October 23, 2025 • 18 mins
If you’ve ever thought, “I want to be an influencer, but where do I start?” This episode is your roadmap.
Influencer marketing has changed a LOT over the years, and so has the path to actually becoming one.
After 10+ years of working with brands, teaching creators, and managing influencer campaigns, I’ve seen exactly what separates the influencers who thrive from the ones who burn out.
That’s why I’m so excited to share Levanta, a platform designed to help creators actually earn what their influence is worth.
With Levanta, you can:
✓ Earn higher commissions (20–30%+ instead of 2–3%)
✓ Connect directly with sellers & request product samples
✓ Track clicks, conversions & earnings in one dashboard
✓ Discover products that truly fit your niche Whether you’re starting from scratch or leveling up your content, this is how you build influence AND income.
🔗 Sign up for Levanta here: https://app.levanta.io/auth/refer/creator/c674f6cc-0b71-456d-ae0d-3c90e527853f/sign-up This episode is part of a paid partnership with Levanta.
💻 Free Brand Deals Training: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/brand-deals-training/
🤩 Ready To Level Up? Speak with Our Success Manager: https://calendly.com/sidewalkerdailyteam/discovery
👉 Book A Call: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/coaching-influencers-creators/
🌟 Best-Selling Pitching to Brands Mastercourse: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/ptbm/
🎁 Free Gift For Influencers & Creators: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/influencer-business-resources/
🛒 Shop our Amazon Store 🛒: https://www.amazon.com/shop/sidewalkerdaily
This episode can also been seen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xCd4sDkXjAQ
Influencer marketing has changed a LOT over the years, and so has the path to actually becoming one.
After 10+ years of working with brands, teaching creators, and managing influencer campaigns, I’ve seen exactly what separates the influencers who thrive from the ones who burn out.
That’s why I’m so excited to share Levanta, a platform designed to help creators actually earn what their influence is worth.
With Levanta, you can:
✓ Earn higher commissions (20–30%+ instead of 2–3%)
✓ Connect directly with sellers & request product samples
✓ Track clicks, conversions & earnings in one dashboard
✓ Discover products that truly fit your niche Whether you’re starting from scratch or leveling up your content, this is how you build influence AND income.
🔗 Sign up for Levanta here: https://app.levanta.io/auth/refer/creator/c674f6cc-0b71-456d-ae0d-3c90e527853f/sign-up This episode is part of a paid partnership with Levanta.
💻 Free Brand Deals Training: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/brand-deals-training/
🤩 Ready To Level Up? Speak with Our Success Manager: https://calendly.com/sidewalkerdailyteam/discovery
👉 Book A Call: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/coaching-influencers-creators/
🌟 Best-Selling Pitching to Brands Mastercourse: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/ptbm/
🎁 Free Gift For Influencers & Creators: https://sidewalkerdaily.com/influencer-business-resources/
🛒 Shop our Amazon Store 🛒: https://www.amazon.com/shop/sidewalkerdaily
This episode can also been seen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xCd4sDkXjAQ
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
in this influencer industry and see behind the curtain? Well,
let's jump in. As someone who's built a community of
(00:23):
over one hundred and fifty thousand influencers and creators, I
see more and more people popping up every day telling me, Nina,
I want to be an influencer and really leaning into it,
not feeling the ick saying that word or being afraid
to claim it, but really truly leaning in. And I
decided it's time for me to get on here make
an updated video or if you're listening on the podcast,
(00:44):
episode about what it's like to be an influencer in
twenty twenty five and give you some action steps to
get started. We have been in this industry y'all for
a minute now, over ten plus years, working on the
brand side, managing hundreds of thousands of dollars of budget
a influences for their influence, for their content, for their work.
And that's how I really understood the back end of
(01:06):
influencing from the brand perspective right, and a big part
of influencing is brand deals. As someone who has been
in this industry for over ten years, we have been
featured for our work in CNN, BBC News, Business Inside,
our Entrepreneur mag and more for our work in the
creator economy. And I see again what makes successful influencers,
what makes influencers flop? Who has it? What do they do?
(01:28):
And this video is going to be less around mindset
and more about action items and tips. Now, the first
thing I'm going to say, and this is probably maybe
not even controversial, people don't put this number one on
the list, but I'm going to put this number one
on the list because I think being an influencer is
a business. I think being an influencer is about setting
up your business correctly. And outside of things like you know,
(01:49):
setting up your businesses and the legalities, I'm talking monetization.
