As someone with a relatively small following compared to others who have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, I have asked myself “Why did this brand or tourism board choose ME to work with on this project? I’m a nobody. XYZ person has way more followers and engagement. Why me and not them?” As of today, I have 24,000 followers on Instagram and my blog posts have about 1,000 – 2,000 readers.
Maybe you are just starting and you think “Gee Robin! Of course they are reaching out! You have 24,000 followers!” And for you that might seem like a lot. But what if I told you that I began working with brands when I only had 1,000 followers?
I have looked back and analyzed at what I have done differently to gain credibility and been able to make money as a small influencer. I am here to tell you from my own personal experience that you DO NOT NEED a huge following to make money.
First- Let me hit you up with some stats courtesy of 99firms.com
INFLUENCER STATISTICS 2020
What is considered a Micro-influencer? Accounts with 1,000 – 50,000 followers.
- 45% of influencers receive approximately four proposals for campaigns every month.
- 93% of influencer marketing campaigns use Instagram.
- Instagram influencer marketing is a $1.7 billion industry.
- A YouTuber with one to three million subscribers averages $125000 per post.
- 82% of consumers would follow a recommendation by a micro-influencer.
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FOR EVERY $1 SPENT ON INFLUENCER MARKETING, BUSINESSES ARE MAKING $5.20 IN EARNED MEDIA VALUE.
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INFLUENCER STATS FOR 2018 SHOW THAT 92% OF MARKETERS WHO TRIED INFLUENCER MARKETING FOUND IT TO BE AN EFFECTIVE CHANNEL.
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MICRO-INFLUENCER CAMPAIGNS DRIVE 60% HIGHER ENGAGEMENT RATES THAN AVERAGE CAMPAIGNS.
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MICRO-INFLUENCER CAMPAIGNS ARE 6.7X MORE EFFICIENT PER ENGAGEMENT THAN INFLUENCERS WITH LARGER FOLLOWINGS.
This is a business that is exploding so if you are starting off and you don’t think there is enough room for small influencers- hope the above statistics encourage you to keep going. There is always room for someone with unique perspectives.
Now for why you are here- I will share with you 8 Tips to start making money NOW regardless of where you are with Social Media engagement.
1.POST QUALITY PHOTOS
Even if you have only started off, make sure you are posting quality, professional photos that stay on brand with your key message. If you are a landscape photographer- post only beautiful landscape photos and do not deviate from you brand. Do not post photos of your breakfast or a bathroom selfie. Save those for a private account.
If you want a social media partnership, brands will look at your account and it needs to be very clear to them at first glance what you are about so they can asses whether you are the right fit. Even if you don’t have a ton of followers, they will be able to recognize potential. They will say “this person is posting amazing photos consistently. They are going places and we want to go on this growth journey with them.” I only had about 5,000 followers when Nikon Canada reached out to me for a social media partnership. They thought my photos were great and wanted to be part of my growth and support me. I have had the privilege of being their social media partner for 2 years now.
2.BE PROACTIVE:
Especially if you are a small creator. It is not that brands don’t want to work with you. They just simply do not know who you are. There are people who have MILLIONS of followers that I have not heard of simply cause nobody has ever mentioned them to me.
You have a lot of competition so if you want to be seeing, you need to reach out and introduce yourself. Ask yourself “What can I offer them? Why should they choose me over X?”
When I started my Instagram I knew I had 2 passions- Photography and promoting Alberta. I identified the key partners and brands that I wanted to work with and I tagged them in every single one of my posts. Not only did I tag them on the photo, I tagged them on the comment and used their hashtags. Then I commented consistently on photos that they posted. I tagged them on my stories. I did this for almost 2 years without any traction and guess what? I GOT THEIR ATTENTION. Tourism Boards saw that I was dedicated and consistent and tagging multiple times, commenting and producing work that aligned with their vision, so they reached out to me as well.
3.HAVE A WEBSITE:
This is your own space where you can expand more on your portfolio and who you are. Your IG Bio allows for only a couple of sentences so have a space where you can talk about your vision, your services, post photos of your work that are not cropped 4:5. You can have a blog to showcase your expertise and it ultimately makes you look legitimate. Any company worth their salt has at the very least a website. Think of an organization or brand that you want to work with that does not have a website? Now having a basic website is not enough. Put yourself in your client’s shoes. If this was me looking to hire this person, what information would I need to make an informed decision?
In my experience building countless websites these are the basic things you need:
- ABOUT ME
- SERVICES
- GALLERY
- TESTIMONIALS
- PRICING
- CONTACT ME
As for pricing- if it is variable or subject to change, have a “request a quote” option. if you have a basic standard price for a service just say what it is. As a consumer I get so annoyed when I go on a website for a specific service and there is not even a “starting at” ball park figure. Listen, your audience will either afford it or not. If you are a wedding photographer that charges $10,000 per wedding and you refuse to give a baseline, whether you make me call you so you can try and sell me if I only have $2,000 budget, now you have wasted my time and your time. However, if you have on your website “Starting at $7,000” the folks who can afford you will call you. Your ideal client will have no problems with your pricing if you are catering to a higher end clientele.
4.HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA KIT/RFP TEMPLATE:
Now that you have made your research on the brands you have to work with and you have built a website, the next step is to have a professional social media kit or if you are sending a proposal for a specific project, make sure you have a professional document that clearly outlines your proposition. Sliding into their DM’s and saying “Hey! I want to work with you. Come check out my website or Instagram!” is lazy and unprofessional. Just like when you are applying for a job – you hopefully write a customized cover letter and send over a resume that highlights why you are a great fit, you want to make sure that you do the same for partnerships. In my social media kit, I have information of interest in terms of my engagement, sample of my work and testimonials. With an RFP, I go above and beyond and I breakdown in bullet point form exactly what I am offering and how this will benefit them as well as include my pricing.
