of moving and static content, broadcasted live or edited to cover a broad basis. Regularly recurring concepts and themes like “outfit of the week” can be varied endlessly and is a good way to build your foundation of content. But avoid reusing material on multiple platforms or spamming your followers with the same content. If your engagement is high the algorithms will reward you if you often publish new stuff.
Get started with collaborations
A good way to get your channel spinning is through various collaborations. Make use of each other’s networks and create positive synergies for both parties to quickly gain hundreds of new followers. Perhaps you know someone in your niche who is more famous? Or an influencer is a tangent niche so that you aren’t in direct competition? For example, fitness + food could be an exciting combination that appeals to a lot of people. Thanks to the Collabs feature on Instagram it’s even easier than ever to start creating together with other content creators.
Comments, likes, shares and views – most platforms rank your profile based on engagement, or engagement rate (ER). In paid partnerships engagement is often a deciding factor, one which many companies look at before deciding to partner up with an influencer. To have an engaged audience is particularly important for nano and micro-influencers as it compensates for a low follower count. But how do you get your followers to engage?
Ask open questions
Many platforms have already created perfect tools that help you increase engagement. Through various features in Instagram Stories you can ask quick questions, post polls or host quizzes. Let your followers get to know you by answering their questions (AskMeAnything), or engage with them by letting them help you choose tonight’s outfit. Asking your followers for their best tips and advice is also a great way to get some activity in the comment section. So ask open questions in the captions, like for example “what are you having for Friday night dinner?”. An important factor in getting loyal followers is to make them feel part of something bigger – and questions are a great way to achieve that.
Reply to the followers
An active and organic conversation with your followers is something you will need to spend a lot of time on. If you ask questions the followers also expect to get a response from you, both through likes from you but also in the comments and through private messages. In general, smaller profiles have a higher engagement rate because they have the time to answer most of their followers. This creates more loyal followers because they perceive the relationship with the influencer as more private and intimate.
Contests and giveaways
Few things engage people more than the chance to win something. A small or large prize doesn’t really matter, you will be surprised by the great engagement rate contests can yield. There are various setups for contests, but the most common ones are the ones where followers create something of their own and tag it with your designated hashtag, like/share/follow something or contests hosted via stories.
If, at the start of your career, you don’t have the budget or a partnership for a contest prize you can always offer your own services within your niche. You can then document it and create more exciting content for your followers. Remember that contests and randomized drawings like lotteries and raffles must follow certain rules, so read up on what applies in your country. In Sweden, there’s a new gambling law stating that you can host contests and raffles as long as the prize isn’t money.
A lone wolf is never the strongest. If your goal is to work full-time as an influencer it’s challenging to find collaborations and partnerships if the influencer agencies don’t know who you are. It’s just like modelling agencies that build networks of talents that they then match with brands. In order for the networks to recommend you to their clients you need a follower base with a high engagement rate, but also to be professional in your role as an influencer. Here are some tips on how you can start working with an influencer agency.
Create a media kit that sells
A media kit is like a portfolio or a description of yourself. It should contain a short presentation of you as a person, your niche, what people you reach and current statistics about you and your followers. If you have previously paid partnerships you can also showcase them and their results. The media kit should sell you and your channel to potential partners and agencies, so keep in mind that it must be nicely designed too. There are services like canva.com in which you can design your own media kit, or you can hire a freelancer from for example Fiverr.com. The main thing is that the kit reflects who you are and what your channel is in a selling way that peaks interest.
Contact the right person
A huge mistake many young influencers make is to bulk-send to multiple influencer agencies at once. Instead, try to identify who you should be talking to and present yourself in a professional and selling manner. Just like when you apply for a job it never hurts to do your research on the company you apply to. Once you’ve established contact all you need to do is get to know the people there. Stay top-of-mind in your niche by telling them how you create value for companies or present interesting ideas for collaborations.
Are you ready to earn money on your fame? Many new influencers choose to contact companies directly to ask about partnerships. In some cases this works well, but if you’re new in the industry it often ends badly if you try to represent yourself and launch a full campaign on behalf of a brand. Sometimes companies will take advantage of the fact that you’re new by offering bad terms. In other cases the influencers themselves fail to live up to expectations and follow the rules that apply. With an influencer agency to back you up you get all the help you need to make your paid partnership a success.
Match your profile with brands
Regardless if you represent yourself or use an agency you and your niche must be aligned with the brand you plan to partner with. You don’t need to rule anything out, but if it feels like a weird combination to you, your followers are guaranteed to feel the same way. Companies are also looking for brand ambassadors who can help them reach your followers in a natural way. Try to find partnerships in which you can both elevate each other’s brands.
Be selective
It can be tempting to jump on all kinds of partnerships you’re offered but you should always choose carefully. You know your followers best and if they aren’t interested in the products or services the company is offering it can have a negative effect on you. The partnership with a company won’t last long if this happens, which means that everyone loses. If you’re working with a serious influencer agency, however, the risk of this happening is very low as it’s their job to find good partnerships for you.
Always be professional
To be an influencer is associated with high demands on your ability to act professionally at all times – in the relationship with your followers, the influencer agency and the companies you partner with. They put a lot of trust in your ability to create and produce creative campaign proposals with great ideas. As an influencer, you’re often also part of a larger campaign in which you are expected to keep deadlines. Getting a bad reputation in a narrow industry like influencer marketing can cost you many future partnerships, and a bad rep is hard to wash off. As long as you are interested in the products and services of the company and do your best, everything should work out just fine.
Follow up and build relations
Have you successfully concluded your first partnership? Congratulations! The best results often lead to long-term partnerships in which you as the influencer are associated with the client’s brand. That’s why it’s a good idea to build a close relationship with your client so that they can become a returning partner on your channel. To follow up and evaluate partnerships is an important aspect of the campaign, in which you analyse what went well and what can be improved together. This also increases your chances of success in the next campaign.
Has your follower count grown so much that you think you can start doing paid partnerships? Before you say yes to your first company it’s a good idea to know the laws and rules surrounding getting paid to advertise companies and organisations. Here you will learn the basics!
Tag sponsored posts
If you are paid by a company to advertise you must, according to marketing laws, make it clear that your post is sponsored. On some platforms you can add certain features to show that the post is a sponsored post. In other cases, you should always start the caption with “In paid collaboration with X”. It’s your responsibility to make sure that your followers understand that it’s a paid partnership and you can suffer legal consequences if you fail to do this.
Do I need to have my own company?
If your goal is to make a living of your income from influencer activities you either need your own company or you need to turn to a so called self-employment service. A self-employment service means that you are temporarily hired by the service company who then takes care of all the accounting, invoicing and your salary for you, in exchange for a fee tied to everything you invoice. There are many such services and they are a great way to not have to deal with all the work associated with running your own business.
Income tax
If you are paid in products, trips, services or cash you usually need to declare this and pay tax for it. In Sweden, for example, you are allowed to accept products up to a value of €99 per company and year. However, you also need to pay 30% tax on these – which means you’ll pay €30 out of pocket for the gifts you have received. You always need to find out what laws apply in your country before you start accepting assignments and partnering with companies.
