20 Best Tips For Becoming A Social Media Influencer

Welcome to the ultimate guide on how to become influential on social media. In this comprehensive list, you’ll find the 20 best tips for effectively influencing people on various social media platforms. Whether you’re a business owner, content creator, or social media enthusiast, these tips will help you build a strong presence, engage your audience, and establish yourself as a trusted influencer. 

From creating valuable content to engaging with your followers, optimizing your profile, and staying true to your authentic self, this guide covers everything you need to know to make a positive impact and grow your influence on social media.

20 best tips for effectively influencing people on various social media platforms

1. Be Authentic

People are more likely to engage with you if they feel like you are genuine and honest.

2. Be Consistent

Consistency in your messaging, branding, and content will help you build a following.

Being consistent is crucial for building influence on social media because it helps to establish your brand and create a reliable presence for your audience. When you consistently share valuable content, stick to a regular posting schedule, and maintain a cohesive brand image, you build trust with your followers. This trust can lead to increased engagement, a loyal following, and ultimately, greater influence in your niche. 

Additionally, consistent messaging and content delivery can help you stay top-of-mind for your audience, making it more likely for them to engage with and share your content.

3. Know Your Audience

Understand who your audience is and what they are interested in.

4. Create Shareable Content

Make sure your content is valuable and shareable so that it gets in front of more people.

5. Use Visuals

Use images, videos, and graphics to make your content more appealing.

6. Respond to Comments

Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages.

Responding to comments on social media is essential if you want to be an influencer for several reasons. First and foremost, it shows that you value and appreciate your audience’s engagement. By acknowledging and responding to comments, you demonstrate that you care about your followers’ thoughts and opinions, which can help in building a strong and loyal community around your brand or persona.

Furthermore, engaging with your audience through comments fosters meaningful connections and encourages two-way communication. This interaction can lead to increased trust, loyalty, and a more solidified influence over time.

Additionally, responding to comments can spark further discussion and encourage more people to engage with your content. This increased engagement can boost your visibility on social media and help attract new followers, ultimately expanding your influence.

Overall, responding to comments demonstrates your commitment to your audience, strengthens relationships, and can significantly contribute to your influence on social media.

7. Collaborate with Others

Collaborate with other influencers or brands to expand your reach.

8. Use Hashtags

Use relevant hashtags to help your content get discovered.

Using relevant hashtags can help increase your visibility and reach on social media, making it easier for people to discover your content. Here are some tips on how to be more influential on social media using hashtags:

Research popular hashtags: Use tools like Hashtagify or RiteTag to find popular and trending hashtags in your niche. This will help you get your content in front of a wider audience.

Create branded hashtags: Create a unique hashtag for your brand or campaign. This will help you build brand awareness and encourage user-generated content.

Use location-based hashtags: If you have a local business, use location-based hashtags to target people in your area. This can help increase your visibility among potential customers.

Use niche-specific hashtags: Use hashtags that are specific to your niche or industry. This will help you connect with people who are interested in the same topics as you.

Don’t overdo it: Avoid using too many hashtags in your posts. Stick to 2-3 relevant hashtags per post to avoid coming across as spammy.

Engage with others using hashtags: Use hashtags to find and engage with other users in your niche. This can help you build relationships and increase your exposure.

Remember, using hashtags alone won’t make you more influential on social media. It’s important to also create valuable content, engage with your followers, and build relationships with other users in your niche.

9. Be Patient

Building a following takes time, so be patient and keep creating valuable content.

10. Host Giveaways

Host giveaways to encourage engagement and attract new followers.

11. Share User-Generated Content

Share content created by your followers to show appreciation and encourage engagement.

Sharing your followers’ content on social media can make you more influential for a few reasons:

It shows that you value your followers: By sharing their content, you are showing your appreciation for their support and contributions to your community.

It encourages engagement: When you share your followers’ content, it encourages them to engage with your brand and share more content in the future.

It helps build a sense of community: Sharing your followers’ content helps to build a sense of community around your brand, which can lead to increased engagement and loyalty.

