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5 Reasons Why Influencers Struggle with Growth

5 Reasons Why Influencers Struggle with Growth

The Influencer Marketing industry is on track to be worth $13.8 billion in 2021. Along with the rising value of the industry on the brand and agency side, comes the desire for new influencers to step into the game, as well as current influencers to up their game. This proves to be a challenge for influencers in various ways, and as a result, we notice influencers struggle with growth.

Whether they are trying to grow on social media and stay on top of popular platforms and trends, they’re trying to get their foot in the door with their favorite brand, or they’re trying to create multiple streams of income, there always seems to be a roadblock to encounter.

Then, you have those creators and influencers who makes it look easy peasy.

How? What are they doing differently?

Well, we can answer that. Here are 5 reasons why influencers struggle with growth.

Influencers Struggle with Growth Because…

They don’t have an established influencer brand

One of the first rules you should learn when it comes to being a creator or influencer is that your content needs to provide value. To be able to understand what value you are providing to your audience, you must first establish your brand.

Ask yourself,

  1. WHO am I?
  2. WHAT value do I provide?
  3. HOW do I want to showcase that value?

These are but a few of the questions you will answer when establishing your brand. Once you are able to successfully establish your brand, will you be able to work on growing it.

They are not actively & consistently seeing social media and/or website growth 

You’re posting consistently on your social media profiles because it’s what you were told to do. By your industry peers, by industry leaders, by your audience, etc.

It’s true.

You should be active and consistent on your social media, as well as your website if you have one.

But, are you actively and consistently seeing growth?

Influencers struggle with growth because they are following the advice only halfway through. If you’re consistent with your posting but you’re not consistently seeing growth, there’s a deeper issue to explore. With a solid foundation of branding, strategy, implementation, and review, you will then be able to actively grow your following, income, and brand.

Influencers struggle with growth b/c they are following advice only halfway. If you're consistent w/ your posting but not consistently seeing growth, there's a deeper issue to explore. W/ a solid foundation, you will be able to… Click To Tweet

They have not leveraged important relationships 

Relationships are key in the Influencer Marketing industry. Relationships with your audience, relationships with brands and agencies, AND relationships with platforms.

56% of brands and agencies prefer to work with the same influencers. Working with the same influencers allows the brand to build relationships with their influencers, and allows the influencer to build their brand loyalty and establish brand expertise with their followers. Additionally, it’s more likely for an influencer to secure a multi-month partnership with a brand if they have already worked with them in the past.

Think back to Reason #1 and how we discussed establishing your brand. Once you have established your brand, you will begin building relationships with your audience. Relationships that will span across platforms – thus building a multi-platform audience.

The relationships that you build will take you far.

They do not understand the influencer marketing industry

The Influencer Marketing industry has parallels to the advertising, journalism, and marketing industries.

Whether you are drafting a pitch (journalism), participating in a campaign (marketing), or creating content to post (advertising), you are a part of this industry.

Where influencers go wrong is that they do not understand the Influencer Marketing industry, and as a result, don’t act accordingly.

Their pitch process is non-existent, their content is missing the mark (for themselves, brands, and their audience), and their knowledge of how brands and agencies manage campaigns is lacking.

Once you learn how to successfully navigate these avenues, you can move forward with creating a brand that is built for longevity.

They have not created a foundation for longevity 

And that leads us to our last point – longevity.

After implementing the 4 steps above, you will have created the foundation for longevity.

You will have:

  • Established your brand
  • Learned how to consistently grow your following and/or website/blog
  • Built (and leveraged) important relationships
  • Understood how to industry works – and used it to your advantage

Once you have done that, you will have built that foundation for longevity.

You can look up and comfortably say, “Here’s where I’ll be 5+ years from now,” and then create the plan that will get you there.

Whether you choose to become a part-time influencer or a full-time influencer, the goal is to create a brand (and stream of income) that can keep you going.

