How to Become an Influencer in 2025: Steps, Tips, and Challenges

In 2010, being an influencer meant posting highly filtered photos, sipping champagne in Santorini, and hoping the Instagram algorithm picked you up. The top dogs were people like the Kardashians — mega-celebrities flexing lifestyles that felt totally out of reach.

Today, being an influencer is more of a survival tactic than a fame game. People don’t want corporate ads. They want honest advice from creators they actually relate to. If your face is on camera, your name is on the line, and you’ve built a real connection with your audience, you’ve got influence.

Thousands of today’s top-performing brands right now are creator-led or creator-grown.

• Glossier used its blog “Into the Gloss” and influencer reviews to explode into a billion-dollar brand.
• Alex Hormozi owns multiple 8-figure businesses, but it’s his personal content that does the real selling.
• MrBeast’s Feastables; Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee; the list goes on and on (and on).

Once you have a platform, you can sell anything. And thanks to modern algorithms and viewing formats, which are designed to constantly push out new content, the barrier to entry has never been lower.

So let’s dive right in.

8 steps to become an influencer

Becoming an influencer is NOT about hitting a follower count. It’s about building influence, that is, the ability to move people to think, feel, or act in a certain way. That doesn’t just “happen.” It’s the result of intentional, repeatable steps.

Below, you’ll find those steps:

1. Perform a self-assessment and identify your niche.

Before you post a single piece of content, zoom all the way out. Ask yourself a few simple questions:

• What am I uniquely qualified to speak about? (Hint: You don’t need to be an “expert.” You just need to have a point of view.)
• Who do I genuinely want to connect with? The people you’ll naturally attract are often past versions of you—people going through things you’ve already figured out or are working through now.
• What topics or ideas could I talk about for the next 5 years, even if no one were watching? Because on some days, no one will be. If you wouldn’t talk about it for free, you won’t stick with it when it’s work.

Don’t go ultra-narrow here. “Pick a niche” doesn’t mean you’re stuck in one lane. Think of your niche as a lens through which you talk about everything else. For instance, a tech founder can talk about mindset, routines, or relationships—all through the lens of building a company.)

Your personality is part of your niche. That means two creators in the same industry can win, just by being different people. That’s why Jack Goldburg (@jacksdiningroom)...

…and Keith Lee (@keith_lee125)...

…can both dominate the food review space without stepping on each other’s toes.

The fastest way to stand out is to pick a popular niche that makes money, then combine two or three things that make you you. If you’re stuck, use this formula to define it:

“I create [type of content] that helps [who] do/understand/feel [what outcome] in a [tone/style/personality] way.”

For example, “I create short videos that help new freelancers land clients using humor and memes.”

2. Define your personal brand.

Your personal brand is the bridge between what you say and how people feel about you saying it. If Step 1 was about what you talk about, Step 2 is about how you express it.

It’s built on three core layers:

• Voice: Are you calm, chaotic, bold, chill, intellectual, funny, blunt, nurturing?
• Visual identity: Colors, fonts, camera angles, editing style, wardrobe—it all matters.
• Values: What do you stand for (or stand against)? What do you consistently signal to your audience?

Tefi Pessoa (@hellotefi) is essentially “your internet big sister.” She built her brand around storytelling, unfiltered humor, and emotional honesty. She's chaotic and comforting at the same time; a hard combo to replicate.

Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab) is a neuroscientist, but his brand isn’t “science.” It’s structured, grounded, trustworthy authority across hundreds of topics, with facts and expert testimonials to back it up.

Justin Welsh built a 7-figure business teaching solopreneurs how to build on LinkedIn. His edge? He openly talks about burning out in the SaaS startup world and designing a new life. He preaches freedom, independence, and avoiding the mistakes he made.

