In 2025 the global influencer market is predicted to reach approximately 33 billion U.S. dollars – a tripling in size since 2020. But what exactly is an influencer? Where do they all come from? And how would you go about becoming one?
What is an influencer?
The role of an influencer can be traced back as far as ancient Rome, when various products were endorsed by gladiators. And since then, the concept of influencing has been the driver for many purchasing decisions. After all, consumers have always relied heavily on word of mouth experiences from family and friends when deciding whether or not to buy something, particularly larger purchases.
Influencing became a digital activity in the early 2000’s, when an increasing number of women began blogging about parenthood and sharing insights and recommendations with others. Gradually brands began to take notice, and deals were struck between parents and brands that resulted in followings and money for the brand.
As social media platforms evolved, early influencers began to grow social media presence on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. The launches of Instagram in 2010 and TikTok in 2016 provided further opportunities for influencers to share recommendations in visual and active ways, connect more easily with followers and build lucrative connections with brands, including through paid advertising.
In 2022, the Oxford English dictionary added the word influencer to its publications. The given definition is “a person who has become well-known through use of the internet and social media, and uses celebrity to endorse, promote, or generate interest in specific products, brands, etc., often for payment.”
Many people now make a living as influencers, often focusing on a particular niche. And there is even a hierarchy in the world of influencers, depending on the number of followers an influencer has:
- Nano-influencers: 10,000 followers or less
- Micro-influencers: 10,000–50,000 followers
- Mid-tier influencers: 50,000–500,000 followers
- Macro-influencers: 500,000–1 million followers
- Mega-influencers: Over 1 million followers.
What can influencers achieve?
There are various benefits of influencers both for businesses using them and for the influencer themselves.
For many businesses, influencer marketing is an increasingly important part of their digital marketing strategy. It can be a uniquely successful way to promote your brand and products across social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube and a particularly effective way to reach your target audience. The more followers your influencer has, the more you could benefit from the goodwill they’ve built with those followers, who trust their judgement when it comes to product recommendations.
Being an influencer also brings benefits for the influencer themselves. As mentioned earlier, successful influencers can earn a living simply from being an influencer. It may start as something of a hobby or side hustle, but can develop into a fully-fledged career.
So if you’re interested in becoming an influencer, how can you make it happen?
How to become an influencer?
Once you’ve decided to become an influencer, it’s fine to start small. Many influencers start off doing it just as a hobby or side hustle before developing into a full-time career. This gives you the chance to start building a following whilst still filling gaps in the technical skills you need – such as graphics, video editing, link building and payment systems.
Once you have started the process, here are seven steps which will help to move you in the right direction.
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Choose your niche.
You are more likely to find success as an influencer if you focus on one niche market rather than trying to spread your influencing skills too thinly. So think about what you are passionate about – for example, fashion, beauty, home, lifestyle, food, sport, animals or photography. Becoming a successful influencer will consume lots of your time and energy, so it’s important to choose something that you enjoy. Think about the type of content you enjoy, products and services that you would feel happy to endorse, and other influencers that inspire you.
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Identify your audience.
Once you’ve chosen your niche, you need to identify your audience. You need to understand who they are and where they are likely to find you. Use market research to search for your target audience and find out more about them. For example demographics such as age and location, and cultural aspects such as interests, values and beliefs.
You also need to know which social media channels and devices they are likely to be using, and what kind of content they are most likely to interact with. The more intelligence you can glean as to the preferences they have and the challenges they face – and how these factors lead them to respond to content in particular ways – the better you will be able to harness their interest.
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Create your brand and online presence
Your influencer brand is the way you present your personality, values, and passions to your followers and gain their trust to be influenced by you. It is worth spending time cultivating your brand voice, and deciding whether you want to create a visual aesthetic (for example, logo, fonts, colours etc) to underpin this.
Also give careful consideration to the social media platforms you use. It is generally better to be selective and choose one or two channels on which to focus, rather than adopting a more scattergun approach. It is also helpful to use business accounts on your social media, as this enables you to view and analyse data from your page, such as which posts perform the best.
If you are serious about becoming a successful influencer, it also pays to build a website to provide more information about you and enable followers to subscribe to emails from you and to read additional content such as blogs and articles.
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Plan a consistent content strategy.
Once you are up and running it’s important to post content consistently. You will soon discover the best times to post content by analysing the responses that you get to it. You can then use this as a basis for creating a content calendar to help you plan in advance what and when you will post. Putting effort into planning will enable you to maintain the volume, frequency and quality of your content.
You may want to consider having regular types of content featuring throughout the week. For example, on one day you could feature your product of the week, another could be something about you as a person, and another could provide an answer to a popular question.
But posting content is just part of the picture. It’s also crucial to engage with your followers as they respond to that content. Let’s take a look . . . .
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Engage, engage, engage
In addition to posting your regular content, you need to engage with your audience at every opportunity. You need to come across as friendly and approachable, even on days when you don’t feel like it. Consistency is the key. So take time to react and reply to comments from followers, and answer questions that they might post. Also make opportunities to ask those followers what content they would like to see more of.
It’s also a good idea to follow other influencers in your niche and read the comments on their posts. This provides you with more insight as to what content is popular in your niche, and can help bring you to the attention of the influencer and also their followers. All of which is valuable in building connections within your niche and gaining more followers in the process.
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Collaborate with other brands
As you grow in confidence and experience as an influencer, always be on the lookout for brands to collaborate with. Ensure that your website and channels include a bio with a clear yet concise description of who you are, what you do, and how to contact you. This will enable brands to contact you if they are interested in pursuing a collaboration. You could also create a profile on influencer matchmaking sites such as Intellifluence.
Also have a go at approaching brands directly if there are brands you’d like to collaborate with. Pitch them some specific details of how you could add value to them, and describe the kind of content you could create to promote their products or services.
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Formal training
As the influencer sector has grown, so has the range of training courses and networking groups associated with it. These are valuable resources if you need to fill gaps in your knowledge or abilities.
Various college courses exist that are relevant to being an influencer, including content creation, digital marketing, social media strategy and branding. There is also an online Meta Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate offered by Coursera.
You may also want to consider joining a professional group such as the Institute of Data and Marketing or the Influencer Marketing Trade Body for further training and networking opportunities.
The global influencer bandwagon shows no signs of slowing, and can bring benefits to both businesses and individuals. If you think it might be time to jump on board, we hope that the above tips provide a helpful starting point.
And remember to check back here soon with us all at Xcite Digital.