Whether you blog and create YouTube videos – for money or for passion, you do want to grow your presence, right? If you didn’t want to be visible at all, you wouldn’t be online in the first place and we wouldn’t be having this “conversation” in the first place.
So, what’s the one thing you can do to catapult your brand as a social media influencer?
What is “Brand”?
To answer this question, consider what you mean by a “brand” in the first place and what’s the point of having a brand?
By the word “brand” you are thinking of how other people will see you. Not just any set of people, but your target audience. Your target audience consists of two sets of people – the people from whom you want to attract requests for reviews, and the people who are the target of your reviews (e.g. YouTube subscribers, blog followers).
Even those book reviewers who are deluged with review requests want to further grow their influence map. But why? Don’t they have enough people pestering them already?
Brand Clarity: Attracting the Right Kind of Audience
The reviewers and influencers want to grow their visibility so that they become visible not only to a larger crowd but to the right crowd.
You want to make sure that your blogs, videos, and tweets are seen by a large number of people who are interested in the niche you are talking about. This would ensure that when you review, say a vegan book, it would be seen by a vegan-friendly audience, not an animal hunting party. This way, your reviews would be so much more effective in influencing minds, since they are already interested in the topics you are talking about. On a similar note, you may want to get traction from big brands which would mean more compensation for your sponsored posts or it may mean the opportunity to review better quality products and books.
All this means that growing your influence also means making your brands clearer to both your sponsors and your followers.
How Can You Grow Your Influence?
All this brings us to our original question – what is it that you can do to grow your influence.
The ONE thing you can do to grow your influence and attract the right kind of sponsors and followers is by making your brand clearer to them. Who are you? What products do you review? What is your social reach? Do you accept compensation for your reviews? Will you post your reviews just on your blog or Facebook page, or will you also cross-post to retail sites?
Making your brand clearer will help not only sponsors but also your audience.
The easiest and the best way to make your brand clear is by having an explicit review policy on your site, Facebook About page, Twitter Description or YouTube Channel Description.
The review policy is a well-known artifact among book reviewers but other product reviewers and YouTubers don’t have it available on their sites. As a result, they miss out on great review opportunities. Having a clear review policy will also help them grow their follower and subscriber base since people would have a clearer picture of what they can expect from the channel or site.
Summary
Having a review policy available on your channel or blog is one of the easiest ways to grow your brand as an influencer. A review policy need not be complicated but it should be clear.
Ideally, it should consist of a short elevator pitch which, simply stated, is a well crafted “about you” section. Your review policy should also clearly state your social reach, the niche you are interested in and compensation (if any) that you expect.
Here is an example of a review policy: https://www.zavesti.com/zavesti-book-review-policy/. You can also check out other reviewers and their review policies – and this will help you figure out what works best for you.
Growing your Influencer brand is as simple as letting people know who you are and how they can work with you. A short bio (stating clearly the value you provide), coupled with a short engagement policy (or review policy) can do wonders for your brand.
I hope this article helps you in growing your brand to the right audience!