- Be Authentic – Brands, companies, people want to follow accounts that are authentic, genuine and a real representation of themselves. Trying to be something you’re not is not sustainable and will eventually show to your audience. Brands want to invest in you, and only you.
- Post consistently, but of high quality. The global interconnectivity of Social Media, thanks to globalisation impacting on technology, means any one can access your content. Especially brands. With brands wanting to maintain their brand image and values, they will only invest in Social Media influencers that truly represent their core values and beliefs and post great content therefore take time considering what to post. For examples, instead of posting an un-edited photo, try editing them on mobile photography apps such as Lightroom, Enlight, VSCO Cam and Photoshop. These mobile photography apps will transform your photos into eye catching content.
- Engage with your existing and new supporters on social media. Simply, send them a Like or write a genuine Comment on a post of theirs. This will more likely result in reciprocation, which will see your content receiving a significant boost in Likes and comments. Resulting in a highly active community, which brands love to see as they want to see their Social Media Influencers followers actively engage with their brand message.
- My experience on the number of followers you need to become a social media influencer suggests that you need a minimum of 4,000 real followers. This however is subjective. Work hard building your followers by implementing engagement strategies, mentioned on Step 3. Receiving high engagement on your posts will result in a higher chance of people seeing your content on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. Due to them lasting longer on the top of the Explore and Hashtag pages. Resulting in hundreds, thousands of users seeing your post and then more likely follow you.
- Invest in yourself. Research what other Social Media influencers are doing and try and replicate them while identifying an USP (Unique Selling Point) for yourself. Make yourself irresistible for brands. Spend time on identifying who you are and then work on posting content that truly represents your values and beliefs.
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Nicolas McKenzie 
Great suggestions! I like the ideas of using photo editing apps!
Thank you! Highly recommend using the ones I’ve suggested. 😃 Do you use any?
My husband uses Snapseed sometimes 😬
That’s great to hear. Snapseed is a fantastic app to use. 🙂
I most definitely agree with most of these suggestions, although I must admit I do disagree with the idea of having to be authentic, well not necessarily disagree with authenticity part but I do believe there is a power and uniqueness to creating a character for your online presence but this depends on your topic/interest.
Depending on the content that you are providing to your followers, creating a persona or character can allow you a sense of anonymity and separate your personal interests/feelings from the access of your followers.
To carefully construct your posts and provide interesting and quality content on a regular basis is what I believe is key, and backing this up with an obvious and consistent perspective enhances these and can encourage interaction with followers or even form emotional investment from them.
Once again, I highly agree with the tips you have provided and your final point of unique selling points and researching the techniques of other influencers is also fantastic! I often think people underestimate the effort required to build and maintain an influence over followers but it DOES require work, research and effort.
This post provides great tips for micro influencers to expand their brand and define their message.