5 Benefits of Being an Influencer in 2024

So, you’re wanting to get a side hustle started and you think being an influencer may be the right move, but you have no idea how to start? Maybe you just Googled “how to be an influencer in 2024” and landed here?

Well, let’s talk about it! Working from home, financial freedom, being an entrepreneur, and earning money online all have their place in the world of influencing. But with so much competition on the internet, it can feel almost impossible to break through those social media barriers and really understand why you it’s worth being an influencer.

In this post, we’ll chat all about the top 7 benefits of being an influencer, whether influencing is right for you, and how you can get started!

Intro to ClickBank for Influencers

Real quick, before we get too deep into the benefits of influencing, let me tell you a bit more about myself, so that I don’t sound like just another person on the internet telling you how to make money online. 

My name is Keely! I’m a social media manager here at ClickBank and a very, very micro influencer on social media. I’ve taken a LOT of years to build up my audience as an influencer, and have conducted years and years of research about being a successful influencer on social media!

My journey as a micro-influencer started in 2016 when I wanted to start sharing my travels across the world. I started in the blog space for YEARS and moved to social media as channels like Instagram and TikTok became larger and larger. As someone who has looked for ways to monetize my audience as an influencer for years, and finally finding affiliate marketing, ClickBank is a platform that can provide SO MUCH for those in the influencer space!

Basically, ClickBank is an affiliate marketplace. Not only do they bring businesses and affiliates together, but they make it REALLY easy to monetize an audience as an influencer by providing a ton of great tools for creating tracking links, getting payments for product promotion, and so much more. If you’re looking to monetize your audience with affiliate marketing, ClickBank is a great place to start!

What Does It Mean to Be an Influencer? 

So, what does it mean to be an influencer?

An influencer is an individual on social media who holds some sort of sway in a specific niche or industry. Especially as a nano or micro-influencer, it’s important to know what you bring to the table for brands and businesses who may be looking to build up their influencer program.

For everyday people like you and me, just think of it as a way to make money online – a “side hustle,” if you will!

A lot of times, as a smaller influencer, you have a more loyal, dedicated audience who genuinely values what you have to say about topics and products in your niche. In fact, as a smaller influencer, you’re sort of like the human version of a targeted ad campaign. Just like ads can be targeted to specific audiences and individuals, as a micro-influencer, you can do the exact same thing with your loyal and dedicated audience! 

At ClickBank, we’ve teamed up a few times with Creator.co, a platform that works with influencers and content creators across the internet to help them make money from their following. They go into an amazing deep dive of some of the additional ways to leverage your influence as a nano influencer – it’s another excellent read if that’s what you’re aiming for!

What is a Nano-Influencer? 

A nano-influencer is someone on social media with a following of anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 followers. This person typically has a loyal following on social media, and their following relates to them more because they are authentic, genuine, and actually relatable! In short, nano-influencers are REAL people who usually use influencing as some sort of side-hustle, which is what makes them authentic to their audience.

As a nano-influencer myself, I’ve found that it’s super easy to talk to my audience because we’re one and the same. I don’t know about you, but I find it harder to relate to the REALLY big influencers because, frankly, they make more money than me, their lifestyle is different than mine, and we tend to have different life values at the end of the day. That’s what makes nano influencers so great – you and your following are basically the same! 

Since you can relate to each other more, your audience is more likely to be interested in the content you post, as well as the products you’re promoting. 

What is a Micro-Influencer? 

Much like a nano-influencer, a micro-influencer is an influencer with fewer followers than the more established influencer. Usually, a micro-influencer has anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 followers on social media.

They’re quite a bit larger than the average person with a social media account, but much smaller than a big influencer or celebrity. Micro-influencers are often seen as thought leaders within their niche, which is great for audience monetization!

Both nano and micro-influencers are super valuable for brands looking to work with influencers, since their following is loyal and often super targeted – and audiences tend to trust what these influencers say, due to their relatability.

There’s a lot of potential return on investment for brands syncing up with influencers, as they’re likely to see more action taken when an influencer promotes a product or service to an engaged audience, while not having to pay as much as they might for a much larger influencer!

The Top 5 Benefits of Being an Influencer 

So, whether you aim to be a nano-influencer, a micro-influencer, or even a bigger influencer, you know how it works.

Now, it can be a lot of work, but there are also a TON of benefits of being an influencer. Here are my top 5:

