With the increasing popularity of social media, influencer marketing has seen a major transformation in the last few years.
From leading brands to small businesses, everyone seems to find it effective to market their products and services to their target audiences.
According to a study, 67% of marketers were able to reach a more targeted audience through influencer marketing.
The success of influencer marketing has helped create a category of influencers who usually have a smaller number of followers (generally between 1K to 100K) but very high engagement rates.
Micro-influencers, as we call them, are able to build stronger relationships with their followers which help them generate really high engagement. Because of this, they can make good money on social media by collaborating with relevant brands.
But how do you go about doing it? Check out this quick guide for micro-influencers to make money on social media.
1. Choose Your Niche
There are thousands of content creators out there who post content related to fashion, beauty, fitness, food, and other subjects. If you aren’t careful about choosing a niche, you can easily get lost amongst the crowd.
To become a successful micro-influencer and make money on social media, choose a niche that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. Think about the things that you love doing and see if you can create content around them.
Once you’ve chosen a niche, you need to stick to it. If you start posting irrelevant content and things that aren’t related to your niche, people wouldn’t want to follow you. Your expertise in your niche and the content you create using it will help you gain followers.
Babette is a style enthusiast and loves to showcase her gorgeous outfits on Instagram. Her passion for fashion has helped her gain a sizable following as well as many brand collaborations.
Image via Instagram
2. Be Yourself
People only trust things that sound genuine. So, you won’t be able to win their trust if you aren’t honest and genuine about the content you post.
If you aren’t passionate about fitness, don’t choose it as your niche just because it’s popular. How can you influence people who look for fitness tips and inspiration if you aren’t an expert in that niche?
If you want to make money on social media, make sure your posts are authentic. Or else you won’t gain new followers, or worse, you might lose the existing ones too.
Poppy Cross is a health and fitness writer, a runner, and a qualified personal trainer. Her Instagram posts reflect her passion and expertise in fitness and health. It’s the primary reason why thousands of people follow her.
Image via Instagram
3. Create Great Content
To be a successful micro-influencer and make money on social media, you need to post quality content.
Make sure to take great photos in natural light. This can make your photos look amazing. To make your photos look professional, try using post-processing tools and platforms. They can help you enhance the quality of your photos before you post them on social media.
Captions are as important as your photos. Write short but engaging captions that are grammatically correct. You can also add humor and wit to these captions to make them more engaging.
You can use emojis in your captions, but don’t overdo it. Include relevant calls-to-action to encourage people to comment on your posts. Also, use relevant and trending hashtags to get more engagement and followers.
Here is an example of a great photo combined with a nice caption.
Image via Instagram
4. Engage with Your Followers
To make money on social media, instead of just responding, you also need to start conversing with your followers.
Reply thoughtfully to comments and take the time to thank them. To make your replies a little more fun, use emoticons. They convey your emotions and current mood. However, choose your emoticons wisely.
Elise Young is a fitness trainer and athlete from New York City who has over 100K followers on Instagram. Check out how she replies to their comments and even asks them how a particular session was.
Image via Instagram
5. Work on Your Pitch
Once you’ve done all of the above and have a few thousand engaged followers, make a list of brands you’d like to work with. Make sure that their niche aligns to yours so you can deliver value through a potential collaboration.
When you work on your pitch, focus less on promoting yourself and more on explaining the value you can provide.
Create a media kit that includes your value proposition, your follower counts and engagement statistics, and ways you can collaborate with brands.
You can find the right person to send your pitch to on LinkedIn and use services like Hunter to find their email addresses.
Create a catchy subject line for your email and end with a call-to-action.
6. Join Influencer Platforms or Agencies
To make money on social media as a micro-influencer, you should consider enlisting yourself on influencer platforms or agencies. They can provide you with greater visibility and help you connect with brands easily.
When choosing a platform, consider the ease of use, cost, and flexibility they offer. HYPR, TRIBE, and #paid are some popular influencer marketing platforms you can join.
Wrapping Up
Thousands of micro-influencers are making money on social media today. With the right strategies, you too can be a successful micro-influencer and make money. Follow the above-mentioned tips to grow your following and collaborate with brands.
Do you have any other tips for micro-influencers to make money on social media? Let us know in the comments below.