Here is a quick screenshot of one of my slides for reference:
If you do not know where to even begin, I recommend going on Pinterest and typing in Media Kit. You will have numerous templates that you can download and swap your information in: CLICK HERE for a shortcut
5.OVERDELIVER:
This brings me to my next key point. Once you get hired to be a partner, if your contract states “Will provide 2 posts”- do 3. If you were going to offer 50 professional photos, give 60. If you happened not to create sufficient content to overdeliver, deliver in other ways- do IG stories or write a blog post.
Do something- anything that allows you to show that you are not a “bare minimum person”.
Recently I was fortunate to work with Travel Drumheller in creating winter assets. I delivered 300 images as promised in the contract, but during conversations it came up that they did not have a social media manager at that time. So I took the time to create a separate folder with the 4:5 IG Crop and called it “Instagram”. I also researched the relevant hashtags they need to be using for posts and included the recommended hashtags. Finally, I posted photos on my account promoting Drumheller which were featured in large accounts, did a series of IG stories and wrote a blog post about why you should visit Drumheller. Eventhough I met the minimum criteria of photos, I did overdeliver in other ways.
6.REMAIN PROFESSIONAL AND FRIENDLY WITH ALL ENGAGEMENT- INCLUDING TROLLS:
If you are looking to work with reputable brands, believe me they are also looking to work with reputable influencers. With so much competition and folks to choose from, they do not only look at the quality of your work, but they analyze you as a person and the best reference they can get is how you interact and represent yourself on social media platforms.
If you are constantly dropping F-bombs in all your captions, or you get into outright name calling and insulting people in your comment sections, if you make racist statements, or you are demeaning, they will NOT work with you, no matter how good your work is. When you are partnering with a brand, you are effectively a representative of their brand. Many of them will include in their contracts- behave professionally at all times, no foul language or nudity tolerated, etc. They do not want their chosen “ambassador” embarrassing them.
I’ve had people write nasty comments and you don’t think I don’t want to cuss people out? OF COURSE I do! I sit there seething, angry and thinking about what miserable POS they are. I take screenshots and send it off to my friends and we bash that person in private chats. I’m human! However, my replies are always “as classy” as can be, because I will not let this person cost me money. I’ve worked too damn hard to get partnerships to let this one person bring out the worst in me.
There is no greater example of a fall from grace than Jake Olson Studio. I would see his ads all the time on buying presets and I thought “Wow! His editing is really great! I want to learn from him!” So I googled his name to find his website and learn more and the first links that show up talk about what a terrible person he is. How he has told people that their work is so bad they should contemplate suicide. Maybe some people still buy from him, but he will never get a red cent out of me. You don’t want people googling your name and instead of your website popping up, articles about what a terrible person you are show up instead. Nobody will want to work with you. Nobody.
7.ONLY WORK WITH BRANDS THAT ALIGN WITH YOUR MISSION:
Do not just take anything for the money. Unfortunately, this is a mistake that a lot of people who are starting off make. It is tempting. But you are cheating your followers and it might even cost you. Unless you are doing a private gig that will not grace your social media pages and spam your followers, do not post it on your channels if it does not align. If you are trying to make a name in fitness for yourself and all of your posts are fitness related, do not suddenly do a post on “the perfect nail polish”.
Your followers already do not like being spammed, but when you do something totally unrelated to the reason that they are following you the engagement will be very low and they will see you as a sell out. When other brands see what kind of engagement you’ve had with your “partnerships” they might not see any value cause they will see that your posts perform poorly.
I’ve been approached by yoga studios, beauty bars and home stereo systems. LOOK AT my page. I am NOT a fashion blogger. I’m hardly ever in my photos. I have done yoga once in my life and I hated it. I am sticking to what I know and catering to my audience who are interested in only 2 things: Photography and Tourism. They could not give a rat’s ass about what stereo system I use in my house.
8. DO NOT GIVE UP:
Keep creating content, keep blogging, keep populating your website, keep reaching out. I did this for 2 years- spent 2 years of my life going out creating content, driving around for endless hours in bad weather conditions trying to take photos, spent thousands of dollars in gear, hotel rooms and gasoline.
My work was not getting featured by anybody, my account was stagnant, my blog posts had 5 readers.
But I kept practicing, learning, evolving, tagging folks I wanted to work with, reaching out. Many times I thought it was not worth it. I had friends whose accounts were just blowing up and taking off from the start. It was disheartening. But I did not give up. And what I lacked in followers I compensated in grit, passion, professionalism and tenacity. I went above and beyond in every way I could and it has paid off. Every year, I make double what I made before. These tips will WORK if you do.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Keep plugging away. Just when you want to give up, you might be one post away or one email away from landing your first opportunity.
Give it your 100% and trust the process. I am here as proof to tell you that you do not have to have THE BEST photos or be the Number One Expert or have a bunch of followers to carve opportunities for yourself. According to my HypeAuditor- my global rank is 712,000. That means that there are 712,000 other people kicking more ass than I am on Instagram. Yet I have been able to get opportunities by being proactive, not giving up and trusting the process…even when I felt defeated and unmotivated.
I hope you find this article helpful and you are inspired to take action and take control of your business.
Robin
IG: @motherpixels
