How do you know?
Recently, there have been an influx of Instagram profiles and social media descriptions that use the words brand ambassador and influencer. While these are legitimate titles and both can come with some hefty compensation, there is a meaning behind both of those terms...quite literal in fact. This is going to be a two part post going into each of these terms.
Let's start with influencer. The definition, according to the Cambridge dictionary, is "someone who affects or changes the way that other people behave, for example through their use of social media." One of the common misconceptions of being an influencer is that one needs to have a high following. hereinafter known as vanity numbers. These vanity numbers can help a person grow their business or status because many consumers look at those numbers and believe they see a trusted source, they believe there must be a lot of other people who take this individual or brand seriously, so maybe I should too.
However, what some don't realize, is those vanity numbers do not directly tie to influence. Those vanity numbers do not guarantee that one has the ability to affect change, thus one may not have the power to influence. When running marketing campaigns, brands and individuals should take into account the engagement that comes behind that high following. While there is no perfect science to this, there is still common sense. A user with thousands of followers and only a few likes and low comments has very low engagement. So while their follow numbers may be high, the people who are following are not engaging with any of their content and just may not be interested in what they are putting out. This would make it very hard for that individual to convince someone to take an action if they can't even convince them to like an image on Instagram or click a link to a website.
For the influencers, there are several tactics that can work both ways. While growing following is important, we need to make sure we are also pulling in quality follows so that engagement numbers do not take a dip and you are seen as a trusted source, not only to brands but to individuals as well. A few ideas are below....
influencer noun [ C ]
/ˈɪn.flu.ən.sər/ /ˈɪn.flu.ən.sɚ/: "someone who affects or changes the way that other people behave, for example through their use of social media"
- Like other people's work. If you are a fashion influencer, for example, like other people with similar content. This way you are engaging with the kind of people who you want to engage with your page. Follow some, like some, and comment on some. There are a number of pods on Facebook and other platforms that encourage real engagement and in these pods, members actively engage on each others work so that the comments are real, and not just the random thumbs up emoji or the 'Nice' that you see coming from bot traffic.
- Be consistent with posting. While the Facebook/IG algorithm may have changed to prioritize certain content, if you are consistent and your followers see your work consistently, and engage with it, your relevance score will increase and that will cause your content to show up more often.
- Don't be afraid to use, and switch up, your hashtags. Just because you are a fashion influencer doesn't mean all of your hashtags need to be beauty related. Some piece of your content might be related to something else. Take advantage of that and use new hashtags to tap into a new audience. A different crowd will see the content and you have just gained a new set of eyes.
