How to positively build your influence online (AND in real life!) 😇

You’ve probably already read a ton of blog posts about how to build your influence online, right? So, what else is there to know? What else are you supposed to be doing to create a greater and lasting impact on your audience lives? 🤔

The thing is, there’s an art to building your influence, extending your reach, and staying relevant — but something you must remember is that influence is rooted on people’s perception of you. (That’s why there’s such a thing as good influences and bad influences 😉)

And like any other human engagement, influence takes time to build. ⏰

It takes effort. 💙

It takes patience. 💙

It takes passion. 💙

But it also takes ACTION. 💪

Do you know what the key distinction between authority and influence is?

👉 One grants you the right to make important decisions. So, this is you telling others to do this and that.

👉 While the other is the power to affect someone’s actions without actually ordering them to do something — it’s like giving suggestions that the other person will likely follow.

Come to think about it, influence is the path of least resistance, but you will need a healthy balance of both to stay in the forefront and sustain your connection with your target audience. ⚖️

Here’s why:

1. People want to follow someone who knows what they’re doing, or at the very least, has a better idea or process of how things should be done to achieve positive results. 🧙‍♂️

3. They follow influencers who are passionate about things that they find relatable and are unapologetically loyal to a similar goal or vision. 🔥

5. Your target audience wants to follow someone who will show up and follow through for them — someone who is committed to bringing value to their lives, whether it be through education, entertainment, or empowerment. ☀️

Now, this is critical to understand… PEOPLE CAN TELL WHEN YOU’RE FAKING IT. 🤢 So, when building your influence, it’s always best to stick to organically expanding your level of influence. But, honestly, with these 3 actionable steps you wouldn’t need to go that route! 💁

3 THINGS THAT HELP BUILD YOUR INFLUENCE (ONLINE AND BEYOND):

1. 💗 Build and foster trust by giving your followers a solution that improves their quality of life without strings attached.

2. Influence relies on trust, and trust relies on acknowledging a person’s reliability. To become a successful influencer, you need to be able to win your target audience’s trust in a way that doesn’t feel forced. I mean, you can’t really expect people to trust and follow you, if you haven’t shown them WHY you’re trustworthy, right?

   2. Your approach should be able to communicate your willingness and drive to provide results as a brand who knows and understands its audiences’ pain points.

   4. Ex. Offer a small freebie like a printable infographic, mini eBook, short course, 15-minute consultation, or a video tutorial.

3. 💯 Be consistent in how you communicate who you are and what your brand stands for.

4. Being an influencer is all about building and maintaining a good relationship.

   1. You provide results whether it be through creating and promoting content, ideas, services, or products; and for that, your audience show up to further your cause by chiming in, buying, and recommending you to their circle.

   2. But to reach this kind of “give and take” you need to sustain a level of trust. The things you do and say speaks multitudes, so to ensure that trust is not broken along the way, it’s critical that you show up in a way that is consistent with your brand message.

   4. After all, it’s hard to trust something when you’re unsure of what’s going to happen next!

   5. It’s also important to note that, like with any relationship, your brand shouldn’t be driven with what it can “take.” A brand that’s in it only for the monetary gains won’t last because consumers are more informed now and are likely to opt for someone who has their best interest at heart.

   7. Ultimately, influence isn’t just about money and other gains. Influence is being able to gently coax someone to act or react a certain way based on how much they trust you, and that trust relies on how you are able to consistently rise up to the occasion in order to make their lives better.

   9. Ex.

   10. - If your brand narrative is kind and wholesome, then you don’t go on a nasty tirade about some petty thing on social media.

   11. - If you run an ad, make sure it sounds like you and stays true to your brand narrative.

   12. - When you say you’re going to do a free LIVE stream and set the date and time, you do your absolute best to show up on time and follow through with whatever objective you’ve laid out.

5. 🔎 Know your people and be relatable.

6. There’s nothing more annoying than have someone assume they know (or care) about your needs, when it’s pretty obvious that they don’t. Nobody wants to be sold to 24/7 and your audience can feel when you’re being too pushy — this often creates a rift in the relationship you’re trying to build with them.

   2. Part of knowing your audience and being relatable is being sensitive to what matters most to them. You need to be genuinely attuned to what’s going on. One of the best ways to test this is to run polls or have your audience answer surveys. The better you understand what goes on in your audience mind, the better you can adjust your brand to better suit them / the better you can find those who already fit your brand’s ideal customer profile.

   4. Ex.

   5. - Engage your audience in a LIVE Q&A.

   6. - Send polls or surveys to gauge what they want, what they need, and what you can do better.

   7. - Make adjustments to content, services, or products based on customer feedback as long as it consistent with your brand message.

These tips proves especially useful when you’re interacting and planning on expanding your reach via LinkedIn.

When you exhibit trustworthiness, consistency, and relatability, you strategically place yourself and your brand in the spotlight as a highly capable figure that’s genuinely interested in making the world a better place — one niche at a time. 🤗

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