What is the Definition of an Influencer?

You have heard the name: influencers. However, do you truly understand what the word defines? Influencers are known as someone who ‘plays a lot on social media’ and is ‘reaping money from what they show on it’. Although it can be right to some extent, being an influencer cannot be defined from those notions only. Check out below to understand better about the definition of ‘influencer’ and what it takes to become one.

‘Influencer’ Defined: What are Influencers and What It Takes to Become One?

Talking about influencer, it is a sure thing that we cannot go far from social media. Influencer is often seen as someone who works to display contents on social media, promoting products, and spicing up things with some click-bait contents.

While most of those traits can be found easily on an influencer, the definition of it is quite far from that. According to Cambridge Dictionary, influencer is defined as: “An individual or a bunch of people (group) who have the skills to influence the opinions and/or behavior of other people”. The stem word, ‘influence’, contributes to what defines it as word.

However, as social media becomes more and more prominent within these years, influencers got a ‘shift’ as they tend to earn a generous amount of money by promoting brands. This resonates well with what described by Tribegroup.co: influencer is an individual who introduces and promotes brands to their followers on social media. 

  • What makes someone a social media influencer?

Although earlier described that influencers are promoting brands, there are people who refuses to promote brands which don’t apply to them. This is because influencers are typically set to a specific niche, although there are many influencers who are not having a specific niche. 

When it comes to brand promoting gig(s), social media influencer is defined as someone who has built a certain kind of credibility in a particular industry—meaning that he/she has chosen their niche, and they seem to have a good skill/knowledge on the relevant field. 

But having a niche alone cannot suffice what they say as ‘influencing’. So, someone who has a certain niche needs to have a huge basis of followers to be able to become an influencer

  • How many followers should someone has in order to be called as an influencer?

Now that you have set a specific niche, concept in creating contents, what lack is the person? How many followers should someone has to own to make them an influencer? The answer is: it depends.

If you are a self-made influencer, then you will just have to continuously make contents. Make sure to post contents according to what you have as niche, and let the market determines. If you succeed in obtaining people’s attention, then oftentimes, your number of followers will boost.

Some influencers, once they reach a specific number of followers, are offered to join an agency. By joining an agency, they’ll have to divide their earnings with the agency. The agency can help the influencers to get their brand promoting gigs with the help of agency as middleman.

To sum it up, influencers are defined as someone who can persuade others to act, to wear, or to purchase the same thing as what they have. Plus, an influencer needs to have a huge basis of followers before brands start to ask them to promote the brands.