Do you have a monetization strategy in place? Yes? Today
we're going to talk about content pillars. Yes, we're going
to talk about SEO and search. Yes, we're going to
talk about you know, building community and engagement. All the
things that you know you need to put in the
influencer recipe. But before we even get into that, you
(02:11):
need to be really clear on the type of monetization
strategy you want to put into place. Now, I'm going
to be very frank with y'all. I teach brand deals,
you know, that's my signature course. I'm all about brand deals.
That is what I think is going to truly help
an influencer hit those big months. But I have to
be honest. Brand deals don't happen when you are at
(02:33):
zero followers. They don't unless you're pitching UGC or content.
But that's not pitching influence. When you want to pitch influence, right,
you're basically going to a brand and saying, hey, brand,
I have your audience, pay me to talk about them. Well,
you can't do that with zero followers because you don't
have the influence. Right. So when we think about monetization
from day one, I am now going to tell the
(02:56):
creators in my community to get really serious about their
affiliate strategy. We're going to talk about core revenue streams,
but I want to start off with the affiliate one
because that is something that I see creators are able
to get accepted into programs without having any followers and
something you can do from the day you make a
decision to want to be an influencer. Now, I want
(03:17):
to be transparent and let you guys know this is
sponsored by Levanta, and you guys are going to learn
about them as we go. But I wouldn't come up
here and share about them if I didn't really think
it was going to help the creators in my community
significantly grow their income when it came to the affiliate
partnerships and connecting with sellers directly. So the way Levanta
works is that Levanta allows creators and influencers to connect
(03:42):
with Amazon and other marketplace sellers directly. Think about having
that direct access to that seller and negotiate your commissions.
But also one of the most exciting things about Levanta
is the higher commissions that you're going to be able
to get on this platform versus if you went to
a marketplace directly. So oftentimes you go to Amazon, the
commissions are low. Let's call a spade a spae. They're low.
(04:04):
You're not going to make ten thousand dollars months on
a two percent commission, but a twenty percent commission, a
thirty percent commission Hey, even up to one hundred percent commission. Now,
that is exciting, and that is exactly what Levanta is
helping creators do, allowing creators to have higher commissions on
the products that they want to sell compared to Amazon's
(04:25):
I don't know one percent, right, So you're getting like
a higher bank for your buck. This is a type
of affiliate marketing that I personally want to see more
creators do because again, if you're going to be training
your audience, you're starting off your influencer journey, you're deciding
how you're going to start making money, and you're going
to start training your audience to buy from you get
them to buy at those higher commission rates. So I
(04:46):
wanted to just briefly show you my Levanta dashboard. We've
been invited by fifty four brands, So if you go
to your partnership section, you're going to be able to
see the different brands that want to get to know
you meet you give you access to different commissions. And
what I really love about Levanta outside of their discovery tool,
is that you can go in and search the products
right away that you want to potentially get access to,
(05:09):
and then you're also getting featured products. Right, you can
take a look at the featured products potentially in your niche,
but you're also going to be able to go directly
and use their AI search tool, like this is wild right,
This right here, you know, is a twenty three percent commission.
If I was a food creator, that makes total sense.
This is a twenty five percent commission right here for
selling this food temperature, you know, cooking thermometer. If I
(05:33):
was a food creator and I was using this and
doing my Thanksgiving dinner. You know, what's really interesting is
like now we're talking, these commissions are high. And what's
really great is that because Levanta allows you to connect
with these sellers directly. It is so hard to connect
with sellers, but you can connect with them directly. You
can message them, you can ask for samples. You know,
(05:54):
you now have access to these sellers, and I think
that's opening a huge door a possibility. So again, if
you are a creator that is interested in, you know,
getting into the affiliate game, I would absolutely suggest you
guys look at Levanta. I'm going to just go ahead
and do a quick search here gift ideas for kids.
Maybe you're a mom creator in the motherhood space, and
(06:16):
you're taking a look to see and right here, it
allows you to search the certain platform. But like okay,
for example Funfoil, like I literally my kids love this.
