Even if you call yourself an influential blogger it is up to other people to decide if you are influential…..or not.
A handful of folks deem me a blogging influencer. Overall, I am just a guy who writes words and helps people. But enough folks perceiving me to be an influential blogger goaded me to write this eBook:
How to Become an Influential Blogger in 6 Months or Less
because I wanted to help bloggers gain influencer status.
One confusing aspect of being influential arises though; just because you label yourself an influencer does not make you an influential blogger. How readers perceive you determines your blogging status, being an influencer or not.
I noted a trend on Instagram a while back. Instagram users deemed themselves to be blogging influencers but some did not even own a self-hosted WordPress blog. Being an influential blogger is not possible if you do not own a blog. Plus a few had small, non-engaging IG followings. Being influential on any network cannot be possible if you have a few lukewarm, non-loyal, transitory followers. This IG crowd likely felt confused because in mind, these folks saw themselves as influential bloggers but other people saw them quite differently.
Guess who decides to interview you as an expert? Other humans. Guess who decides to call you influential? Other humans. Who pays you for sponsored posts or ad placements? Other humans. Can you see why other humans are 100% the source or reason why you become perceived as an influential blogger, or not?
What You Control
You simply control learning how to blog the right way, creating helpful content, building strong friendships with respected bloggers and generously, persistently sticking to the basics. Follow these tips. Eventually, people see you as an influential blogger. I never set out to be influential but helped enough folks to where people perceive me to be influential. Why? I generously helped a large group of human beings who became influenced by my teachings. Be a generous, persistent teacher; influencer status waits for you, around the corner.
Beware
Never add the “influencer” label until a large group of people calls you an influential blogger. People decide. Not you.
Labeling yourself as influential before a significant number of people call you a blogging influencer blows up in your face. Fraud syndrome kicks in, meaning your unclear, premature-labeling, fear-filled energy backfires on you. You will make less money – or no money – plus people will tend to ignore you and your blog. Why? You earn influencer status through service; not through lip service.
Nobody becomes influential by calling themselves influential and seeing themselves influential in their own eyes. If you are lying to yourself and others, people will spot you from a thousand miles away, and avoid you. Energy thing. I have seen self-proclaimed influencers with no readership, no clout, barely anything. Their lying, non-genuine nature reflects back to them as no traffic, no money and no clout. Nobody likes a faker and everybody will avoid them like the plague.
Be Generous
On the other hand, generous, abundant bloggers who help people for free all day long find gaining influential status to be easier and easier the more folks you help. 10 years ago, nobody knew who I was as a blogger. Thousands of guest posts later, most of those folks I helped call me an influential blogger. 5, 10 or 100 people deeming you influential allows your positive reputation to precede you. As the number grows bigger, so does your influence.
Why do you think I was interviewed on Virgin, Forbes, Fox News and Entrepreneur as a digital nomad authority? I helped tons of travel bloggers in that niche. Tons of happy travel bloggers promoted me, and when contributors from those sites scanned the niche, my name popped up all over the place. Safe assumption; contributors believe I was influential because I influenced a ton of bloggers, pitched me and I landed features on all those sites.
Rest assured, if someone is genuinely influential, they did not self-proclaim their label. 10,000 to 20,000 hours of generously serving people earned them that title.