Take a few minutes and write down answers to these prompts:

• What 3–5 words do you want people to associate with you? Examples: trustworthy, relatable, witty, calm, or helpful
• What tone or energy do you bring to the table? Examples: tough love, nurturing advice, or high-energy motivation
• How do you want people to feel after consuming your content? Examples: clear-headed, inspired, entertained, or empowered
• What’s off-brand for you? Knowing what you’ll never do is just as important as what you will.

A tip from our social media experts:

Be one degree LOUDER. When building a personal brand, your real-life personality isn’t always enough on camera. It needs to be slightly dialed up so it comes through clearly online. Think of it like acting on stage: you’re still you, but your expressions and delivery are crisper and more intentional.

3. Pick a platform to start out with.

Yes, the best creators are omnichannel, but when you're starting out, focus wins. Spreading yourself thin across five platforms with no strategy is how you end up burnt out with zero traction. Instead, pick one home base where you’ll build your core audience and show up every day.

To decide, ask yourself three questions:

Where is your target audience already hanging out? If you’re targeting B2B professionals, LinkedIn beats TikTok. If you’re sharing fashion, lifestyle, or beauty content, though, Instagram and TikTok are your best bet.

What kind of content do you naturally enjoy creating?

• Hate being on video? Twitter/X or LinkedIn carousels are a better starting point.
• Love to talk things through? YouTube for long-form or TikTok for short-form.
• Great at writing but not talking? X (Twitter), LinkedIn, or Threads.

What’s the content shelf life? TikTok and Reels have a short shelf life, but high discovery potential. YouTube’s shelf life and SEO value are essentially evergreen, but it’s slower to grow. X and LinkedIn give you fast feedback loops, good for thought leadership and connection.

4. Plan your content strategically.

Now you’ve got your niche, your brand, and your platform. But if your content feels random (or worse, inconsistent), you’ll never build momentum. Creators who win make content with a purpose.

Most successful influencers rotate between three types of content:

• Growth content (discovery)
• Trust content (authority)
• Conversion content (action)

Once you’re making content for one platform, think about how you can repurpose it for others. One idea = multiple formats.

• Post all your Reels on TikTok and vice versa.
• Turn a LinkedIn post into a thread on X.
• Turn a podcast into 5 clips.
• Turn a carousel into a topic for a Reel or newsletter.

That way, you’re reinforcing your core values and you’re not constantly thinking of new post ideas.

5. Launch your influencer presence.

There’s no fancy secret here. The only way to become an influencer… is to start influencing. So, just post. You’re not going to perfect your brand by thinking about it. You refine it by doing.

Think of it like this: Even top creators with teams, editors, and years of experience still have duds. They just don’t care. They treat content like at-bats. Because the simple fact of the matter is that (a) posting is free and (b) the more you do it, the more likely you are to find the formula that wins.

You can rebrand later. You can upgrade your setup later. You can dial in your tone, editing, format, and funnel later.
But if you never start, none of that matters.

6. Engage and grow your audience.

The reason influencers are so powerful is that they’ve built communities that no one else can replace or take from them. To get to that point, you’ve got to treat your followers like real people and make them a part of your journey.

This might sound obvious, but it’s where most creators fall short. The best creators do things that don’t scale, like answering DMs, leaving thoughtful comments, remembering people’s names, and shouting out followers in stories or replies.

The exact format you use to engage depends on the platform you use. For instance, one of the best ways to engage your followers on TikTok and Instagram is to reply to a comment with a Reel. It’s free content and gives you the chance to engage more deeply, address a misconception, or teach others who might have that same question.

There are tons of strategies, though, so here’s a quick cheat sheet to help you get started:

7. Use data to optimize your approach.

The whole goal of content creation is to create more of what works and less of what doesn’t. You should be getting better every week, and the way to do that is to focus on directional data.

The most important metrics to track as an influencer:

• Reach and impressions
• Watch time and viewer retention
• Engagement rates
• Saves and shares
• Followers gained from each post
• Click-through rate (for posts with CTAs)

The exact data and how you access it varies depending on the platform you use (see our guide to Instagram analytics). But, overall, it’s relatively straightforward.