Are bath moms twenty percent twenty percent, twenty percent commissions
This is way higher than you're going to see if
you were to do this direct on Amazon. So from
day one, creators, day one, Levanta is going to help
(06:38):
you get those higher commissions. And that is so important
when it comes to monetization. Now, when you're just getting started,
there's other revenue streams that you could also consider. UGC
that has no follower requirements. You can build your portfolio
from day one showing content that you've already made, have
your portfolio ready to go to brands and pitch them
(06:58):
content for their pay. Again, that is a no follower
requirement type of monetization. Same thing as building out any
sort of digital product. If you are going to be
selling direct to your audience, some sort of digital product
or download or guide, that's something that you can build
from the beginning. When it comes to working with brands,
that is something that absolutely we're seeing creators monetize from.
(07:20):
But when it's that influence portion, not that content creator portion.
You do have to build your business in order to
start effectively being able to reach out to brands. Now
we've talked about our setting up our monetization strategies before
we start, because this is really going to help us
understand our end goal. Like, if you know how you're
going to make money, then you can work around it
to build out the business that you want to build
right now. Obviously, when it comes to developing your influencer business,
(07:45):
you know, influencers now more than ever need a niche.
I don't care what people say. You have people out
there being like no like it's lifestyle, it's this, it's that.
Let me tell you something. There is so much noise
in the Internet. There's so many types of accounts. People
don't want to follow people until they become obsessed with them.
And the way that people become obsessed with you is
(08:07):
once you are able to build that connection with them,
whether it's through entertainment or relatability, or there's something that
you have been able to give to the person on
the other side of the screen. When you were all
over the place in the beginning, it is very confusing
for the person who is following you to follow along
So I recently did a video about this girl who
grew four hundred thousand followers in one week. The way
(08:30):
she did this was she went on TikTok randomly did
this video about an experience she had, and you know,
went on there and the internet went wild. They all
agreed with her, they all wanted to help her, and
she just her account took off. She was a food
creator and she went to a restaurant and there was
some issues happening. But what ended up happening is like
when you go on her page, it's all food content already.
(08:52):
So people that are following her are yes, following her
in support, but they also like want food content, and
she's very clear on her niche and what she's doing.
So it's important to also understand having that niche is
going to help people that find you throw an algorithm,
click follow and want to follow along. Don't let this
idea of having a niche make you feel like you're
being pigeonholed. You're not being pigeonholed. You're being strategic. There
(09:16):
is a difference. You're saying, Okay, I'm going to create
content around this to attract people, and that once people
kind of get excited and grow with you. You can
open up that niche, open up that niche and develop
into more lifestyle. But at the very beginning, you want
to be very value based. You want to be search based,
and you want to include elements of relatability and things
that are going to connect with other people share ability.
(09:38):
These are all things that no matter what algorithm you're on,
no matter what platform you're on, people identify with right.
So if you're on YouTube and your video get shared,
the algorithm loves it. If you're on Instagram or TikTok
and your video get shared, the algorithm loves it. People
share things that are relatable, or people share things that
mean something to them or that can help them. So
remember that as you're guiding light when you are developing
(10:01):
your beginner influencer career. I can't stress this enough. Knowing
who you're talking to, deciding your audience, closing your eyes
and saying I'm making this video for this like I
make every single video on my channel for my inner
socle community. Those are many people. I see their faces.
I'm literally filming this video and I see them all there.
I know what they want, I know what they need.
I know that like what's important to them. I accept
(10:23):
sponsors based on sponsors that I think can help them.
Knowing they're human that you want to help is a
game changer for any upcoming influencer to understand who is
it that's on the other side of the screen, so
that you can create content that is literally feels like
it's perfect for that person. Now, obviously you're gonna have
to pick a platform. There are so many, and I
(10:44):
cannot stress this enough. Some people at the very beginning
are like, I'm going to do everything and probably the
fastest way to burn out. I would strongly suggest picking
one platform. You know, max two, but start with one,
do it well, build consistency, build muscle, don't give up,
and then add on a secondary. When you decide the
(11:04):
type of platform you want to pick, you want to
figure out what type of content you are naturally good at.
Like if you are a person that loves to teach
or talk and you feel really confined by short form video,
maybe short form video isn't for you. You want to stick
to platforms like podcasting or a YouTube channel because you
can create for as long as you need and not
(11:24):
feel restrained. Versus if you're a creator that's like thirty
minute video, twenty minute video, no way, I rather do
something quick and breezy. You know, short form may be
the way to go. So when you're identifying the platform,
go on those platforms. If you want to be on TikTok,
get on TikTok and consume TikTok content. See what does
well what doesn't. Because everyone knows TikTok is different than Instagram,
(11:47):
different than YouTube. Short It's like all the platforms have
their own magic and I can't tell you which one
to pick. But how you can decide is based on
the format and what you yourself like to consume. Okay,
don't do it because someone else told you to do it.