1. You can make extra money. Once you’ve really built up your content library and your social media channels and presence, it’s amazing to build a side hustle off of your social media presence as an influencer. I’ve been able to share products from brands that I love and I’ve earned commissions off of it. The best part is? I would have shared those products anyway since I love them, but now I’m able to make money from my audience and monetize the brands that I love most!
2. You learn lots of new skills. Think about everything you do as an influencer! You need to be able to write and speak well; edit media like photos and video; understand copywriting and how to market to an audience; work with a variety of social media platforms; find the right products to promote; and build your own personal brand. I’m just a more confident person because of the time I’ve spent as an influencer.
3. You develop grit. I appreciate the soft skills that come from being an influencer. One of the most important things you do as an influencer is simply show up, day after day, week after week, month after month. Putting in the work, no matter how you’re feeling or how much engagement you’re getting, will build a lot of character.
4. You open new doors. There’s something magical about being well-known on the internet, even if it’s just to a small group or a narrow niche. It’s hard to say which opportunities you’ll uncover because of your influencer hobby/career, but you’re sure to meet new people, connect with brands, get invited to events, and have a lot of experiences that wouldn’t happen without your willingness to put yourself out there.
5. It’s just fun. I honestly think it’s super fun to share my day-to-day life with people! Not to mention, creating content and posting about the things you love is FUN! There aren’t a lot of money-making hobbies where you can genuinely express yourself like you can as an influencer.

Overall, being an influencer takes a lot of hard work, and it can feel mentally taxing, but with dedication and effort, there can be a lot of pay-offs to being a content creator and influencer on social media. 

With these benefits in mind, let’s talk a little more about the nitty-gritty of becoming a successful influencer!

How Do I Get Brands to Work With Me? 

As a smaller creator, it can be difficult to feel seen by brands. Up front, a lot of times, you have to do the work and outreach to brands! You’re essentially pitching to brands the reasons why they should work with you.

It’s helpful to have a high-quality social media page with good content to showcase. When pitching to a brand, influencers will usually create a small pitch deck that showcases their work, their audience, and some statistics from their page.

I get why this would seem scary – there’s definitely a fear of rejection when you reach out to brands you want to promote. But the good news is, a lot of brands WANT to work with smaller influencers like you, so once you take that step to showing off your brand to the right people, you can find lots of brands willing to pay you a rate for your posts, or even a commission for every sale you earn them.

Make sure you have plenty of amazing content to boast and put together something that really shows off your knowledge in your niche or industry!

How Do I Monetize My Audience? 

I found what I considered to be some of the top ways to monetize your social media platforms, and I’ll break them down for you below! 

1) Affiliate Marketing

The first way to start monetizing your social media audience is through affiliate marketing. There’s thousands upon thousands of companies and brands that are looking for regular people like me and you to help market their brand, and they’ll pay you a good commission for it!

This is probably my personal favorite when it comes to monetizing on social media. Honestly, it’s easy, it’s free, and it’s low-risk! The commission payout from affiliate marketing is definitely the most significant compared to other monetization strategies too, which is really helpful for my bottom dollar.

2) Ambassadorships

Another great way to earn money from your content is with ambassadorships. I’ve dabbled in this one a lot too and really enjoy it.

The commissions are good, and it’s easy to get people to convert. For instance, I work with a swimsuit company, so when people use my code at checkout, they get 15% off their purchase, and I get a 10% commission. It’s a great and easy way to monetize your audience.

It’s usually pretty easy to promote, too. I’ll add a link in my bio, mention the swimsuits in a few posts, and with my high-quality content, I’m able to earn money from people using my link or my code. Be sure to choose to work with ambassadorships that value YOU as an influencer!

3) Sponsorships

Sponsored posts and videos is another great way to monetize your audience. This is when a brand pays you a small fee to talk about their brand or product in a post on your social media. I see a lot of micro or nano influencers on my feed that are sharing things like skincare products from a specific brand. They’ll talk about why they like it, how they use it, and where you can buy it. They get me all the time because it’s real people talking about things they like and why I might like it too. Micro and nano influencers are actually really valuable to brands since smaller influencers often have better engagement rates from a loyal following. 

4) Info Products

Another great way to monetize your audience is through info products like ebooks or courses. If it were me, I might look into creating an ebook on how to begin your journey into the outdoors.

Your digital product doesn’t have to be revolutionary – it just has to be able to bring value to your audience. Info products are a really great way to continue to bring value to your audience and earn money as a content creator. While it’s not impossible, this one takes a bit more work!

5) Professional Services

In this same vein, you can offer professional services. Things like coaching, itinerary building, or anything in between. Just like the courses and ebooks, this option is a really great way to connect and bring value to your audience. It’s not necessarily as passive as some of the other online monetization options, though. 

If this is helpful, I break down multiple other monetization strategies as a micro or nano influencer, and go more in depth into the ones I mentioned above. You can check out the full blog on how to monetize your audience for more!

How to Monetize as a Content Creator

So, if you’re a content creator, and you’re looking to monetize your audience, you have your options on the different types of monetization strategies. However, HOW do you actually monetize? 

Really, the only step, once you’ve chosen which of the above monetization strategies you want to use, is to make sure you’re creating content!

This can come in the form of video content, podcast shoutouts, embedding blog links, whatever floats your boat. When it comes to creating content, this is personal to YOU. 

In my experience – as a previously mentioned VERY micro influencer – a lot of the content I create falls within my niche. Since I’m in the fitness and outdoors niche, I produce content related to my outdoor adventures.

For instance, I’ll make a video of my most recent hike, and tag the backpack I used in the video, with a link in my bio to that backpack so my audience can check it out if they want to. Or maybe I just got done teaching a yoga class in the park, so I post some photos from the class, and tag the yoga mat brand I used.

