One of the best ways for your startup to gain traction is for you to become an industry influencer. Being recognized as an expert and a leader in your industry allows you to whipe out your competition and steer web traffic your way simultaneously. here’s how niche influencers easily profit from their knowledge.

Ken Blanchard, the influential management expert, talks about the power of influence in today’s business world. “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority,” according to Blanchard.

While the best option is to be an authority and an influencer, Blanchard’s got a point. He also offers a keen insight into how business operates in the digital economy.

Influencer marketing has been trending for the last few years. It’s been called “marketing’s next big thing.”

I’m going to talk a bit about influencer marketing in general, at first. Then I’ll talk about how to become an authoritative niche influencer. Let’s dig in!

What Is Influencer Marketing?

Even though it’s been prevalent in the headlines these last few years, influencer marketing is nothing new. It’s basically just word-of-mouth advertising taken to its ultimate conclusion.

Influencer marketing is increasingly important in today’s digital economy, particularly for millennials. 70% of millennials report making buying decisions based on their peer recommendations.

30% of millennial consumers report trusting regular people over celebrity bloggers. This statistic reveals one of influencer marketing’s hidden truths. It also offers some insight into how you can leverage influencer marketing for your brand and reputation.

Quite simply, people don’t trust mainstream marketing. And who can blame them?

After decades of unethical marketing and get-rich-quick schemes, people are skeptical. That’s a good thing. It shows they’re thinking critically.

It might take more effort to win a critical thinker’s loyalty, but it’s a much deeper and longer-lasting connection. As business owners and marketers, you should be thinking about the long game as well as short-term goals, anyway.

Why Influencer Marketing Matters

The popular Influencer Marketing agency TheRight.Fit sheds some light on why being an industry influencer matters with some startling statistics.

Brands increased content production by 78% over the span of two years. Despite the increased amount of content, engagement fell by 60%. That alone showcases the need for industry influencers to amplify a company’s reach.

74% of consumers use social media to make buying decisions. 81% of marketers report influencer marketing to be useful for their marketing strategies.

These numbers alone make for a very persuasive argument. They also showcase some of people’s misconceptions about what an influencer is and does.

First and foremost, you don’t have to have a huge following to be a niche influencer. In fact, micro-influencing is the name of the game in 2018. Accounts with around 1000 followers tend to have the most engagement. Engagement is the metric you need to follow, not likes or followers.

Engagement leads to actual sales, which is the pot of gold that most brands and businesses seek. It’s the thing that will make them reach out to you and your following, with potentially lucrative results.

How To Become A Social Media Influencer

In 2017, Forbes published a story about ‘social media influencers as entrepreneurs.’ Author Barrett Wissman spent a week shadowing the model and social media star Alexis Ren, who was just about to launch her own line of activewear.

It’s nothing unusual for a celebrity to launch a line of products. What is unique about Ren, however, is that her products were an instant hit, as they’re in-line with her online aesthetic. Alexis Ren is an actual brand, breaking through the glass ceiling of the Cult Of Personality.

Alexis Ren is a picture-perfect example of how becoming a niche influencer can translate to real business and profits. It comes from being a well-known and trusted source in your area of expertise.

Your area of expertise is the phrase to focus on, in terms of becoming a niche influencer. It’s a prime opportunity to quickly become known as an expert in a very specific area. It’s also the way business is done, in 2018, in keeping with the most recent developments in SEO and search engine marketing.

How To Become A Niche Influencer

The early 2000s were a gold rush for digital marketing and eCommerce. Like the Gold Rush, a lot of lives were ruined, as people left their stable positions without much of a real understanding of the digital economy, let alone have something to add to it.

The approach to digital marketing, at that time, was a mixture of keyword stuffing and trying to rank for as many keywords as possible. This is the business equivalent of throwing a bowl of alphabet soup at the wall and hoping to write an inspired novel.

To help users sort through the amount of low-quality information on the Internet, Google rolled out their most extensive update which greatly penalized businesses using black hat SEO strategies.

Unethical marketers and unfocused businesses were eliminated, almost overnight. This created a new gold rush, this time for expert, authoritative content.

You’ve likely heard the phrase ‘Content Is King,’ at this point. Take the phrase to heart. The quickest road to becoming a social media niche influencer is creating content around very specific keywords and phrases.

Creating content gives you something to market on social media. During the process of creating your expert content, you’ll come up with dozens of related keywords and phrases which can be used as part of your social media influencer campaign.

From there, it’s just a matter of liking, following, and commenting on posts from other accounts using those hashtags. Get involved in your industry. Engage, and engagement will follow.

Even though it might be tempting, resist the urge to purchase followers or engage in follow4follow practices. It might bump up your numbers in the short term, but it dilutes your engagement.

You want real followers with real engagement. Those will be the metrics that you’ll present to brands that will want to work with you once your following is established and hanging on your every word (and recommendation.)

Are You Looking To Grow Your Following?

Founding a startup is hard enough. Once you’ve launched and gotten off the ground, you still need to build and develop your business. Contact me today and let me take your startup to new heights.