Do the type of content that feels really easy for you.
Now you've heard the word content pillars before, or maybe
(12:08):
you haven't, but when you're developing your influencer career, you
are going to want to have anywhere from two to
three pillars. Think of them literally as pillars of what
your content's going to be focused around. And this really
again helps you kind of stay focused on your content
so you're not all over the place. Pillars help make
your brand cohesive, digestible, understandable to the outside audience. Right,
(12:31):
It's kind of like picking themes that all kind of
blend together that help the person that's following understand. So, like,
let's just say I was a wellness creator. I wanted
to focus on movement. I wanted to focus on maybe
motherhood and meals. And that's kind of within those three
pillars my area. That's where I'm going to stick right here.
At Sidewalker Daily, we talk a lot about monetization as
(12:52):
a creator, right, We talk a lot about the business
side of being a creator, you know, but we're not
talking about like random thing. Sometimes we talk about creator news. Right.
Those are our pillars, But you really want to be
clear in your pillars because clear, cohesive branding is important,
which leads to my next thing. When you're developing your
influencer business, I'm not going to tell you spend thousands
(13:13):
of thousands of dollars on branding. Luckily you have Canva
now and there's so many resources out there to help
you with branding. But let me tell you the accounts
that have all types of texts, colors, sizes, fonts, hot
mess looks, amateur doesn't feel safe or trustworthy. So really,
just taking a quick second, go on Cana, choose some
fonts that you like, choose some sizes. You know, you
(13:35):
have your header font, you have your paragraph font. This matters.
Branding matters because again, you're building a business. You're not
building like a random account. If you go on TikTok
and you see how you like certain people's text, you know,
take a look at what that text looks like, and
be consistent in your text. Like I literally go look
at certain Instagram influencers thumbnails and I'm like, oh, those
(13:55):
are amazing, and they all kind of look the same.
It would steer clear and make sure branding is a
central point for you because when you do start pitching
brand partnerships and when you start growing, that branding is
going to go with you into your media kit, into
your proposals, into your decks, all of that. Now, one
thing I would set up from the very get is
your link in bio, your link in biostrategy. Remember, you
(14:17):
could just be starting have some of your affiliate links,
maybe from Levanta, and you're going to want to be
able to include those links somewhere right off the bat.
So having your link in bio set up, maybe you're
using like a link tree. I can't tell you how
many creators I know that I've worked with that have
hit ten k twenty k months. That told me, I
wish I started selling to my audience earlier. I wish
(14:39):
I wasn't so afraid to be direct. And again, Amazon
influencers and creators who have strong affiliate presences, they do
this at the very beginning. They start training their audience
to trust them for their recommendations. So even part of
your content strategy, y'all, you can start creating videos that
include certain products and recommendations so you can use your
(15:00):
affiliate links monetize off of it, but also know the
types of brands that you're going to potentially pitch to
in the future because you know your audience purchases these
types of brands. When you're deciding your influencer biz and
how you're going to show up, you need to be
really strict with yourself about your showing up, like realistic,
but also pushing yourself because nothing happens when you're just comfortable.
(15:22):
So if you're going to commit to three times a week,
you better do three times a week. Right when we
talk about posting, if you're doing a YouTube video once
a week, commit to once a week. No one wants
to follow someone that is fallen off and on and
off and on and off and on. I think here
at YouTube and our community, they know we're going to
show up every week. We batch videos if we have to,
We go to the studio and shoot ten videos at
a time. We do what we got to do to
(15:44):
build that trust with our human They know they can
rely on us. Reliability is such an important part of
being a business owner and being an influencer. Your audience
wants to rely on you. So whatever you decide, stick
to it so that they can know that you're going
to show up to them and that you're trustworthy. Now,
engagement people are like, well I don't have anyone engaging
you know, well do you engage with others? Right? So
(16:05):
you still have to also put part of your strategy
to engage with other accounts, build virtual friendships. But the
people that do engage with you engage back with them.
