Let’s Talk About Becoming an Influencer

Did you know that you are an influencer?

You are!

Being an influencer isn’t about the followers, likes, and shares on Instagram. It’s about solving a problem for the community that knows, likes, and trusts you.

In other words, if you are building an audience that engages with you, you are an influencer.

Jenny Melrose, author of Influencer Entrepreneurs is here to give us all the details on being an influencer; the framework, how to pitch sponsors, blog, and grow an audience to make more money online.

About Jenny

Jenny is a former reading specialist turned influencer blogger, turned author, and business coach. Through hard work and dedication, her lifestyle blog, The Melrose Family, became regularly sought out by nationally recognized brands. Combining her passion for teaching and her experience creating content, she is now an author, podcast host, and content strategist that helps entrepreneurs better understand their messaging and unique position in the online space.

Influencer Bloggers

The first step is to build an audience that engages with you. If you don’t have an audience that engages with you, you will not be able to attract sponsors and affiliates.

Understand your position in the marketplace. Know what your audience is looking for. Sponsors want to understand your audience, so you have to know them well.

When you pitch sponsors, you must include the goods they will receive, i.e. blog posts, social media posts, etc. The posts should show how you authentically use the products to build the know, like, and trust factor.

Pitching Sponsorships as an Influencer

Understand the marketing place and know your audience.

Make a list of products that you know, use, and love, that you have in your pantry or makeup cabinet. Show the brand how your audience is the right fit for them.

Know how many followers you have on social media, how many readers you have, etc.

Building an Audience

Know who you want to attract. Know your personal avatar and understand what she does, where she shops, and what she’s looking for. Your avatar is often you three years earlier combined with your best friend. The best friend piece is there because she’s the one that is going to call you out and tell you if you wouldn’t really say what you are saying.

Then, create your content and talk to the audience that you are looking for.

The Difference Between an Audience and Followers

Followers are just that. You can buy followers. You can do the follow/unfollow game on Instagram. But an audience is the number of people with the engagement included. You are actually having conversations with them and they are engaging with you.

Build a connection so that they are more likely to take action.

Blogging

It’s content that we own, it is evergreen, it can be repurposed, and can drive traffic to your website.

How do you build an audience by blogging? When you create content and use keywords, people can find you when they search for something.

Title your posts and use keywords and phrases that people are searching for. What is your audience going to type in the search bar? That keyword/keyphrase should be in the title and throughout the blog.

Tools to Identify Search Terms and Key Words/Phrases You Should Use

Uber Suggest

SEM Rush

Ask the Public

Use keywords that are more specific to get a range of searches from 500 to 5000. Not, 25,000 because then you won’t rank for those.

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and use keywords they will use.

Instafamous

Being an influencer is not about being instafamous. It is about influencing someone to take action, which starts with creating a connection so that they will take that action. Influencing is not about a hard sale. When influencing, you are building a connection and listening to what your audience needs and then giving them the opportunity to take action.

Pitch Perfect Pro

Jenny’s signature online course.

The Influencer Entrepreneurs: The 4-Step Framework to Building Your Audience, Growing Your Business and Making More Money Online.

Jenny’s 4-Step Framework – PACK

Positioning

Understand the problem you solve and know your audience.

Authenticity

Do you truly believe in the product you are talking about? When you are authentic, you build connection. Your audience wants to see the reality of your life and the products you use. This is how people get to know like and trust you.

Confidence

We assume that women are born with confidence, but they are not. This isn’t true. Confidence is a skill, something you have to build on. You may have to fake it until you make it.

Kindness

Even businesspeople should be kind to each other. Collaborate and build each other up instead of competing against other women. Don’t think of scarcity and competition. Understand that you fill the marketplace a certain way based on your positioning. Raise other women up.

The Number of Followers

The industry standard for the number of followers you need to become an influencer depends on your niche.

If you have a really specific narrow niche, you will have fewer followers.

The rate that you can charge for sponsorships based on Instagram follower numbers is:

For every 10,000 followers, you can charge $100 per post, per story, and maybe a little more for a reel because they take longer.

If you have 5,000 followers you can charge $50 per post, per story, and again, maybe a little more for a reel.

For a 30-day time period, your blog and other social media platforms will also come into play.

For 2,500 followers you can charge $25 per post, per story, and again, maybe a little more for a real one.

Give sponsors a package price. For example, one package price for a blog post, 3 social shares, a Pinterest Pin, and a story on Instagram.

If sponsors come back and say they don’t have a budget, which they’ll say every single time, and if they don’t say that, you aren’t charging enough. If they come back and negotiate that means you are in a good price range. And if they come back and say we have to go down $100, then you take something out of the package so that it is still valuable for you and your time.

The Hate Rate

Jenny suggests, to be aware of the hate rate. The hate rate is the rate at which you will hate yourself and the content you create because you’ve gone too low on your price. You need to know your hate rate so that you are getting paid for your time and you don’t start resenting creating content for sponsorships. This is very specific to individuals.

Micro-Influencer

Sponsors still find value in influencers with a smaller following. Jenny never had more than 10K followers on Instagram when she had her blog and she was still making $1500 per post and $10K per month just in sponsorships because she created long-term contracts with sponsors.

The key is to be able to show sponsors your numbers across all of your platforms.

An influencer with a strong personal brand tied to your business is the influencer who does the best.