I Wanna Be an Influencer.

Oh, that feels so good to say out loud.

Photo by George Milton on Pexels

And now, I’m embarrassed…

Which is ironic, considering if influencers are paid for anything, it’s for not being embarrassed. With the start of YouTube way back in the simpler days of 2005, us regular folk were able to compete with our favorites for a little bit of the spotlight if we could somehow pull off a death-defying stunt, sing until our lungs collapsed, shove a bunch of weird food in our mouth, or had a cool cat. And once top companies and brands began spending over $5 billion on influencer marketing, with 69% of marketers working with smaller creators, it seemed like everyone with a cell phone and a TikTok was buying up ring lights and toilet paper (I still haven’t forgiven you all).

A quick Google search can provide any hopefuls with step-by-step guides between seven and eleven basic steps as the industry continues to grow and those outside try to find the perfect way to get in. Influencers are people who have built a reputation for making regular posts on a specific topic, setting trends, and promoting products. The bulk of this occurs online, spawning micro-influencers all over the Internet, from Pinterest to Instagram.

More than 50 million people consider themselves influencers. Whether they are OG influencers utilizing both Instagram and YouTube, fashion gurus, travel and beauty vloggers, mega Twitch streamers, viral Instagram comedians, foodies, or side-eye-provoking content creators, influencing is a highly sought-after career that’s here to stay. So you can stop writing your letters to Kmart and just buy the damn toy.

Perhaps it’s the sometimes not-so-friendly spirit of competition or FOMO, but last year, I found myself right behind y’all in line, picking out microphones and pop filters. When you hear “influencer,” your mind probably draws up a vision of your favorite Insta baddie partying on couches and standing with celebrities by night and running her lash/makeup/swimsuit/cooking seasoning line by day (I know mines does), which is why I find it so embarrassing to admit that it’s what I want to do, in some aspect.

Lately, the term influencer feels like playing with a loaded gun of semantics and customs. Since companies rely on influencers to promote their products to a trusted audience, the title “influencer” should be earned and is not something only you can call yourself. Some may think it’s a job title, and some think it’s a waste of time. According to clickbait, the first step in becoming an influencer is to find your niche or a specific interest area. These are the job titles people seem to be abandoning their 9 to 5s in droves for — podcasters, brand ambassadors, content creators, YouTubers, trainers, coaches, and consultants. You must admit, at least on paper, it is a great side hustle once you pull it off.

Someone once said that everybody is born with some sort of gift. A talent or an instinct that we can choose to follow — or ignore. Since you forgot to ask, mines is writing. I spent most of my high school days in fictional places instead of world history and walked around with my head in the clouds and the Triple Crown Publication submission guidelines taped to the inside of my top-secret binder. I still haven’t penned my dream novel, but I am checking step one off my list as we speak — well, you read.

Even I didn’t think of bloggers as influencers when I began brainstorming four years ago. Then I realized every article I scoured at 4 AM was written by someone who was somewhere that I desperately wanted to be, influencer or not.

Photo by Oladimeji Ajegbile on Pexels

Back on Google, step two varies, but it typically was creating a brand identity and selecting where you want to post. According to the experts, mega and macro-influencers like A, B, and Z-list celebrities dominate most of Instagram and YouTube, creating lifestyle, health, and finance content. Then there are your ordinary, everyday people who do most of the work, and you probably follow and would drop dead if you caught someone referring to them as a dirty, lazy influencer. Somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 followers, micro-influencers are our trusted TikToking, Shein hauling, Amazon unboxing fashion gods who leave us with empowering mantras like “I don’t need to go to Target today. I don’t need to go to Target today.”

But where do writers go?

69% of consumers trust influencers, friends, and family over information coming directly from a brand. And nano-influencers with fewer than 5,000 followers have the highest engagement rates. Most marketers say micro-influencers top their list of ideal influencers, while 40% of Twitter users made a purchase based on an influencer recommendation.

If Virginia is for lovers, Twitter is for bloggers, comedians, and Justin LaBoy. Bloggers have the most authentic and active relationships with their fans, and according to a blog I read last night, brands are now recognizing and encouraging micro-bloggers, as 48% of consumers are starting to distrust influencers. At the same time, bloggers manage to keep the respect of their readers.

Nowhere on my search and seek mission could I find a clear answer about the success rate of influencers. Just more blogs, articles, and essays about “how to start,” “why you should quit now and don’t even start,” and “we don’t need any more influencers! We need doctors! Get a job.” As optimistic as a Gemini could be, I accepted the challenge anyway since no one could give a straight answer, just more inspirational summaries about “never giving up,” “hard work beating talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” and “being yourself.” So I decided never to give up, be myself, and started blogging so my talent could make working hard easier.

Per step three, it was time to identify and understand my target audience. If I’m being honest — I’m still working on that. I followed a listicle that suggested approaching it like a business and “building a following around your passion” first. And since “where do the writers go?” didn’t fare so well in my search bar, I decided to go back to where I left them and started a serial and a podcast instead.

I even did step one for an actual business trying to WFH while I shamefully worked from home: I opened a Shopify account, and I opened a Patreon account. I signed up for Fiverr. Applied at Composely. I started a YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter (and Threads); I built a Wixsite, brought Facebook Ads, and paid Blubrry for hosting. I even wrote a business plan to catfish on OnlyFans. Offering even more fictional creations instead of the BBW content subscribers might have suspected.

Either way, I tried to go about it; if I wanted to be a writer (and use Beyoncé’s Internet), finding my audience would be my first challenge. 97% of marketers consider Instagram the most important influencer marketing channel, while less than 30% use blogs. Keeping in mind all the questionable figures and guest posts I reluctantly had committed to my memory, I made an opinion of my own. Accepting that “influencer” may not be a career title, but it is a job — that I didn’t qualify for because my searches are usually backed up with “with zero followers” or “without showing your face.” So, I went back to the drawing board because I must’ve misunderstood a step.

Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels

I once said, “Every time you label something, it falls to pieces,” but that’s my own trauma. Still, it might have some truth to it. When OnlyFans won 2020 with a shoutout from the queen, many of our favorite “influencers” turned into “content creators” overnight. Maybe it only exists in my head, but during that time, there was a divide between the two, and the title “content creator” was suddenly the made-up job that you should be embarrassed about. After another Google session, I learned the difference between an influencer and a content creator is that one does it for their personal brand and the other for creativity. Both require you to do the work and build an audience, so YouTubers, reviewers, and bloggers ended up in the top spot when marketers began searching the Internet for business partners.

As most micro-influencers have been building their audience for four years, the term “content creator” lost a bit of its luster when all the Instagram models stuck it next to their official Linktree, along with the nineteen-year-old TikTokers remaking every trend. You don’t need many words to explain that content creators make content for the sake of making content. But before we go down another rabbit hole, I’ll save you some time; if you care, I found my way to Medium for step three because, as dirty as it feels, I’m an unemployed content creator creating content for the sake of my mental health.

If my midnight “research” sessions have taught me anything, it’s that going viral and hitting one million followers is all a numbers game. No matter what you call yourself, influencers make social media content to grow and highlight their personal brand. There is a lot of information out there, but there is no secret sauce or fastest way. “Becoming an influencer” is pretty straightforward, takes a lot of time and creativity, and you don’t have to tell anyone what you’re doing until you’ve passed that 10k threshold and started picking up those brand deals.

I still wanna be an influencer, though. I’m manifesting it. This is a manifestation.