I have a creator who has like four hundred thousand
followers and she's like, oh my god, Nina, my comments,
my dms are crazy. But I spend about a few
hours a day making sure I get back to my people,
because those are the people that put me here in
the first place. So engagement is a part of the game.
(16:28):
It's like brushing your teeth. You gotta do it right.
It's part of being a creator. You can't really outsource that.
These are your people. You're trying to build community, so
make sure that you pour back into the community that
gives to you in the first place. So even if
you're just getting started, even if it's friends and family,
you know, engage back. It helps the algorithm. You can
do things like automations from the very beginning, where people
(16:49):
comment a word in order to get a link. You know,
start at the beginning. Who cares if no one's watching,
because you know what you're doing. You're building the muscle.
You're building the system so that when you're does hit
twenty thousand followers, you're not like building systems at twenty
thousand followers. You've already built those systems from day one.
Don't wait for a follower count to start the things
that you need to be doing now. And by the way, y'all,
(17:12):
if you do want to go ahead and get started
with Levonta, I will go ahead and include our link
below so you guys can sign up for free, check
them out see if you're interested. And again, just know
that I would never come on here to my community
of people, put our reputation on the line if we
didn't think that this tool was really going to help
you guys. And that's why when they reached out to me,
(17:33):
I was so excited because I'm like, anything that's going
to help creators make more money count me in. So
go ahead, check them out, sign up for their tool,
and let us know once you did. I hope you
enjoyed today's episode. If you did, make sure to rate, review,
and subscribe to our show and visit Sidewalkerdaily dot com
for more resources on all things influencer marketing and social media.
(17:56):
Until next time,
Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
in this influencer industry and see behind the curtain? Well,
let's jump in. As someone who's built a community of
(00:23):
over one hundred and fifty thousand influencers and creators, I
see more and more people popping up every day telling me, Nina,
I want to be an influencer and really leaning into it,
not feeling the ick saying that word or being afraid
to claim it, but really truly leaning in. And I
decided it's time for me to get on here make
an updated video or if you're listening on the podcast,
(00:44):
episode about what it's like to be an influencer in
twenty twenty five and give you some action steps to
get started. We have been in this industry y'all for
a minute now, over ten plus years, working on the
brand side, managing hundreds of thousands of dollars of budget
a influences for their influence, for their content, for their work.
And that's how I really understood the back end of
(01:06):
influencing from the brand perspective right, and a big part
of influencing is brand deals. As someone who has been
in this industry for over ten years, we have been
featured for our work in CNN, BBC News, Business Inside,
our Entrepreneur mag and more for our work in the
creator economy. And I see again what makes successful influencers,
what makes influencers flop? Who has it? What do they do?
(01:28):
And this video is going to be less around mindset
and more about action items and tips. Now, the first
thing I'm going to say, and this is probably maybe
not even controversial, people don't put this number one on
the list, but I'm going to put this number one
on the list because I think being an influencer is
a business. I think being an influencer is about setting
up your business correctly. And outside of things like you know,
(01:49):
setting up your businesses and the legalities, I'm talking monetization.
Do you have a monetization strategy in place? Yes? Today
we're going to talk about content pillars. Yes, we're going
to talk about SEO and search. Yes, we're going to
talk about you know, building community and engagement. All the
things that you know you need to put in the
influencer recipe. But before we even get into that, you
(02:11):
need to be really clear on the type of monetization
strategy you want to put into place. Now, I'm going
to be very frank with y'all. I teach brand deals,
you know, that's my signature course. I'm all about brand deals.
That is what I think is going to truly help
an influencer hit those big months. But I have to
be honest. Brand deals don't happen when you are at
(02:33):
zero followers. They don't unless you're pitching UGC or content.
But that's not pitching influence. When you want to pitch influence, right,
you're basically going to a brand and saying, hey, brand,
I have your audience, pay me to talk about them. Well,
you can't do that with zero followers because you don't
have the influence. Right. So when we think about monetization
from day one, I am now going to tell the
(02:56):
creators in my community to get really serious about their
affiliate strategy. We're going to talk about core revenue streams,
but I want to start off with the affiliate one
because that is something that I see creators are able
to get accepted into programs without having any followers and
something you can do from the day you make a
decision to want to be an influencer. Now, I want
(03:17):
to be transparent and let you guys know this is
sponsored by Levanta, and you guys are going to learn
about them as we go. But I wouldn't come up
here and share about them if I didn't really think
it was going to help the creators in my community
significantly grow their income when it came to the affiliate
partnerships and connecting with sellers directly. So the way Levanta
works is that Levanta allows creators and influencers to connect
(03:42):
with Amazon and other marketplace sellers directly. Think about having
that direct access to that seller and negotiate your commissions.
