As social media is becoming more prominent in our lives, people are more and more able to gain the opportunity to empower themselves.
In our world today, anyone can have a public voice and some people have been able to grow powerful enough to the extent that they are able to monetize their online power, such as in the case of how to become and Instagram influencer.
Instagram is known to be one of the most prominent social media platforms today, and has given the chance to many to be “Instafamous.”
Once a person receives enough followers on Instagram and becomes “Instafamous,” they may be approached by several companies allowing them to advertise and influence their followers toward a particular brand or product.
Instafamous people who partake in this form of advertising and marketing are called “Instagram influencers.” There is a large number of people today, who spend hours of their everyday life trying to figure out how to become an Instagram influencer. Brands especially are spending a ton of money on influencer marketing.
As people have begun to realize how lucrative the business is, they have also begun trying to figure out how to become an Instagram influencer. Instagram influencers seem to have very fun lives, that are all play and no work, but very few people understand the difficulties of becoming an influencer.
When trying to figure out how to become an Instagram influencer, many people are missing the basic, fundamental formula in achieving the status. Becoming an influencer is not as easy as simply trying posting fun pictures every now and again, or simply looking beautiful (though this does help); instead, at the core of it, is becoming a person that people want to be.
Generally speaking, most people live a life of mediocrity. They wake up, go to work, come home, have a small period of fun and relaxation with their family, then rinse and repeat. People who seem to live amazing lives on Instagram allow others to live vicariously through these perverted lives.
If you want to know how to become an Instagram influencer, figuring out how to make people want to live vicariously through you is only 1 of the questions you must answer. Here’s a guide that will help you fill in the formula of how to become an Instagram influencer.
1. Find and Define Your Niche
When you start trying to get followers on Instagram, do not spread yourself too thin. Becoming a jack of all trades is hardly a means of how to become an Instagram influencer unless you are someone like Mike Boyd or an educator of sorts where large variations in posts still follow a general trend of learning.
Boyd, a famous YouTuber and Instagrammer posts about a great array of topics, including and not limited to swimming, Rubix cubes, rockets, and much much more. All of his posts have to do with learning something new, making his niche education.
If you are not aiming to form your niche in education, the variance of your posts must be much less and more specifically targeted towards your target audience. One step in how to become and Instagram influencer is that you should try to limit the amount of random/unrelated posts that may appear on your page.
Once you have found your niche, you will begin targeting like-minded individuals who have similar interests to you; therefore, receiving a flow of followers. For example, if you have an interest in sports, you should generally have posts about sports, and never post about going clubbing.
When people visit your page for sports, they will specifically want to see posts about sports. It is very important that you always keep your niche in mind when you are figuring out how to become an Instagram influencer.
2. Creating a Memorable and Relatable Bio
Unless you are a famous person, capable of bringing your natural fame onto Instagram, your bio is a very important factor. Your bio is basically the elevator pitch for your Instagram.
In just a short message, you need to tell any potential follower: Who you are and what your interests are, but in a way that will convince them that your Instagram is better than the next content creator.
Remember that becoming an Instagram influencer by definition requires two things: a brand that will channel themselves through you and followers for you to leverage your influence on.
When figuring out how to become an Instagram influencer, people often forget about the brand factor since it less immediately obvious. When creating your bio, make sure that your message is noteworthy and that it is able to catch the attention of many viewers. It is also important to remember that you need a bio that a brand would be willing to put their name on.
3. Share Your Stories
As previously stated, one of the big reasons people decide to follow the lives of others is because they want to be able to live vicariously through the events of their lives.
They want to share in the joys that you indulge in and the easiest way for you to suffice that is by being as relatable as you can possibly be. You must also note that there are people who may be following you for entertainment purposes rather than for vicarious living.
One of the oldest forms of entertainment has been storytelling. During the stone ages, there were bards, who would memorize many tales to publicly tell people. As technology progressed, stories were told through books.
In the past century, stories began being told on a silver screen through movies. When the screen was able to enter people’s homes, stories were told through the television. Now that the screens are at the palm of our hands, there is another medium for people to tell stories.