What matters most is how you interpret and use that data. People talk about “beating the algorithm,” but the algorithm is really just a reflection of behavior. You’re not going to trick it with bad content.

• Review your top 5 and bottom 5 posts every 2 to 4 weeks. Look at what the top ones have in common (hook, length, tone, format).
• Test one variable at a time. Try different hooks, formats, video lengths, angles, and tones, but isolate what you’re testing so you can see what moves the needle.
• Create more content around what’s performing. Do this by either repurposing, remixing, or putting a spin on a post you already made, or by adapting that format to another topic (e.g., “X things they won’t tell you about Y”).
• Reflect on qualitative data, too. Not all engagement is good engagement. The comments people leave and DMs you get tell you how people feel about what you’re posting. The questions that come up again and again deserve coverage.

Think critically from all angles when you look at the numbers. If your watch time and drop-off point is earlier in the video, it might be your hook or topic, but it could also be that viewers would rather have something that gets the point across faster.

8. Monetize.

Once you’re at the micro-influencer level, now comes the million-dollar question (literally). The truth is, monetization isn’t one-size-fits-all. Your strategy should depend on who you are, what you offer, and what your audience wants.

If you’re a business owner or founder, the goal is obvious: drive leads, users, or sales for your core product or service. For personal brands and pure creators, it’s less clear-cut.

Now… not everyone who loves your content is ready to buy today. But they will be eventually if you guide them the right way. That’s why mature, top-earning influencers build full funnels with multiple content types and monetization paths.

Here’s a simplified version of a funnel top influencers and personal brands use:

Short-form content → Long-form content → Email list/newsletter → Low-ticket offer or community → High-ticket offer or premium product

Let’s break that down:

• Short-form (Reels, TikToks, Tweets): Captures attention and introduces your vibe.
• Long-form (YouTube, podcasts): Builds authority and deepens trust.
• Newsletter: Moves fans off the algorithm. You now own the relationship.
• Low-ticket offer: Something <$100 to segment buyers from lurkers. Templates, mini-courses, apps, ecom products, access to exclusive content.
• High-ticket: Now you know who’s really in your ICP. This is where the big revenue comes in — coaching, retainers, high-end products.

Advanced influencer strategies and pro tips

By the time you monetize, you’re a business. We see most people stall when they try to turn their influence into income because they’re still thinking like a “solo creator” when they should be thinking like a CEO.

There are a few things you’ll have to consider when you’re leveling up:

Optimizing your bio for sales

Your profile is a mini landing page, and your bio is the hero section. It should answer why someone should follow you, and tell them what they should do next.

Every bio should:

• Clearly state who you help or what value you deliver (“Helping freelancers 2x their income in 90 days”)
• Use a clear call to action (“👇 Download my free client onboarding template”)
• Add one branded link using tools like Beacons, Stan.store, or Koji

For a deeper dive into how to optimize your bio, check out our guide. It’s for Instagram bios, but the same logic applies to TikTok, LinkedIn, and X.

Building a scalable influencer business

You can’t do everything forever. Think of yourself as a startup, and your content is the product. If you want to grow without burning out, outsourcing tasks is the most critical change you can make as you grow and monetize.

Start with high-impact roles:

• Video editor frees up time, improves quality
• Virtual assistant (VA) handles outreach, DMs, repurposing
• Content coordinator (second VA) plans, schedules, and keeps your posting consistent

Then level up with specialists as your revenue grows:

• Digital marketing agency to manage funnels and paid ads
• PR agent to land press, interviews, or speaking gigs
• Lawyer or accountant to protect your business and income

Collaborations and partnerships

Growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The smartest influencers collaborate to cross-pollinate audiences and unlock new revenue streams.

• Co-host a livestream or podcast episode
• Guest post or appear in someone’s newsletter
• Launch a joint product, workshop, or digital bundle
• Cross-promote each other’s content with aligned CTAs

We recommend starting with peers at your level. Big names might not reply and their reach might be too broad, but other rising stars will.

