Own Your Influence: 6 Ways To Expand Beyond Social Media Platforms

Social media is huge these days. Without it, influencer marketing would not be the multi-billion dollar business that it is today! For content creators across different all sorts of platforms and categories, social media is the number one way to develop a dedicated audience, so it should remain a major part of your marketing strategy no matter if you are an influencer, entrepreneur, or expert of any kind.

As much as we love social media platforms, however, we also recognize that our participation in channels like Instagram and Twitter is dependent on these companies’ continued existences. It’s unlikely, but say Instagram were to disappear tomorrow; what would you do? What would you own that is truly yours? As much as we love these platforms, social media is a fickle world (remember MySpace?) and to put all your eggs into one social media basket is risky.

In addition to social media, we encourage anyone in the digital world to focus on intellectual property that they truly own. Your blog you started ten years ago is a piece of owned IP! You pay for the domain, control the content, and own the images and videos that you upload to the site.

Here are a few other ways you can create assets that YOU own:

A Podcast

Who doesn’t love a fun podcast? We are absolutely obsessed with podcasts and know they are a great way for influencers to let their personality and expertise shine. As with all things influencer-related, the podcast market is rather saturated, so finding a niche and developing a unique concept for your podcast is key.

Webinars & Online Courses

Especially while more people are staying home and have free time to learn new skills, there has never been a better time to launch an online course or lead webinars to teach your audience a new skill. Are you an expert photographer? Did you grow your social media following at an exponential rate? Do you know more than anyone else about how to make delicious cupcakes? Seriously, you can create course content out of anything, so long as you are able to offer a valuable and educational experience to your students. You can also earn money off of online courses, making it a great way to diversify your income.

A Website

Call us old school, but we believe that everyone should have a website as a home base. Like we mentioned before, you could have a million followers on Instagram and lose them all (and your value) should the service disappear without a trace.

A website is something that you have ownership of and can serve as a home base for all your offerings, whether that’s social media platforms, podcasts, webinars, or anything else. If you have a website that’s gone by the wayside in recent years, now is the perfect moment to make updates. If you’ve never created your own website, it’s super easy and relatively inexpensive to get started with a professional domain and everything.

Books & E-Books

Just like webinars, books and e-books could be a great ancillary form of income. These could be instructional or personal, depending on what you wish to share with the world and what your audience comes to you for.

Newsletters

Newsletters are another valuable way to build a truly dedicated audience. This is where you can share exclusive content and continue to cultivate a connection with your diehard fans. Not only is a newsletter a great way to share more content, but having an email list is incredibly valuable as you continue to build your personal brand. These are your fans who have opted in to being part of your email list, and you can leverage that when pricing out your rates for brand partnership deals or for future business ventures.

A Product Line

For many influencers, launching a product line is the big goal. It’s proof that your influence is powerful and that you are able to convert likes and comments into dollars. Not every influencer will succeed in selling out products or building a multi-million dollar empire, but for those who have put in the legwork and know that they can sell, developing a product line is a major achievement and a way to make influence extend far beyond the constraints of social media.

Having ownership of IP will not only help you diversify your offerings to brands, but it will also help you diversify your potential to monetize! As you continue on your influencer journey, think of products you can create and services you can offer that you are truly the creator of.

What is one way you hope to expand your influence this year?