Both creating and telling a story on your Instagram page will be able to kill two birds with one stone. First of all, your story will help you become less enigmatic and more relatable to your followers. Second of all, your story will provide people with entertainment, so that they will be brought back to your page because they will know that your Instagram is enjoyable.
Telling your story is a great way to engage with your followers and gain credibility, so you should also remember that you must stay genuine. Overall, the stories you tell on your Instagram are the most significant and key features for how to become an Instagram influencer.
4. Have Your Posts Be Consistent and Scheduled
When figuring out how to become an Instagram influencer, many people forget one crucial detail: timing. Instagram has an algorithm that actually rewards accounts that post regularly and consistently. This is because Instagram aims to get people to use the Instagram application consistently. If an account helps Instagram to achieve this, this Instagram will push this account higher up in the social newsfeed.
If you are wondering how to become an Instagram influencer, you may also be wondering how much and when you should post. The important thing is staying consistent. You may choose to post once a day, or multiple times a day; however times a day you want to post, you simply have to make sure to keep your posting schedule a consistent pattern; because Instagram will reward consistency.
To become an Instagram influencer, it is important to take time out of your day and use tools that will help you curate your future content for the week. Curating your content has to do with planning out your future hashtags, writing your captions, and scheduling out what you will post and in what order. Doing so will help you to see an increase in both your followers and in post engagement.
This being said, to maintain and grow your following it is ideal that your posts are consistent within a given margin of time, because this gives your followers an incentive to visit your page for new posts.
5. Make Your Instagram Feed Aesthetically Appealing
Before Steve Jobs revolutionized the world, phones and electronics had often been sold in janky boxes or plastic containers. Originally, the first iPhone was supposed to also be put on the shelves in this same manner; however, Steve Jobs was infuriated that the mighty iPhone be relegated to such ugly packaging.
Though it did not seem like the best business move, as it raised the cost of packaging, the iPhone was packaged in pristine packaging that allowed the product to be opened in a way that felt, to some extent, prestigious.
This added an extra sense of value to the iPhone to iPhone users, something that ultimately made it feel like their iPhone had more value than other cell phones did. Interestingly, you can use this example and relate it to your Instagram. Ultimately, if you are wondering how to become an Instagram influencer, you have to take certain steps that will help you achieve your goals. In the case of packaging, you want to symbolically package your Instagram in a pristine manner, in order to create a more valuable and significant image for yourself and for your brand.
Brands do not want to associate themselves with an image that does not seem clean and crisp. One way that you can add to creating a clean and valuable image of yourself and of your brand is by ensuring a given theme. If the theme of your Instagram seems like patchwork, it will turn away both potential brands and potential followers. Creating an incredible aesthetic to your Instagram is a big part of how to become an Instagram influencer.
6. Choosing the Right Hashtags
Hashtags are a means for Instagram’s search engine to sort through things based on relevance.
You are allowed to include a maximum of 30 hashtags in total together with your post at a time. Implementing all 30 of the hashtags of your choosing will optimally grant you the most publicity.
This is another huge factor that is often overlooked when people are figuring out how to become an Instagram influencer. The issue with hashtags is that you must find a balance for the right hashtag to use.
For example, you do not want to use a hashtag that typically receives a very small volume of searches.
Whatever hashtag you choose to use, everyone who searches that given hashtag will see your post; however, if you use a hashtag for a post, with a volume of 10, you will only receive 10 potential views/followers. Such an instance would be extremely inconsequential.
Alternatively, if you use a hashtag that has a volume of 10 million, it is important to note that there is a chance that you will lack the opportunity to get a good number of views/followers, because your post will be lost in an ocean of related posts.
Ideally, you get your hashtags to be part of a search that has somewhere between ten thousand and one million searches. Doing so will allow your posts to be viewed when the hashtag is searched, rather than it getting lost, and it will also provide your post and page with overall “healthy traffic.”
7. Engage Your Followers
You will probably be noticing a trend in the behaviors and requirements that come with how to become an Instagram influencer.
Many of the tips circulate around the idea that you should be as relatable as possible.