Diversifying your content portfolio

One of the biggest mistakes creators make after hitting their stride is staying in one lane for too long. Social platforms evolve quickly, algorithms shift, and what worked yesterday might flop tomorrow. That’s why smart influencers diversify early.

Diversifying doesn’t mean abandoning your main platform. It means extending your influence across formats and channels so you’re not dependent on any single algorithm or audience behavior.

If you’ve built an audience on short-form video (like TikTok or Reels), you might experiment with longer-form storytelling on YouTube or a podcast. If you’ve been publishing tweets, launching a newsletter or Substack lets you deepen that relationship outside the noise of social media.

Take Jay Clouse as a great example. He started by building authority through Twitter and LinkedIn, sharing insights about the creator economy. But instead of stopping there, he expanded into a paid community, a podcast, a high-performing newsletter, and even courses.

Crisis management and PR strategies

At some point, a post will get misinterpreted. A comment will go sideways. A partnership might backfire. You need a plan.

We have guides to both PR strategy and PR crisis management, but here’s a basic crisis playbook:

• Stay calm. Don’t post emotionally.
• Have a trusted friend (or, ideally, a PR expert) review responses before going live.
• Address genuine missteps with clarity, humility, and ownership.
• Never escalate with trolls. Block, delete, or disengage.

We also tell our clients it’s smart to establish core values you won’t compromise on. That way, your audience knows where you stand even before something happens.

How to overcome common challenges

It’s easier than ever to build an online creator business, but it’s no walk in the park. There are very real challenges social media influencers deal with on a daily basis, and it’s important you know how to approach them.

1. “I’m not growing.”

Growth stalls are normal. Even the biggest creators hit plateaus. Start by reviewing your content with fresh eyes:

• Are your hooks clear?
• Are you repeating ideas without adding new angles?
• Have you stopped engaging outside your own posts?

Now try this: Run a “top performer” audit. Go back and identify your top 3 posts by reach, engagement, and follows. Pinpoint what they have in common, then remix them. Change the format. Try a fresh angle.

2. “I’m burning out.”

Consistency doesn’t mean posting daily forever. The ideal way to fix this is to batch content ahead of time. Repurpose winning posts. Hire a VA or editor as soon as you can. You’re allowed to take breaks, as long as you’re building a machine that runs even when you’re offline.

3. “I don’t know what to post.”

You’re thinking too hard (seriously). Start with questions your audience is already asking directly, or that you know they’re asking:

• Problems they have
• Myths you can bust
• Something you wish you knew six months ago

You can also “steal” your own past content. Go back 30 days, find a post that did OK, and rework the hook, format, and CTA. There are dozens of ways to talk about the same thing, and doing this helps you drive home your main values and talking points.

4. “I’m scared of judgment.”

Most people aren’t afraid of failing; they’re afraid of looking dumb in front of people they know.

The fact of the matter is that 99% of people don’t care one way or the other unless you’re speaking directly to them. So, your content is either for them (and they can follow, then eventually pay, you), or it’s not (and they stop seeing it when the algorithm learns that).

Either way, remind yourself why you’re posting content and who you’re doing it for.

5. “I’m not making money yet.”

Most creators don’t pop off with their first product or offer, and the pipeline from follower to buyer isn’t always linear. 

In the meantime, add affiliate links to content that’s already performing, create a low-lift digital product (e.g., checklist, swipe file), and offer a freebie to build your list, which you can upsell later.

The key is to start testing monetization paths early, even if they’re small. That way, when a post does go viral, you have something waiting on the other side of the link in your bio.

Tools, resources & communities

At some point, your phone, Notes app, and Canva templates alone won’t cut it. If you want to grow sustainably and start treating your social media presence like the business it is, you’ll need the right infrastructure: tools that save time, courses that sharpen your edge, and a support system that keeps you going when the algorithm doesn’t.

