Developing social influence means people recognise you as a leader within your industry. These people will be in your business networks – online and offline – and know what you do professionally the moment they hear your name. To be a social influencer on a larger scale, the media will recognise you as the ‘go to’ person to receive the best advice when required.
Being a social influencer can have a great impact on your business growth if developed well. I spend every day in social media and frequently smile to myself at the number of profiles that have 100,000’s of followers and I have never heard of them. It takes more than social numbers to create an income from being a social influence. It takes developing credibility and awareness across a number of marketing areas in your business. Below is my top 5:
Niche yourself. Become the expert.
In order to build a highly recognisable personal brand, you must become known for being the best in your industry for a particular skill. People gravitate to you for it. You cannot be known as an expert of all topics within your industry. Instead, consider what it is you want to be at the top of people’s mind for. The more you talk, write and share content on this one topic the more people will recognise and gravitate to you to stay informed and up to date.
Be the researcher and reporter
To become the person people want to follow means you are the source of news first, or you are the one reporting your thoughts on the news. Social Influencer’s are known for being the first to share their personal thoughts on relevant media topics. To be aware of trending topics here is a list of ways to monitor:
- create Google alerts on relevant keywords.
- save hashtags to monitor for news,
- add relevant social influencer’s to Twitter lists,
- check what is trending in Facebook or Twitter
- subscribe to relevant blogs (organise them using Feedly)
Be everywhere – and I mean everywhere!
Social Influencers are not born overnight, they may focus their active presence in one social media space, but will generally have a social presence in a number of social networks. This is because they are aware of how important it is to their brand to be where people are talking about them. An Influencer knows how important it is to listen and engage with their followers and these people are not always going to preference the same social network as themselves.
A social influencer will also be a contributor to a source of networks or publications. This may be in the form as an author of articles in digital or print form, or as a media commentator being interviewed on radio, or even TV, for their opinions and thoughts.
Whether it is local, national or global, if you google a social influencer’s name you will see more than just their own blog listed as sources of authority.
Be you and personable
So many social influencer’s come and go because they are not able to sustain the momentum of keeping their followers engaged. Quite often as people start to educate themselves with a social influencer’s message they need more than just the same topic updates to keep them interested and engaged. Social Influencer’s who are successful at maintaining their level of interest know how to emotionally connect with their followers. They identify common interests they have with regular followers. They share personable moments within their daily routines to build emotional connections with their followers. Social Influencer’s know how to display their ‘human side’ professionally.
Know how to network
Finally, in order to develop social influence you need to create a lasting impact with other’s who have created influence within their industry too. Social Influencer’s know how to identify, network and collaborate with other relevant social influencers. This may be as simple as sharing their social posts and mentioning them. Commenting on the end of their blog or LinkedIn articles. It could be by referencing them within an article or interviewing them.
As relationships develop so does the collaboration. With this, grows a greater awareness between their followers. Both social influencers then quickly duplicating their presence into new areas and increasing their reach and business opportunities.
Developing social influence takes a series of actions, done regularly, over a period of time. Whether it is local or global, it is built on developing relationships with other industry leaders, the media, business networks and followers. So many who start out guns blazing, create social tribes quickly, then burn out just as fast because they lose sight of why. What is important to the success of building a personal brand to such a level is remembering why you are doing it.
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