Not too long ago, I stumbled upon the idea of a self-made influencer. I wondered what the tipping point for this title was, how does one become a power influencer without fame and glory? Is it all who you know? In reality, being a self-made influencer requires you to be much more ordinary in nature than extraordinary.
When I mention this sense of ordinary, I should clarify. Most every American dreams of being extraordinary but when you break the concept down, extraordinary is just being ordinary with a voice. Low and behold, social media gives us a place to have that voice. Excitingly enough, with that voice we can have an influence that reaches far beyond our number of followers.
Every morning as I waste time catching up on the last eight hours of tweets, pictures and posts I find myself engrossed in the words and visuals of self-made power influencers on social media. Men, women and even businesses find a platform in the digital world to make their agenda heard and the rest of us are eating it up – jokes on us.
In my opinion, social media influence can done in with three steps: consistency, consensus and authority. If you deem yourself an expert you simply have to prove it. A company or person that has authority over their audience continually shares knowledge on that particular topic. This leads to consistency. Followers will know what to expect from you and continue to listen to you. You will become synonymous with your area of expertise when you cross their mind. From there consensus is built, an interest has been peaked and the ordinary social media follower has the desire to follow your lead. How do they follow your lead? They share, like, repost and retweet. Before you know it, you’re reaping the benefits of influencer power, your following is growing and your clout is increasing. Well done.
–Brenda
