This article in the Metro News is all about making money as a social influencer and a must read for anyone keen to give this a go. I have been working with Get Blogged for a while now and they are a great company to work with. This interview with Lucy who is head of influencer talent at Get Blogged is an excellent read. Read this article in full at Metro News.
WHETHER it’s blogging, posting photos on Instagram, making comical TikTok videos or vlogging on YouTube or Twitcher, there are now several ways to earn extra cash — or even a full-time salary — from social networking platforms.
Outreach company Get Blogged, who connect bloggers with brands for paid partnerships, saw a 672 per cent increase from June to August 2020 compared to the previous year.
Lucy Clarke, head of influencer talent at Get Blogged, says despite the recent surge in interest the influencer industry is still in its infancy, with ‘a great deal of opportunity for new voices to succeed’.
GETTING STARTED…
Treating social influencing as a job, rather than a get-rich-quick scheme, is the key to success.
‘There’s a misconception that anyone can become an influencer, and that it’s just a case of sharing your life on Instagram. It’s true that there are low barriers to entry but, now more so than ever before, it takes real skill, patience, and consistency to effectively monetise an online presence,’ says Lucy.
It is also important to identify an underserved niche and build a following around a clear and defined set of topics that you can share with your followers — for example, living with a chronic illness or gardening on a budget.
Most influencers will continue working in their day job while building up their social media content and following. They work evenings and weekends until they are in a position to work full-time as an influencer and quit their day job.
And even then it is important to have enough savings to fund the first year and to manage expectations because — like any business — it may take two or three years to start turning a profit.
QUALITY CONTENT AND ENGAGEMENT…
Creating authentic, quality content which your followers, subscribers or viewers engage in via likes and comments is the key to monetisation.
It is possible to make money with just 1,000 followers, particularly on Instagram, although many influencers say the real turning point comes at 10,000 upwards.
‘It’s increasingly being recognised that those with smaller but more relevant and niche followings will often have a greater deal of authority and influence with their audience than those with hundreds of thousands of followers,’ Lucy adds.
For vloggers on sites such as YouTube and TikTok, the key to being a big-name influencer is to regularly go viral and generate 10,000, 100,000, or millions of views and actions with every post, according to Dom O’Neill of Vlogify.net.
He says: ‘My advice is to focus on awesome content that you find exciting and engaging. The reason any content would go viral is because it emotionally resonates.
‘Focus on the story, focus on empathy, create content that gets people identifying with it so much that they cannot help, but share, like, and comment on that content.’
SPONSORSHIP AND PRODUCT PLACEMENT…
Once you have established a large audience you may find brands approaching you offering freebies. In return, they hope you will feature their gifted product in your content which under consumer protection law must be disclosed.
Although it is tempting to accept free offers it is important to remember that gifts don’t pay the bills and they may undermine your personal brand. Instead influencers will negotiate with brands to sell advertising and product placement space in their content charging per 1,000 followers or views.
On Instagram the rule of thumb is 1p per follower, per sponsored post. But a shrewd influencer will limit the amount of sponsored content they feature to ensure the product aligns with their own brand and followers don’t get advertising fatigue.
‘I only sponsor things that are authentic, that I would genuinely use. Some months I won’t have any sponsored posts. It is all about growing audience engagement and credibility. A casino approached me and it was a good deal but I turned it down because I don’t endorse gambling,’ explains Instagrammer Luisa Ruocco.
AFFILIATE MARKETING…
Reward for sale or affiliate marketing can be secured directly with a supplier or via a third party scheme like Amazon Associates.
When a follower visits a website or buys a product via a unique, coded link shared by an influencer, the influencer receives a commission, usually between five and 20 per cent.
‘Some suppliers may pay you per person who comes to the website, some will pay for action taken on the website, such as a new user signing up to a newsletter, while other suppliers will need a sale to be made before they pay out,’ explains Dom.
It is also possible to negotiate a base payment for general brand awareness on top of the link commission. This means if a follower clicks through via your link but then later buys the produce following a Google search you are not missing out.
THIRD-PARTY ADVERTS AND SIDE INCOMES…
Once you have a large following on your blog or hundreds of thousands engaging with your YouTube or TikTok channel, it is possible to make a lucrative passive income from adverts.
Third-party ads via YouTube, Google and Bing can appear before video plays or around content. A vlogger with 250,000 regular monthly views can make £1,500 to £2,500 per month via adverts which would increase tenfold if views increase to 2.5million.
There are also a range of spin-off incomes that influencers can earn due to their expertise on specific platforms. This might be consultancy work, appearing on television or writing articles. And an influencer who posts highly stylised photos can sell the image rights permitting brands to use the content in their own future marketing campaigns.
Source Metro News