But also one of the most exciting things about Levanta
is the higher commissions that you're going to be able
to get on this platform versus if you went to
a marketplace directly. So oftentimes you go to Amazon, the
commissions are low. Let's call a spade a spae. They're low.
(04:04):
You're not going to make ten thousand dollars months on
a two percent commission, but a twenty percent commission, a
thirty percent commission Hey, even up to one hundred percent commission. Now,
that is exciting, and that is exactly what Levanta is
helping creators do, allowing creators to have higher commissions on
the products that they want to sell compared to Amazon's
(04:25):
I don't know one percent, right, So you're getting like
a higher bank for your buck. This is a type
of affiliate marketing that I personally want to see more
creators do because again, if you're going to be training
your audience, you're starting off your influencer journey, you're deciding
how you're going to start making money, and you're going
to start training your audience to buy from you get
them to buy at those higher commission rates. So I
(04:46):
wanted to just briefly show you my Levanta dashboard. We've
been invited by fifty four brands, So if you go
to your partnership section, you're going to be able to
see the different brands that want to get to know
you meet you give you access to different commissions. And
what I really love about Levanta outside of their discovery tool,
is that you can go in and search the products
right away that you want to potentially get access to,
(05:09):
and then you're also getting featured products. Right, you can
take a look at the featured products potentially in your niche,
but you're also going to be able to go directly
and use their AI search tool, like this is wild right,
This right here, you know, is a twenty three percent commission.
If I was a food creator, that makes total sense.
This is a twenty five percent commission right here for
selling this food temperature, you know, cooking thermometer. If I
(05:33):
was a food creator and I was using this and
doing my Thanksgiving dinner. You know, what's really interesting is
like now we're talking, these commissions are high. And what's
really great is that because Levanta allows you to connect
with these sellers directly. It is so hard to connect
with sellers, but you can connect with them directly. You
can message them, you can ask for samples. You know,
(05:54):
you now have access to these sellers, and I think
that's opening a huge door a possibility. So again, if
you are a creator that is interested in, you know,
getting into the affiliate game, I would absolutely suggest you
guys look at Levanta. I'm going to just go ahead
and do a quick search here gift ideas for kids.
Maybe you're a mom creator in the motherhood space, and
(06:16):
you're taking a look to see and right here, it
allows you to search the certain platform. But like okay,
for example Funfoil, like I literally my kids love this.
Are bath moms twenty percent twenty percent, twenty percent commissions
This is way higher than you're going to see if
you were to do this direct on Amazon. So from
day one, creators, day one, Levanta is going to help
(06:38):
you get those higher commissions. And that is so important
when it comes to monetization. Now, when you're just getting started,
there's other revenue streams that you could also consider. UGC
that has no follower requirements. You can build your portfolio
from day one showing content that you've already made, have
your portfolio ready to go to brands and pitch them
(06:58):
content for their pay. Again, that is a no follower
requirement type of monetization. Same thing as building out any
sort of digital product. If you are going to be
selling direct to your audience, some sort of digital product
or download or guide, that's something that you can build
from the beginning. When it comes to working with brands,
that is something that absolutely we're seeing creators monetize from.
(07:20):
But when it's that influence portion, not that content creator portion.
You do have to build your business in order to
start effectively being able to reach out to brands. Now
we've talked about our setting up our monetization strategies before
we start, because this is really going to help us
understand our end goal. Like, if you know how you're
going to make money, then you can work around it
to build out the business that you want to build
right now. Obviously, when it comes to developing your influencer business,
(07:45):
you know, influencers now more than ever need a niche.
I don't care what people say. You have people out
there being like no like it's lifestyle, it's this, it's that.
Let me tell you something. There is so much noise
in the Internet. There's so many types of accounts. People
don't want to follow people until they become obsessed with them.
And the way that people become obsessed with you is
(08:07):
once you are able to build that connection with them,
whether it's through entertainment or relatability, or there's something that
you have been able to give to the person on
the other side of the screen. When you were all
over the place in the beginning, it is very confusing
for the person who is following you to follow along
So I recently did a video about this girl who
grew four hundred thousand followers in one week. The way
(08:30):
she did this was she went on TikTok randomly did
this video about an experience she had, and you know,
went on there and the internet went wild. They all
agreed with her, they all wanted to help her, and
she just her account took off. She was a food
creator and she went to a restaurant and there was
some issues happening. But what ended up happening is like
when you go on her page, it's all food content already.