It can attract new followers: When you share your followers’ content, it can attract the attention of their followers, who may then become interested in your brand and start following you as well.

It adds diversity to your content: By sharing your followers’ content, you are adding diversity to your content and providing your audience with different perspectives and voices.

Overall, sharing your followers’ content can help you build a stronger, more engaged community on social media, which can ultimately lead to increased influence and success.

12. Optimize Your Profile

Make sure your profile is optimized with a clear bio, profile picture, and links to your website or other social media accounts.

13. Use Analytics

Use analytics tools to track your performance and make data-driven decisions.

14. Engage with Other Users

Engage with other users by liking, commenting, and sharing their content.

15. Offer Value

Offer value to your followers by sharing helpful tips, advice, or insights.

16. Follow Trends

Stay up to date with the latest trends and topics in your industry.

Following trends on social media can help you gain more followers because it shows that you are in tune with current topics and interests. When you engage with trending subjects, you make your content more relevant and appealing to a wider audience. 

By participating in trending conversations and sharing related content, you increase the likelihood of your posts being discovered by users who are actively following or searching for those trends. This exposure can lead to higher engagement, shares, and ultimately, new followers who are interested in the trending topics you are discussing. 

Additionally, being a part of trending conversations can position you as an authority or influencer in your niche, attracting followers who are looking for valuable insights and content related to those trends. Overall, staying updated with trends can enhance your visibility, broaden your reach, and attract more followers to your social media profiles.

17. Be Positive

Avoid negativity and focus on positive messaging to attract a wider audience.

18. Use social media share buttons on your blog

Having a blog and displaying the number of shares an article has can significantly boost your influence on social media. When visitors see that your content is being widely shared, it increases your credibility and authority in your niche. Additionally, high share counts can attract more readers and encourage them to engage with your content, leading to increased visibility and influence across social media platforms.

That’s why at the end of every article on our blog, we have social media share buttons.

19. Stay Active

Stay active on social media by posting regularly and engaging with your followers.

20. Be Yourself

Finally, remember to be yourself and let your personality shine through in your content.

Being yourself is the most important factor for success as an influencer because authenticity is highly valued by audiences. When you stay true to yourself, you build a genuine connection with your followers, which fosters trust and loyalty. People are drawn to authenticity, and they are more likely to engage with and follow someone who is genuine and transparent.

Additionally, being yourself sets you apart from others in a crowded social media landscape. Your unique personality, perspectives, and experiences make your content distinct and memorable, helping you to stand out and attract a dedicated following.

Moreover, being authentic allows you to create content that truly resonates with your audience. When you share your genuine thoughts, experiences, and expertise, you can provide valuable and relatable content that addresses the needs and interests of your followers.

Ultimately, being yourself as an influencer not only attracts a loyal following but also brings satisfaction and fulfillment to your work, leading to sustainable success in the long run.

10 Reasons Why You Are Failing as a Social Media Influencer

Writing about how to dominate your social media, and pointing out where you’re going wrong, are two very different subjects altogether. There’s plenty of information on this website that will help your with your social media, but I’ve written this post to make sure that you’re not falling for the common pitfalls that await you.

You’re Not Telling them Why

I know this sounds like fluff, but bare with me, it’s actually very important.

I’m constantly running into fan pages who are now using Timeline, but haven’t set a cover photo – that’s just lazy. There’s countless fan pages, Twitter accounts, and Pinterest accounts, with no bio whatsoever. If you don’t let people know what you’re about, how are they supposed to know whether they want to follow you or not?

I start with a Twitter bio, which might seem like a weird place to start, but it forces you to stay short, but sweet. Here’s my bio:

I teach expert knowledge and techniques to photographers, from beginners through to advanced.

It tells you exactly what I can provide you, without forcing someone to read some lengthy paragraph (which they probably wouldn’t). If this information isn’t included, then the page just looks naked to me, like there isn’t a human running it (we’ll get to that further down the page).

The same goes for when you ask people to click like in your posts, something as simple as ‘If you would like to see more content like this, click like below’ can work a treat. 

