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Instagram is fast becoming a powerful platform. It carries massive value for a huge selection brands. With over 800 million monthly active users, it's much easier to reach a target audience in a significantly short time. And these are people who actually make their purchases on the basis of influencers' recommendations. As a matter of fact, influencers are ranked sixth most effective channels for influencing purchases. Their growing popularity of might have made you consider becoming one yourself. If that is what you've been thinking about, the following are few ways Instagram will help you get there:

A Platform to Exploit Your Passions

Being an influencer calls for finding a niche that suits your personality, which means that you get an opportunity to explore something you're genuinely passionate about. This has to be an activity in which you have a great deal of interest and knowledge. It may include anything from DIY crafts, latest styles and trends in fashion or even a deep interest in different cuisines. Instagram allows you to create posts that reflect what you truly love.

There are various accounts that focus on specific niches from which you can borrow a leaf to see how to go about it yourself. What's more, Instagram has no limit on the many things you can incorporate in your niche – as long as they are not random, you can combine as many things as you want.

Cultivating Relationships

Well, becoming an influencer does not just involve sharing photos or videos on Instagram. The captions going along with your media are just as important. They are a great way to tell your story and connect with followers on an emotional level by giving them a reason to follow you, trust you and thus engage with you.

Personal stories shared in the kind of way that the audience finds interesting yet authentic goes a long way in making you an excellent influencer, they are what makes you a brand. And brands can attach greater importance to engagement rate as compared to the number of followers in collaboration with you as an influencer. You can use Instagram bot to get those tasks easily done.

Visual Appeal

One of the prerequisites of being an influencer is using photos that are not only appealing but also relevantly adhering to an overall theme. Instagram allows users to follow a particular style of photo editing that warrants uniformity of color and composition through inbuilt filters, but tools such as Lightroom and VSCO are just as useful. These ensure that every photo posted

looks just as good against the other thus an incredible visually appealing and aesthetically attractive Instafeed.

Motivation and Character Building

Because being an influencer calls for posting content consistently to boost engagement rates, you will inevitably spend your time every day looking for something to present to your followers. Most influencers post new content daily though some may post a couple of times a day or several times a week. Becoming an influencer means you will have to choose a posting schedule that you can stick to thus you'll always have something to look forward to. With time, this becomes a habit that you eventually start to grow into.

However, if you find that you are having a bit of a hard time sticking to a schedule, there are certain tools such as Ripl, Preview, Planoly and Buffer that are compatible with Instagram to help you schedule your posts. These tools can allow you to create content in advance then set the time and date for posting – you won't have to do it yourself. All the same, you'll still need to handpick this content to ensure that it resonates with your followers interests.

Leveraging a Huge Consumer Base

It goes without saying that for you to be a successful influencer, you need a huge following. Your followers may not necessarily be interested in who you are but they might help your establish yourself as a brand and a place to turn to for their diverse needs. Unless you are dealing in products, it might also turn out to be a channel for promoting products for other brands and getting the rewards the luxury comes with. Most brands approach influencers based on their following.

It's therefore important to grab as much people on Instagram as you can find by engaging them meaningfully and providing them with content that appeals to their interests or those they share with you. Make your profile accessible to all, respond to your followers' comments whenever necessary and like and comment on their content, too. Posting at a time when engagement is at its peak, including a call-to-action in your captions and hosting giveaways and contests to gain more followers helps as well.