These 5 reasons why influencers struggle with growth will help separate yourself from those who continue to struggle and join the ranks of those who begin to see consistent growth.

If you’re struggling with growth and you’re ready to get over that hump, check out our admissions page and get started on an actionable, accountable game plan today.

How to Grow Your Instagram Following

How to Grow Your Instagram Following

One of the biggest struggles influencers face on their influencer journey is growing their social media following. With the access to the coveted “swipe-up” feature on Instagram being unlocked once you hit 10K followers, there’s no wonder why influencers make gaining 10K followers the desired goal. Today, we’re going to briefly chat about how to grow your Instagram following in 2021.

More than 70% of reported influencers across the globe have less than 10K followers on Instagram and are categorized as nano-influencers. Roughly 25% have anywhere from 10K-50K followers and fall within the micro-influencer… Click To Tweet

Whether you are looking to hit your first 10K on Instagram, or grow another 10K followers in 2021, here are 3 ways to help your growth:

 

1. Build relationships with your current following.

Whether you have great engagement or not, the people who currently follow you should feel connected to you in some way.

When mastering the Instagram algorithm, the FIRST group of people who are going to see your posts are your current followers. Having that relationship with them means them wanting to share your posts with others, like, comment, save & share.

The influencers who start learning early on with less than 10K followers, tend to feel more comfortable & at ease when they start to grow because they’ve been doing this for a while.

2. Build relationships with non-followers.

No one knows you exist unless you’re going out & engaging with them. There are SO many ways to go about finding & engaging with people who don’t currently follow you. The best way to manage your Instagram growth strategy is by following the tips below. There are some methods in the “red zone” that we don’t recommend. “Yellow zone” methods should be used with caution & discretion. “Green zone” methods are organic & we 100% suggest you try them!

Red Zone

The “red zone” is where people are buying likes and/or followers. While this may seem like the quick way, it’s also the most likely to get you banned from working on future brand deals. The followers may not be in your target demographic thus making them irrelevant to the brands you want to work with anyway.

Yellow Zone

The “yellow zone” are activities such as loop giveaways or follow loops. Loop giveaways are where you pay a fee to participate with a group of other influencers and you all post the same photo at the same time on the same day and you each are assigned 1 person in the loop to tag. While they may boost a temporary spike in followers or engagement, these people are more after the prize being offered than your regular content.

Green Zone

The “green zone” has a few organic methods that will not jeopardize your account.

  • Gary Vee $1.80 method – The $1.80 is where you take 10 hashtags in your niche and comment on the top 9 photos in each hashtag. Thus, leaving your “2 cents”.
  • 3-in-1 method – In the 3-in-1 method you are liking 3 photos and leaving 1 comment on one person’s page. This one gives you the opportunity to build more of a personal online relationship with this person.

These may take a little longer, however, they have the best organic reach and more sustainability.  You’ll have to schedule some time out of your day for these 2 “green zone” methods but the results will become consistent.

When learning how to grow your Instagram following, remember this isn’t “one-size-fits-all.”

What works for you may not work for someone else. So, create a strategy that makes sense for YOU.

3. Cross-Promote.

We would be doing you all a disservice if we didn’t encourage you to utilize ALL of your platforms for growth.

We have seen multiple examples with our clients where we’ve had them focus on different platforms throughout the year so they can build a strong presence everywhere.

For example, a photographer began to utilize TikTok to share short-form videos with photography tips. Utilizing the generous algorithm, her TikTok profile grew to over half a million followers within 6 months. As a result, she grew from less than 30K followers on Instagram, to over 100K followers in less than a year.

If you do this correctly, then you will notice your other platforms sending new followers to your Instagram!

Trust your Journey

As we mentioned before, please, TRUST where you are in your journey. Whether you have 1K followers of 60K followers, your journey is your own. When strategizing how to grow your Instagram following, remember STRATEGY first, CONTENT second, CONSISTENCY third.

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