You’re Not Making it Easy for Them

This was a struggle I had in the early days of ExpertPhotography. I couldn’t understand why people weren’t clicking like onto my fan page when I wanted them to, and then it dawned on me like a smack in the face; I wasn’t making it easy for them.

Asking someone to ‘Come on over to the fan page and click like’ isn’t exactly making it easy for someone to who may want to like your page, especially when some many other pages make it so easy. As soon as I installed the Facebook like box at the bottom of every post, and in the sidebar, I started seeing way more new fans.

I know the complaint, Facebook isn’t the most attractive widget, and it probably doesn’t fit in well with your design (this was a complaint of IncomeDiary), but needs must. Most people are used to seeing them these days, they don’t really ruin your design too badly.

You’re Not an Early Adopter

Oh wow, I wish someone had pointed this out to me. The importance of being an early adopter was lost on me when I first started, and I ignored a very important source of traffic, which now feels like throwing away thousands of dollars. The social network? Pinterest.

It was over a year ago when I was checking my Google Analytics and I saw traffic form some website called Pinterest, and I had a brief look, thought it looked good (but was clearly a website for women), and moved on. If I had jumped on board then, when the website was nothing (it’s now the third largest social network in the world, after Facebook and Twitter), I could have built an account which would probably be 100 times the size by now.

I liken it to claiming the Facebook fan page for ‘Photography’ when you run a photography website. If I was an early adopter, and got on board back then, the traffic I would see from Facebook now would be enormous.

Constantly check your Google Analytics for new sources, and see the content they’re linking to, and write more content like that. Not every website is going to be the next Pinterest, but once a year or so, there’s going to be a website that has the potential to drive lots of traffic to your website, and you need to jump on at the start of the wave.

You’re Not Encouraging Sharing

Sharing is caring, and that’s exactly what social media is all about. You want people to constantly share your content over their preferred networks, because that provides you with traffic and recognition. But for people to share, you really need to make it easy for them. You have to remind them that they want to.

The first thing you need to do is install some sort of sharing plugin, I use Sharbar on my website Mike uses Digg Digg on this website. I find that these bars work better than buttons at the end of a post, because they’re constant reminders to people, but you can decide for yourself.

Another thing you can be doing is actually asking people to share it. Something like ‘Sharing is caring, if you think others would enjoy this post too, please share it’ in your footer works really well. It adds a little bit of guilt to the reader who feels like they should be sharing it, and it reminds them that they can share it too.

Just ask, you may be surprised by the results.

You Don’t Post Frequently Enough

I get it, you might not have much content just yet, but that’s no excuse. I post at least five times a week on my Facebook, just to let people know I’m still there. Facebook in particular will vary the amount of people who see your content, dependant on how active you are. You need to make yourself known.

I post every day to Twitter and Pinterest, because although people will always see what you’ve been posting, you can get away with sharing more content, because that’s the norm. I probably post to Twitter around 10 times a day, and then always post any Facebook posts or Pinterest posts to Twitter too. I’ve never had complaints about too many posts and I have 11,000 followers.

Pinterest is a little bit different, because I post around 5 times a day, every day. Posting lots of good content here is encouraged, just be sure not to only post your own content, as this puts people off. Oh, and make sure you post at the right time.

You’re Posting at the Wrong Time

Check your Google Analytics, and see which countries send you the most visitors. If you’re anything like me, it’s the US and the UK. You need to time your posting so that is matches up with the right countries. I post on Twitter all day, but lets have a look at Facebook and Pinterest, which I post to at different times.

Knowing my audience, I post at 5pm UK time on Facebook, because I know that in England, people are finishing work, and in the US east coast people are having lunch, and US west coast, people are waking up. These are all key times to post to Facebook. You can post earlier on in the day, but it’s not usually as effective, unless it’s a really popular post.

Pinterest is a little bit different, because people seem to be using their accounts at different times. At times that annoy me, here in the UK. If you want to find out when the most popular time is to post to Pinterest is, you have to use Google Analytics. Make an Advanced Segment to include Pinterest and m.Pinterest traffic (mobile), and then only view that traffic. This will allow you to break down when your website is most popular with that source of traffic, because rather than looking at it on a day to day basis, you can look at it by the hour.