(08:52):
So people that are following her are yes, following her
in support, but they also like want food content, and
she's very clear on her niche and what she's doing.
So it's important to also understand having that niche is
going to help people that find you throw an algorithm,
click follow and want to follow along. Don't let this
idea of having a niche make you feel like you're
being pigeonholed. You're not being pigeonholed. You're being strategic. There
(09:16):
is a difference. You're saying, Okay, I'm going to create
content around this to attract people, and that once people
kind of get excited and grow with you. You can
open up that niche, open up that niche and develop
into more lifestyle. But at the very beginning, you want
to be very value based. You want to be search based,
and you want to include elements of relatability and things
that are going to connect with other people share ability.
(09:38):
These are all things that no matter what algorithm you're on,
no matter what platform you're on, people identify with right.
So if you're on YouTube and your video get shared,
the algorithm loves it. If you're on Instagram or TikTok
and your video get shared, the algorithm loves it. People
share things that are relatable, or people share things that
mean something to them or that can help them. So
remember that as you're guiding light when you are developing
(10:01):
your beginner influencer career. I can't stress this enough. Knowing
who you're talking to, deciding your audience, closing your eyes
and saying I'm making this video for this like I
make every single video on my channel for my inner
socle community. Those are many people. I see their faces.
I'm literally filming this video and I see them all there.
I know what they want, I know what they need.
I know that like what's important to them. I accept
(10:23):
sponsors based on sponsors that I think can help them.
Knowing they're human that you want to help is a
game changer for any upcoming influencer to understand who is
it that's on the other side of the screen, so
that you can create content that is literally feels like
it's perfect for that person. Now, obviously you're gonna have
to pick a platform. There are so many, and I
(10:44):
cannot stress this enough. Some people at the very beginning
are like, I'm going to do everything and probably the
fastest way to burn out. I would strongly suggest picking
one platform. You know, max two, but start with one,
do it well, build consistency, build muscle, don't give up,
and then add on a secondary. When you decide the
(11:04):
type of platform you want to pick, you want to
figure out what type of content you are naturally good at.
Like if you are a person that loves to teach
or talk and you feel really confined by short form video,
maybe short form video isn't for you. You want to stick
to platforms like podcasting or a YouTube channel because you
can create for as long as you need and not
(11:24):
feel restrained. Versus if you're a creator that's like thirty
minute video, twenty minute video, no way, I rather do
something quick and breezy. You know, short form may be
the way to go. So when you're identifying the platform,
go on those platforms. If you want to be on TikTok,
get on TikTok and consume TikTok content. See what does
well what doesn't. Because everyone knows TikTok is different than Instagram,
(11:47):
different than YouTube. Short It's like all the platforms have
their own magic and I can't tell you which one
to pick. But how you can decide is based on
the format and what you yourself like to consume. Okay,
don't do it because someone else told you to do it.
Do the type of content that feels really easy for you.
Now you've heard the word content pillars before, or maybe
(12:08):
you haven't, but when you're developing your influencer career, you
are going to want to have anywhere from two to
three pillars. Think of them literally as pillars of what
your content's going to be focused around. And this really
again helps you kind of stay focused on your content
so you're not all over the place. Pillars help make
your brand cohesive, digestible, understandable to the outside audience. Right,
(12:31):
It's kind of like picking themes that all kind of
blend together that help the person that's following understand. So, like,
let's just say I was a wellness creator. I wanted
to focus on movement. I wanted to focus on maybe
motherhood and meals. And that's kind of within those three
pillars my area. That's where I'm going to stick right here.
At Sidewalker Daily, we talk a lot about monetization as
(12:52):
a creator, right, We talk a lot about the business
side of being a creator, you know, but we're not
talking about like random thing. Sometimes we talk about creator news. Right.