Must-have digital tools for influencers

First up, your digital stack. Whether you’re running solo or starting to outsource, these tools will help streamline your content machine:

For planning and scheduling:

• Notion is perfect for building a content calendar, organizing brand deals, and keeping your ideas centralized.
• Later, Metricool, or Buffer will help you schedule across platforms, track engagement, and save hours every week.
• Airtable is a flexible powerhouse for organizing everything from video production to affiliate links.

For content creation:

• CapCut is the go-to for TikTok and Reels editing, and it’s easy to learn.
• Canva Pro lets you create on-brand carousels, thumbnails, and media kits in minutes.
• Descript is perfect for podcasting, editing short-form videos, and generating captions quickly.
• For advanced editing, Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro give you more control and polish.

For monetization and links:

• Beacons, Stan.store, and Koji offer customizable link-in-bio pages with built-in monetization tools.
• Gumroad lets you build a landing page and list digital products for free.
• Substack is great for writers who want to charge for in-depth content.
• Email platforms like ConvertKit and Flodesk are still underused by influencers, but they’re powerful for building a direct relationship with your audience.
• And don’t sleep on affiliate platforms like RewardStyle, Amazon Associates, and LTK to start earning passive income from day one.

Learning resources & courses

The best creators understand content strategy, monetization, and business basics. And once you’re already down that path, informational resources can save you months’ worth of failure.

Here are a few worth your time:

• Creator Wizard by Justin Moore is a goldmine for learning how to attract brand sponsorships and price yourself with confidence.
• Creator Science by Jay Clouse offers deep insights on growth, funnels, and building long-term influence.
• Ali Abdaal’s Part-Time YouTuber Academy is especially useful if you’re leaning into YouTube or long-form content.
• For tactical skill-building, Skillshare and Udemy offer practical courses on editing, copywriting, and branding.
• And if you want bite-sized learning, ConvertKit’s Creator Sessions on YouTube are packed with real creator case studies.

Influencer networks and communities

Having a support system is what keeps most creators going long-term. Some great places to plug in:

• Circle and Skool-based communities run by creators in your niche offer peer feedback, accountability, and networking.
• Discord servers and X (Twitter) group chats are great for creative collaboration and staying on top of trends.
• Facebook Groups sometimes thrive in lifestyle, parenting, and fitness niches but are often overlooked by newer creators.
• Don’t forget newsletters and membership communities tied to your favorite influencers.

When you’re ready for brand deals, platforms like AspireIQ, Upfluence, and Influencity help connect you to paid opportunities, which is especially helpful when you’re still growing your inbound reach.

Legal and financial resource guides

Before you start making any money, you need to have everything set up the right way. Here’s how to stay protected and profitable:

• Collective and Found can help you set up an LLC, handle taxes, and streamline your finances if you’re in the U.S.
• Tools like Bonsai make it easy to send contracts, track projects, and collect payments (perfect for freelancers and consultants).
• Termly or TermsFeed help you set up privacy policies and legal disclaimers if you’re launching a website or selling digital products.
• And for keeping your books clean, QuickBooks, Wave, or Xero will make tax season way less stressful.

One more thing: If you’re chasing partnerships, it’s also a good idea to always have a basic brand deal contract template. It’s the difference between getting paid on time and chasing invoices all month.

The bottom line

Becoming an influencer in 2025 isn’t about chasing fame or followers as much as it is about building trust at scale. You have to show up consistently, deliver real value, and be bold enough to keep going even when no one’s watching.
There’s no perfect strategy or guaranteed formula, but there is a clear path:

• Know who you’re talking to
• Craft a brand people care about
• Post with purpose
• Engage like a human
• Use data to get smarter
• Monetize in a way that aligns with your audience
• And treat it all like a real business

Need help growing your account, diversifying, monetizing, or dealing with PR? We can help with all of that. Book a call, and our experts will start working on a personalized strategy.