How to become a top influencer and remain successful

Being an influencer didn't happen overnight. And it was certainly not your first idea of what you wanted to be when you grew up. Nonetheless, here you are and you’re a very successful one at that. Although the lifestyle looks glamorous, it took a lot of sacrifices to get here.

Past

Before becoming an influencer, you used your time for other endeavours. You were a kid in school with an opinion, and you were not afraid to give it. If you hated something, you said so. And the same went for something you loved.

Depending on the era you found yourself in, your next step in life involved cyberspace or a paper trail.

If the latter, you followed your dreams in journalism. Either by writing stories, writing reviews, or doing a fashion collaboration for next season's hot items.

Your influence started there. As for the cyber route, you started posting videos on YouTube, such as tutorials about the newest eyeshadows or masks that came out and how to apply them.

You gave your honest opinion on how it felt and if it worked for you. Your viewers might have initially only been your family and friends, but your popularity grew. It took months or even years, but your followers now stand at over 800k.

Present

Now you are a highly sought after influencer with a huge loyal following. However, that doesn't lessen the work involved in maintaining the image you created.

Even simple blogging requires high quality expert photos with a model, backdrop, and photographer to capture the perfect pic or two.

Your time, energy and creativity is your commodity in life. But look at what that commodity brought you.

Travelling, freedom in the sense that you work for yourself and affiliated contracts with various brands. The hard part is to stay current because, as loyal as your followers are, they can easily jump on the next hot influencer bandwagon.

Future

Being an influencer is amazing, but you need to think about the future. Many influencers try their hands at designing a fashion line or even creating make-up and perfume. Even if you can get half of your followers to buy into your products, that is a decent start.

Then it's time to form a company. You might be on cloud nine, but do not miss the opportunity to see a financial adviser on best ways to invest your money.

If the tide changes, you will at least know that your lifeboats are secure.

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