Those are our pillars, But you really want to be
clear in your pillars because clear, cohesive branding is important,
which leads to my next thing. When you're developing your
influencer business, I'm not going to tell you spend thousands
(13:13):
of thousands of dollars on branding. Luckily you have Canva
now and there's so many resources out there to help
you with branding. But let me tell you the accounts
that have all types of texts, colors, sizes, fonts, hot
mess looks, amateur doesn't feel safe or trustworthy. So really,
just taking a quick second, go on Cana, choose some
fonts that you like, choose some sizes. You know, you
(13:35):
have your header font, you have your paragraph font. This matters.
Branding matters because again, you're building a business. You're not
building like a random account. If you go on TikTok
and you see how you like certain people's text, you know,
take a look at what that text looks like, and
be consistent in your text. Like I literally go look
at certain Instagram influencers thumbnails and I'm like, oh, those
(13:55):
are amazing, and they all kind of look the same.
It would steer clear and make sure branding is a
central point for you because when you do start pitching
brand partnerships and when you start growing, that branding is
going to go with you into your media kit, into
your proposals, into your decks, all of that. Now, one
thing I would set up from the very get is
your link in bio, your link in biostrategy. Remember, you
(14:17):
could just be starting have some of your affiliate links,
maybe from Levanta, and you're going to want to be
able to include those links somewhere right off the bat.
So having your link in bio set up, maybe you're
using like a link tree. I can't tell you how
many creators I know that I've worked with that have
hit ten k twenty k months. That told me, I
wish I started selling to my audience earlier. I wish
(14:39):
I wasn't so afraid to be direct. And again, Amazon
influencers and creators who have strong affiliate presences, they do
this at the very beginning. They start training their audience
to trust them for their recommendations. So even part of
your content strategy, y'all, you can start creating videos that
include certain products and recommendations so you can use your
(15:00):
affiliate links monetize off of it, but also know the
types of brands that you're going to potentially pitch to
in the future because you know your audience purchases these
types of brands. When you're deciding your influencer biz and
how you're going to show up, you need to be
really strict with yourself about your showing up, like realistic,
but also pushing yourself because nothing happens when you're just comfortable.
(15:22):
So if you're going to commit to three times a week,
you better do three times a week. Right when we
talk about posting, if you're doing a YouTube video once
a week, commit to once a week. No one wants
to follow someone that is fallen off and on and
off and on and off and on. I think here
at YouTube and our community, they know we're going to
show up every week. We batch videos if we have to,
We go to the studio and shoot ten videos at
a time. We do what we got to do to
(15:44):
build that trust with our human They know they can
rely on us. Reliability is such an important part of
being a business owner and being an influencer. Your audience
wants to rely on you. So whatever you decide, stick
to it so that they can know that you're going
to show up to them and that you're trustworthy. Now,
engagement people are like, well I don't have anyone engaging
you know, well do you engage with others? Right? So
(16:05):
you still have to also put part of your strategy
to engage with other accounts, build virtual friendships. But the
people that do engage with you engage back with them.
I have a creator who has like four hundred thousand
followers and she's like, oh my god, Nina, my comments,
my dms are crazy. But I spend about a few
hours a day making sure I get back to my people,
because those are the people that put me here in
the first place. So engagement is a part of the game.
(16:28):
It's like brushing your teeth. You gotta do it right.
It's part of being a creator. You can't really outsource that.
These are your people. You're trying to build community, so
make sure that you pour back into the community that
gives to you in the first place. So even if
you're just getting started, even if it's friends and family,
you know, engage back. It helps the algorithm. You can
do things like automations from the very beginning, where people
(16:49):
comment a word in order to get a link. You know,
start at the beginning. Who cares if no one's watching,
because you know what you're doing. You're building the muscle.
You're building the system so that when you're does hit
twenty thousand followers, you're not like building systems at twenty
thousand followers. You've already built those systems from day one.
Don't wait for a follower count to start the things
that you need to be doing now. And by the way, y'all,
(17:12):
if you do want to go ahead and get started
with Levonta, I will go ahead and include our link
below so you guys can sign up for free, check
them out see if you're interested. And again, just know
that I would never come on here to my community
of people, put our reputation on the line if we
didn't think that this tool was really going to help
you guys. And that's why when they reached out to me,
(17:33):
I was so excited because I'm like, anything that's going
to help creators make more money count me in. So
go ahead, check them out, sign up for their tool,
and let us know once you did. I hope you
enjoyed today's episode. If you did, make sure to rate, review,
and subscribe to our show and visit Sidewalkerdaily dot com
for more resources on all things influencer marketing and social media.
(17:56):
Until next time,
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