How To Make Money From Blogging – Become A Trusted Influencer
Welcome to the third part of my “How To Make Money From Blogging” series.
Today I am going to talk about how you can become a trusted influencer on a platform of your choice.
We will also talk about why you absolutely should do that.
The profits of being an influencer are huge!
If you have missed the previous parts of the series, you can find them here:
Part 1: Write Articles Every Day (including my top 5 tips on how to write longer and better articles)
Part 2: Find A Business Partner (including tips on how to monetize your blog)
Part 4: Create A Mailing List
Let’s jump right into it:
What Is An Influencer?
The word is quite self-explanatory:
Influencers are people who can influence others in one or another way.
They have large and active followings.
To be called an influencer you should have at least a few thousand real people following you and engaging with you.
Those fans will often follow the example of the influencer.
Don’t mix this up with manipulation, though.
An influencer is more like an idol or a guide, who tries to improve the lives of his followers.
This can be done in many ways.
In many cases, they entertain their fans. Others test products and then recommend the good ones.
Many companies take advantage of influencers and sign them up as their business partners.
They pay them good money to promote their products.
Don’t you think that’s a great way to make money?
Build up a big following and get paid whenever you show them a product of your partners?
Well, I think it is!
Almost everybody can become an influencer, but it won’t happen overnight.
Keep on reading to find out how you can become an influencer, too.
Types Of Influencers
First, let’s talk about the different types of influencers:
Instagram Influencers
Everybody knows those guys and girls (well, they are often girls).
Beach and feel good pictures everywhere.
Did you know that they make real good money with their Instagram accounts?
Many of those pictures are sponsored by companies. That’s why you will often see something like “find the link on my profile” under the posted image.
No matter in which business you are, you should have an Instagram account and post images regularly.
You can just use the images that are on your website anyways.
Since you can’t put links in Instagram posts, you have to put the link to your website on your profile page.
Facebook Influencers
Facebook is still the most popular social media platform.
It makes sense that almost every business has a fan page on Facebook.
Big sites on Facebook make thousands of dollars every month by promoting their products.
Facebook is different to Instagram, though.
There you promote your own products. You don’t get paid on Facebook to promote other people’s stuff.
Again, Facebook is something you MUST use if you really want to be successful with your blog.
Organic traffic is awesome, but traffic from social media is usually easier to get and even more targeted.
Even if you don’t get many likes in the beginning, this can change much faster than you think.
As a Facebook influencer, you can choose to pay for ads or just post naturally.
Both are very good ways to drive more traffic to your blog and with that more sales.
YouTube Influencers
Let’s get away from mainly pictures and take a look at videos.
YouTube is still huge and important to serious online marketers.
For bloggers, it might be a bit advanced and scary first, but once you are comfortable with writing articles, you should take a look at video creation.
There are two advantages for YouTube Influencers:
- drive traffic to your website and offers
- make money directly on YouTube
The more viewers you have, the more people will click on your links in the video or the description.
It is rather easy to rank on YouTube, so you will get additional traffic to your website fast.
Many viewers on YouTube also means that you can make quite a good income from displaying ads on YouTube.
YouTube is using Adsense to display those ads.
YouTube influencers can get sponsored, too.
Companies contact big YouTubers and ask them to review one of their products.
They also invite them to events and ask them to publish a video about it.
If you are not too shy, you really should start making videos and combine that with your blog!
Twitch Influencers
Twitch is special.
Twitch is mostly known as a streaming service for games.
That means that people are playing a video game and stream it at the same time.
People can watch them while they are playing.
Sounds crazy?
It has become very big during the last few years.
There are live events where the best teams compete against each other.
Thousands of people are watching them.
Ads are displayed and every player or team has own sponsors.
There’s a lot of money there.
Of course, this is a very specific niche.
But if you have anything to do with gaming, software or hardware, you might want to use Twitch for marketing.
Companies like Nvidia or MSI (both hardware companies) stream almost every day on Twitch.
Blogging Influencers
This is what I am mostly doing.
The important thing about blogging is, that you give value to your readers.
You need to help them and fix their problems or answer their questions.
And you need to be completely honest with your readers.
That way you will build up trust and become an authority in your field.
As a blogger, you have so many ways to monetize your site.
There are more platforms that can give rise to influencers, but those five examples are huge at the moment.
Why Should You Become An Influencer?
I think it is obvious by now.
Influencers are trusted by a huge following and there are many ways you can profit from that.
You can make money from ads or by recommending products (affiliate marketing).
But there is one thing you have to be aware of:
Never Betray The Trust Of Your Fans!
Don’t ever lie to your readers!
Don’t mislead them or make false promises.
If you recommend something, you must be sure that it is really worth it.
Once you have betrayed the trust, it is almost impossible to build it up again.
Stay genuine!
How To Become An Influencer?
While there are differences from platform to platform (as I have explained above) the main aspects are the same:
- post/create content regularly
- be yourself
- be honest and genuine
- be helpful
- engage with your fans
- reach out to other influencers (networking)
- use more than one platform (social media, blog, YouTube, etc.)
- don’t give up ever
There is no way of saying how long it will take to become an influencer.
Some gain a large following in only a few months. Others need years before they can call themselves an influencer.
It always takes a lot of work and dedication.
But once you have made it, you can reap the rewards and can be very proud of yourself.
There is only one thing left to say:
Are You Ready To Become The Next Big Influencer?
I think you know now why it is so great to be an influencer.
Who doesn’t like to have a large following that likes and respects you?
It is not only about the money!
Just being able to make other people’s lives better is a fantastic feeling.
Sure, at the end of the day you want to make money, too.
But helping others should always be your main focus.
Believe me, the money will come by itself.
So, please answer this question:
Do you have what it takes to become a trusted influencer?
Let me know in the comments below and start hustling!
Before you leave, though:
If you haven’t read the first two parts of my series “How To Make Money From Blogging”, check them out here:
Part 1: Write Articles Every Day
Part 2: Find A Business Partner
Part 4: Create A Mailing List
All the best,
Moritz