The thing that makes successful Instagrammers the most famous is not simply posting a photo with a caption hashtags and then closing their app.
Engaging with your followers is probably the most important factor when it comes to how to become an Instagram influencer.
Many of the best Instagrammers (who are not inherently famous people) will post questions, ask for suggestions, and reply to comments as well direct messages (DMs). Instagram will also reward you for providing content that gains a lot of responses and comments, something that is a nice added bonus to everything else.
Asking for feedback from your audience is also a great way for you to learn and improve the quality and the relatability of your posts. Asking for feedback will help you figure out what makes your audience tick, strengthen your connection, and assist you in your overall understanding of how to become an Instagram influencer.
8. Collaborate With Other Creators
Jamie Foxx has been famously known for teaching, assisting, and premiering many musicians so that they can break into the music industry and learn about the business.
For example, he has been quoted as saying that Ed Sheeran had slept on his couch before becoming a famous musician.
The assistance has been found to help many people with their careers such as Nick Cannon, Kanye West, and Chris Brown, among others.
What allowed these people to all consistently become successful in an incredibly competitive industry was a bit more than talent.
It was the fact that Foxx had also given his stamp of approval, allowing other people to take upon the trust of Jamie Foxx and lend a bit of that trust to artists that people had never heard of before.
This concept can actually be taken and applied to how to become an Instagram influencer. You do not necessarily need to reach out to someone who is incredibly famous, but working with known influencers is rather easy to do and it is something that is beneficial to all parties. You will share some of your audience’s trust with whoever you are working with, and they will be sharing their trust with yours.
If the other person you are collaborating with has been in the industry for a longer than you have, you will be able to learn from them and ask them questions, along with being able to have them pass on some of their followers to you. “Collabs” are a bunch of free publicity from influencers that are already trusted by their audience and a very helpful part of how to become an Instagram influencer.
9. Reaching Out to Brands
As previously stated, there were two requirements by definition, on how to become an Instagram influencer.
You need a brand that will channel itself through you and followers that can channel your influence.
The previous slew of things you needed to do to become an Instagram influencer was all in an attempt to grant yourself more influencing power by gaining more followers.
To add the final piece of the puzzle, you must remember to find a brand that is willing to channel their name through you.
To do this, you must understand your niche, and find a brand that has a great affiliation with your niche. You should not be afraid of pitching yourself to brands, even if you have a small account. Don’t let your number of followers stop you from reaching out to different accounts.
People often talk about how the advertisements during the super bowl are the most expensive advertisement blocks; what they do not actually realize is that in fact, they are actually the cheapest. The average cost of a super bowl ad is $4 million dollars for 30 seconds. This may sound incredibly expensive; however companies do not measure advertisements by time.
Much research has found that roughly half of America watches the super bowl each year. If America has about 300 million residents, that means that you will be receiving 150 million views of your advertisement for $4 million dollars.
That is less than 40 cents per view. Continuing with this concept, even if you have 5000 followers, a price can always be made so that the brand and the Instagram influencer will both be able to profit.
10. Capitalize on Trends
When a new trending story comes or a music video is released, you can make a parody of it. Since it is extremely popular, there is a massive surge of searches, and if you are one of the first people to catch the trend, you will appear on the top of the search, for YouTube, Instagram, etc.
For example, let’s say your Instagram is about poker. When the mannequin challenge came out, you could film a mannequin challenge based around an active poker game.
Remember to keep your theme and niche in mind when making your fad video. It is pretty much riding the wave up based on someone else’s success or popularity, and it is probably the only time that you should be using hashtags with an immensely large amount of searches.
Conclusion:
It is very difficult to figure out how to become an Instagram influencer, and even with this list, how to become an Instagram influencer may not come easy. This list will help guide you through the necessities of becoming an Instagram influencer, but ultimately you still need to figure out what works for the best for you.
Your general process should still fit within the given guidelines, but figuring out your style and your method is something that will only come through practice. Figuring out exactly the right style and the correct and most effective method to appeal to your audience based on your niche will only come through experience. Hopefully, these guidelines will help you in your journey of figuring out how to become an Instagram influencer.