Any of the content that I create falls within my niche and is unique to only me. I can’t tell you what KIND of content to make, just that the general content that you create should fall within your niche and have great copy and calls to action!

Another huge part of being an influencer and monetizing as a content creator is building a community. The more you build up an audience that trusts you, the more effective you’ll be at promoting products and making money from your following. This is one of the greatest perks of being an influencer, and a really amazing way to build your online business!

How Do I Become an Influencer? 

There’s a lot to take into consideration when you look into becoming an influencer. The first thing you really want to think about is discovering your niche, your audience, and who you are as a content creator. I laid out how to truly identify your brand and who you are as a content creator in this blog here. 

Once you have that really dialed in, I would recommend doing a lot of research on the types of brands you want to promote, what you’re comfortable creating for your content, and how you want to earn your money.

Do you want your monetization to be more of a side hustle, where you dedicate quite a bit of time to creating digital products, offering services and more? Or do you prefer something a bit more passive, where you add your links into your bio, create some content on your social media channels, and promote throughout your content creation in a natural and seamless way?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself and identify how you want to go about your content creation and audience monetization strategy. 

Another great thing to keep in mind is things like payout. How much do you want to earn from this? A few hundred dollars a month? Or a few thousand? This will help educate your decision as well and be able to act from a place of knowledge. 

From there, it’s a matter of creating your social media accounts (if you haven’t already). Then, start following brands and other creators within your niche, and interact with them and their audience to help build up your OWN audience. Then, most importantly, start creating content – and don’t stop!

The best way to do this is to build up a library of inspiration for content creation and create your own spin on the content you’re seeing perform well in your niche. I have a video that goes super in-depth about how to create reels and shorts for affiliate marketing, which is really helpful for those looking to get started! 

Becoming an influencer is as simple as building up your brand as an influencer, creating lots and LOTS of content, and then finding brands and products to promote. Simple… but not easy!

FAQs

How Do I Get Started As An Influencer?

The best and easiest way to get started as an influencer is just to start your social media channels and start creating content! If you’re getting started on Instagram, you can head to Instagram.com or download the app on your phone.

Click the “Sign Up” button, input your email, create a password for yourself, and come up with a unique username. You want your username to be applicable to your niche and to you – something that is unique to you and your interests is great! Once you’ve done that, add a great biography that embodies yourself and your niche so when people come to your page, they know what to expect. 

If you’re wanting to get started on TikTok first, you can head to TikTok.com or download the app on your phone. Click the “Sign Up” button, input your email or phone number, create a password for yourself, and come up with a unique username. If you’ve already set up your Instagram account, you can try to use the same username, if it’s available! Add your biography, and you’re ready to start making content! 

Once you’ve created your Instagram and TikTok pages, make sure to create a link-in-bio for the links section of your profile. Your link-in-bio should include the tracking link to any products you may be promoting – or point people to a bridge page that contains your special tracking link. This is important for monetizing your account, because you will get traffic over to a brand’s sales page and generate more sales. Your link-in-bio almost acts as a sort of online store to host your products. Use your tracking links to make sure you get credit for the sales you’re generating!

Once you’ve gotten everything set up on your social media channels, it’s time to get started creating content, which is the most important factor in being an influencer. I highlight some really great tips for creating content for reels and shorts on Instagram, so be sure to check that out for more information on getting started!

Can I Make an Income as an Influencer?

Once you’ve built up your audience, it’s really great to be able to earn income as an influencer. You’re building up your audience to really help you with your online entrepreneurship journey, so why not finally get a payout from all your hard work?

The best way to make an income as an influencer is to monetize your audience. There are a lot of different ways to do this, from sponsorships, to affiliate marketing, and everything in between.

I break down a TON of different ways to monetize your audience as a content creator in my guide here on ClickBank, which will help you make an income as an influencer!  

Does It Cost Money to Become an Influencer?

It doesn’t cost a dime to become an influencer. In fact, there’s a lot of really amazing ways to EARN money without having to spend a cent!

All you need is your smartphone, some hard work, and a bit of creativity. From there, it’s up to you to create quality content, grow your organic audience, and start monetizing your following. Of course, if you’re not wanting to play the long game, you do have the option to pay to advertise yourself as an influencer to build up your following a bit more quickly.

However, that’s totally optional – so the short answer is NO, it doesn’t cost money to become an influencer! 

Conclusion

At the end of the day, there are a ton of perks of being an influencer, and there may be even MORE perks if you’re a micro or nano influencer!

A lot of brands are looking for influencers that don’t cost an arm and a leg like most large influencers do. That’s where micro influencers like you and I come in! While we still want to earn a commission, of course, we aren’t going to cost the same as someone like Kim K or Taylor Swift!

Not to mention, our followers are super-loyal, and they enjoy and appreciate what we have to say because they are able to relate to us! So, take some time, grow your audience, and leverage your micro-influence! You’ve got this!!