Posted by How many followers do you need to become an influencer? That’s the most common question you will hear on the lips of those looking to become an authority in their niche as soon as possible.
Throughout this post, we’ll go over what makes an influencer, the benefits of being an influencer in your field, as well as some basic strategies you can use to grow your social media following quickly.
But first, back to the all-important question…
How Many Followers Do You Need to Become an Influencer?
You must have at least 1,000 followers on a social media platform even to be considered an influencer. However, having a thousand followers does not automatically make you an influencer. Other factors include reputation or public perception, engagement rate on posts, and persuasion power over your followers.
By now, you can see that being an influencer is not only tied to the question: “ How many followers do you need to be an influencer?”
An account with only 3000 followers can be more successful in influencing their target audience than one with 20,000 followers simply because the quality of communication is higher.
For business owners, you may need to boost your growth by becoming an influencer in a community of people who use your kind of product or services. Take for example, a company that sells baby carriers becoming an Influencer in the baby care & safety niche.
By becoming an Influencer in your niche, you get to enjoy a constant stream of hot leads and a boost in sales / conversion rates.
That’s not all. Social media influence may earn you and your company a substantial amount of money on sites such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Already, the influencer marketing industry currently has a global worth of over $21 billion.
However, individual income relies heavily on the number of followers and views you earn.
Now, let’s find out if striving to become an influencer is worth your time and effort.
Check out this link for expert tips to help you stand out and succeed online.
Top 7 Benefits of Becoming an Influencer
Here are some of the perks that await you when you become an influencer.
1. Effective for Lead Generation and Marketing
Lead generation is a technique that has seen a significant transformation in recent years. This is thanks to the expansion of social media’s function in connecting businesses with consumers and clients.
According to Hubspot, about 80% of global consumers interact with brands via social media. Also, 71% have a higher chance of buying based on the referrals they get from social media.
By becoming an influencer in your niche, you can safely assume that anyone who follows you is interested in products related to that niche. If you own a business in that industry, your followers become quality leads. If you don’t, you can always find businesses who do and promote their products. It’s a win-win!
All you have to do is review a product, share a link, or recommend a channel to drive traffic to wherever you need it.
2. Tremendous Visibility and Reach
Today’s online environment presents numerous challenges to regular marketing channels, and influencing may help companies navigate through them successfully. One of such challenges is the widespread use of ad blockers and people’s general dislike for intrusive advertisements.
By having potential customers follow you or an influencer on your payroll, you get a non-intrusive avenue to connect with more prospects.
3. Excellent Conversion Rates
Using an authoritative account to promote your business on social media increases conversion rates and ultimately, sales.
As influencers become more prominent, customers increasingly turn to them for recommendations on the goods or services they should buy.
The general belief is that an authority wouldn’t risk their reputation by recommending substandard products.
4. Builds Brand Trust and Demonstrates Competence
Influencer endorsements are based on a basic philosophy that is easy to understand. Whenever a celebrity, social media personality, or industry expert publishes information about a business on social media, it immediately establishes the company’s credibility in the public’s eyes. It gets even better if you’re that industry expert.
Also, as an influencer, chances are you have a few to a hundred thousands of followers. Any business page with such numbers automatically appears competent and trustworthy to the average social media user.
5. Raises Brand Awareness
Influencer marketing helps you to reach a wider audience and establish a more substantial presence in the market. Visitors to your social media pages may learn more about your business, your narrative, and the goods or services you provide. One of the most visible advantages of social media marketing is that a quick peek at your profile is enough to tell viewers everything they need to know about your company or brand.
6. Long-Term Benefits to Both Followers and Influencers
Influencer marketing, like search engine optimization, is a long-term strategy. The results of a single influencer post are unlikely to result in a significant boost in your company’s revenue. Trust must be built between both parties over time.
You’re basically building a community of loyal followers and enthusiasts by providing them with the value they need.
That way, they get a regular supply of helpful resources while you get a group of people ready to share your posts, buy your products, and support you in several other ways. Everybody wins!
7. Influencers Set Trends
When you trace the origins of most viral hashtags on platforms like Instagram or Twitter, you’ll almost always find an influencer in the background.
Being an influencer or working with one allows you to start challenges, competitions, or other viral trends with ease.
A few thousand reposts or use of your hashtag is enough to get the ball rolling and put your company in the limelight.
Types of Influencers and Their Number of Followers
Despite follower count is only one of many determinants, this figure helps categorize influencers. Let’s take a look at the widely-accepted categorization.
Nano-Influencers (1,000–5,000 Followers)
In the context of how many followers to be a social media influencer, nano influencers have it the easiest. They typically have a list of followers that includes their friends and family members.
These influencers have a following of between 1,000 and 5000 people. They tend to maintain a high degree of engagement and interact with their followers one-on-one, responding to most comments.
Due to their intimate contact with their audience, they establish a strong relationship with them and become extremely powerful and effective influencers.
People place their confidence in nano-influencers because they are confident that such influencers would not deceive or defraud them. They talk about their own experiences. Hence, the target audience is more likely to believe them. Most significantly, nano-influencers often charge a fraction of what traditional influencers do to promote a brand or company. They are an excellent promotional strategy for small and medium-sized companies, especially new businesses.