These are the times that I find to most popular on Pinterest.

So 3am and 8pm is when I should be posting to Pinterest, which is when I’m asleep and when I’m eating dinner. But that’s fine. I usually don’t sleep until very late, so I post right before I go to sleep, and allow other others to repin it, and I also at 8pm, no big deal.

Great information to know. If you would like to schedule your posting, try using Pingraphy.

You’re on Too Many Networks

Jack of all trades, master of none. I don’t know if that’s a british expression, but it means that you’re better off focusing on a few different aspects of social media, rather than every single social network available. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

I don’t use Google+ (still not entirely sure how it works), and I automate Twitter (except for replies), which frees up the time I need to focus on my top 2 referrers – Facebook and Pinterest.

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a notebook with a never ending list of stuff that needs doing in it, and there never seems to be enough hours in the day. Rather cover many social networks poorly, I made a conscience decision to only focus on the best networks in my niche.

You’re Clearly Automated

Grr, this is a real pet peeve of mine. Yes, I’ve admitted to my Twitter being mostly automated, but there are exceptions to the rule. Firstly, even though Twitter doesn’t technically allow automation, it’s widely accepted by Twitter users, so long as you’re providing a service that they’re looking for. I have my human side of Twitter where I reply to tweets, and post from Facebook and Pinterest, but the automation lives on, and that’s fine.

Now lets look at when automation isn’t allowed.

Well, if you’re using a program called HootSuite, I’d go ahead and uninstall that now. When you post to a social network like Facebook, using any automated program, people feel an instant disconnect. Think about it, when you see ‘via HootSuite’ or something similar, doesn’t it feel like you’re talking to a robot and not a person?

People like to talk to other people, not robots. I see this mistake all the time, and I’m pretty adamant that people stop making it.

I have started to see some Pinterest automation software surface, and unfortunately it all seems to be Windows based, and not Mac (which I use), so I can’t test it out yet. But to be entirely honest with you, I can’t really see the advantages. I can imagine it’s just very agressive pinning and following, but I don’t agree with that strategy. You’re better off having a trusted hub for people to follow, in my opinion.

Your Readers Don’t Know You

This might seem like an odd one, but it fits in nicely with the point I made above about being automated. People want to make a connection with a person, not a machine. The same goes for companies or websites; if you can put your face on it, you’ll find that people are more likely to follow you as a person.

My Pinterest and Twitter username is PhotoJosh, so already people know what my name is, and what it is I do. But I go a step further than that, because most people know me because of my website, and not my social network.

At the bottom of every single post, there’s an about the author widget, where people can read just a small paragraph about myself, see my name, and a photo too. After reading multiple articles, they know who I am.

I recently launched my own forum, and I was surprised by the amount of people who were mentioning me by name, as if we were old friends. I was just ‘Josh’ to those guys, which just goes to show that this can really pay off. I thoroughly recommend putting your face on your business/blog if you can. 

Everything is Self Promotion

This is one of the biggest no-no’s in the game of social media, but probably one of the most commonly broken rules. It’s easy to see why you might think it’s a good idea to only promote yourself, the reasons are obvious, but I’m going to tell you why you’re wrong, and to do so, we’re going to look at Starbucks.

When it comes to restaurants/coffee shops, there is no business in the world with a more extensive social network than Starbucks. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Starbucks almost always comes out on top with the most followers. Lets have a look at their Pinterest to see what they promote to their fans.

This is their blurb:

These are some of the things we love: coffee, food, music, inspiration. But most of all, we love sharing these things with you.

Nothing like ‘Follow us for coffee and coupons’ or something equally self-promoting. And have a look at their page, it’s all food, coffee and design related, nothing to do with their business. They see the value in stepping back and becoming a brand that their customers can relate to, and find value from.

Check out their Facebook page with 32 million fans. Very little self promotion, mostly nice images, messages, and polls, but it’s certainly not hurt their business at all.

The point is, you’re better off only promoting yourself 50% of the time, and the rest of the time promoting content that other people want to see. That way you’re providing them with a service and they’re more likely to follow you.