Micro-Influencers (5,000+ — 100,000 Followers)
Micro-influencers are supposed to have a following of up to 100,000 people, although the actual number is usually considerably lower. Micro-influencers are still regular individuals, but they have elevated their influencer marketing to a higher degree of sophistication and expertise. It’s likely that micro-influencers would put out more effort to produce high-quality material, resulting in them gaining a large number of followers.
Micro-influencers are known for concentrating their efforts on a particular specialty. They are frequently regarded as experts in that field. The amount of engagement between them and their followers is also generally considered to be high. Additionally, the micro-influencers’ earnings may vary significantly as some platforms are more lucrative than others.
Macro-Influencer (100,000+ — 1 Million Followers)
Macro influencers are mostly regular people who may not have attained celebrity status but are well-known in their field. So how many followers makes you an influencer in the macro category? Typically, anything above 100,000 followers on a social media platform should be enough.
Once you attain this status, there’s little need to interact with your followers one-on-one (plus, it becomes extremely difficult).
Hence, there is little interaction between these influencers and their followers daily. Nevertheless, their follower count continues to grow thanks to social media algorithms.
Mega-Influencer (1 Million+ Followers)
The majority of social media mega-influencers are international celebrities. These individuals include the most successful actors, musical artists, and sportspeople in the world. Mega-influencers will often have minimal understanding of the products they promote. Also, their large number of followers will not necessarily be associated with a specific niche.
Due to their massive following, mega-influencers can promote their own products to an extremely wide audience, resulting in a significant increase in product exposure and a significant increase in sales. Mega-influencers on social media are already likely to be rich individuals, hence, their hiring prices are astronomical.
Tips for Increasing Followers on Social Media
Social media is a cost-effective, time-efficient method to market your brand. On the other hand, the social media frenzy has a method to it, in terms of publishing material that people want to talk about and developing an audience. Below is a list of tips for growing your social media following across various social media platforms.
Increasing Followers on Instagram
Instagram is one of the biggest social media platform for bloggers. It is the ideal place to market products and services that rely heavily on visual appeal such as paintings, home decor, flowers, furniture, and so on.
Other product types can also flourish on the platform. 90% of marketers in the United States agree that Instagram is the best for influencer marketing.
Here are tips to help you grow your audience on Instagram.
Use High Quality Photos
From your logo to pictures of your samples, ensure your images are of the best quality possible. You may want to consider investing in a professional camera. Also, feel free to put Instagram’s photo editing features to good use.
Maintain a Consistent Publishing Schedule
Generally, brands shouldn’t post more than a few times each day to prevent spam. Make sure to maintain a consistent posting frequency so your followers know what to expect.
Instagram postings should be scheduled in advance. Your whole team may see campaigns and timetables more effectively if the material is scheduled in advance of time. It’s usually a good idea to plan out your content ahead of time.
With an Instagram scheduling tool, you can reach your target audience while also maintaining a constant stream of content.
Connect Your Website to Your Instagram
Increase exposure and awareness if you want to increase your Instagram followers. Tell them where they can find you. If you want to encourage social sharing across all of your networks, you might include social media buttons on your website and blog, as well as a link to your Instagram account.
Use Hashtags
Hashtags are one of the most tried-and-true methods of increasing your Instagram following. Hashtags have been an essential tool for finding and extending social reach for an extended period now.
Also, they are an excellent tool for marketers looking to grow their communities by acquiring followers
Increasing Followers on Twitter (Now “X”)
Twitter is probably the most straightforward social media platform to build a following from the ground up since it is fast-paced and easy to use. For your brand, here are a few tips on how to increase your Twitter following.
Optimize Your Profile
Your Twitter profile serves as the focal point of your Twitter account’s appearance. This is the first thing that most people look for before clicking the follow button, and it consists of your bio, header, and profile photo.
To optimize them, do the following:
- When describing your product and services, include an interesting fact that makes your business unique
- Be clear on what people stand to gain from following you
- Use emojis appropriately
- Include a few industry keywords (1–2 is fine)
- Use one brand-related hashtag
- Use a clear and eye-catching logo as your profile photo
- Place enticing offers, coupons, promos, or events in your header
Don’t Sell Too Much in Your Tweets
Publish helpful content regularly. You need to show that you can provide value by helping your followers find solutions to nagging problems without gunning for their wallets.
Regularity is vital as Twitter followers will be more inclined to unfollow you if they discover that you hardly tweet.
Unlike the users on other platforms, tweeps are happy to see lots of tweets from you every day, so long as they’re not all promotions.
Interact with Other Users
Engaging with other people’s content on Twitter is a critical step in developing strong connections and increasing your follower count on the social media platform. Retweeting other people’s posts is a simple method of interacting with them. Remember to reply when other Twitter users mention you in a comment or tag you under a thread that they have created.
Don’t Be Afraid to Invite Followers to Other Platforms
Sharing helpful information on Twitter doesn’t have to be restricted to the platform. In addition to regular tweets, you can mix things up by sharing other kinds of content such as infographics, current events, podcasts, webinars, or even how-to instruction YouTube videos, with your followers. Good tweets put you in a solid position to get more likes, comments, retweets, and followers.
Use Hashtags
Using hashtags properly on Twitter, like with other social media platforms, may help get your tweets in front of more people and increase your follower count. Looking for trending hashtags that align with your editorial strategy and include them in your tweets is the most effective method to utilize hashtags. When you interact with your followers via hashtags, your tweets will be accessible to audiences interested in the hashtag, thus expanding your audience reach.
Increasing Followers on Facebook
In 2022, it will be challenging, if not impossible, for an eCommerce business to exist without Facebook marketing.
If you aim to leverage Facebook’s consistent relevance by reaching more people or getting more followers and likes for your page, the following tips will assist you in accomplishing that goal.
Use an Effective Profile Photo and Cover
Your Facebook page’s profile and cover picture serve as the initial point of contact, so make sure they are in excellent shape. It’s a good idea to include your logo in your profile picture and to use your imagination to create a cover shot that captures the spirit of your brand and company.
Publish Content Beneficial to Your Followers
Provide inspiring, amusing, or educational and valuable information that is partly connected to your brand but is mainly intended to interact with your core audience. In this manner, you can cultivate a following of devoted customers who will feel connected to your business and engaged in all you do.
Leverage Facebook’s Community Atmosphere
When it comes to growing your following quickly, hosting freebies and competitions from time to time is always a brilliant idea. Make postings that will catch people’s attention and get them interacting with other Facebook users and groups; the contest terms are entirely up to you. Given that we live in the meme age, you may attempt to skillfully play on any viral trend to attract a wider audience.
Join Relevant Groups
Look for prospective followers in relevant Facebook groups. By participating in their conversations, the group members may observe the page from which you are interacting.
However, ensure that you aren’t explicitly promoting your business, but rather that you are demonstrating your expertise and being helpful in conversations about subjects that are relevant to your company. Also, avoid breaking group rules as it could get you kicked out.
Increasing Followers on TikTok
With over 4.1 Billion Installations, TikTok is an excellent site to concentrate your marketing efforts. It’s most effective if your target audience comprises Millenials and members of Generation Z. Here are some tips to help you increase your TikTok followers.
Participate in Relevant Trends
You may dramatically boost the number of people who follow your TikTok account by following and participating in popular trends as they emerge. TikTok trends are a fantastic way to distinguish your business from your rivals while also sharing a little more of your company’s personality with your audience.
Mix Entertainment and Information
Be informative and fun when it comes to creating TikTok content for businesses and influencers. Make valuable material for your followers by using TikTok to provide entertaining and information that they will find helpful.
Use Even More Hashtags
Using hashtags on TikTok may help you increase the size of your TikTok audience — especially when you combine a variety of branded hashtags with trending, business-specific, and generic ones.
Cross-Promote on Other Platforms
TikTok alone will not be enough to sustain marketing efforts. TikTok videos may be shared on various social media platforms (including YouTube) to help you market your business. Make use of your internet presence to cross-promote your TikTok videos.
Increasing Followers on Pinterest
Pinterest has 498 million monthly active users worldwide with growing influence among international markets. As a platform for boosting brand recognition and product sales, Pinterest is quickly becoming the preferred choice. Here are tips on how to grow your Pinterest following.
Create a Stunning Profile
Creating an eye-catching Pinterest profile is one of the first and most essential steps you can take to establish your brand on the social media platform. A well-thought-out Pinterest profile can assist you in gaining followers, receiving repins, and naturally increasing the number of visitors to your website.
Include Keywords in Posts
When creating your description and images, use keywords to ensure that your board appears when people search for a particular term. Using hashtags is also essential since it will assist you in reaching a larger audience.
Work with Group Boards
To acquire more followers, you may cooperate with famous group boards that have a significant number of followers since this will allow them to see your pins and their own. Look for popular message boards and attempt to establish a relationship with the board’s administrators before requesting that they give you an invitation to the board.
Pin Unique Images
More than 75% of the photos are re-pins from Pinterest, indicating relatively few unique images. You should make an effort to add unique images and info graphs to attract more visitors to your profile. Additionally, strive to repin things relevant to your business to interact with other pinners and get additional followers on social media.
Create a Contest with Followership Conditions
A contest may be held to attract the attention of website visitors. You may specify that only those who follow you on Pinterest are eligible in your advertisement. This will almost certainly result in many followers since it will create a sense of exclusivity and triumph. Encourage your users to participate in your Pinterest account by offering them incentives.
Bottom Line
Some social media platforms such as YouTube require a lot more effort and time to attain the influencer level.
If you don’t have the time to slowly grow your subscriber base, you can hire the best possible influencer using our YouTube Influencer Marketing Guide.
We also have a post that lists the best YouTube marketing software to help you become an influencer fast.
So, now you know how many followers to become an influencer. It doesn’t matter whether you are looking to grow an audience for your business or others’ — having over 1,000 followers and a high engagement rate is enough to get started with influencer marketing. As time goes on, you may become more of an authority in your niche and possibly hit the macro-influencer level.