Everyone hates the term “influencer”.
I don’t mind the word, despite the war that everyone wants to rage on it these days.
What else should we call ourselves? We influence people — not just to buy, but to think and engage differently with the world.
Being an “influencer” is actually a brand new thing when you think about it. We just started popping up in the last decade and like a rare species of animal, not a lot is known about the realities of this lifestyle.
I want to fill in the blanks for anyone that’s wanted to be a successful blogger, vlogger, or straight up influencer.
Here are some things I wish I would’ve known.
You’ll Get an Overflow of Messages
If I wanted to respond to everybody who commented on posts, direct messaged me, emailed me, or contacted me through the form on my site, I’d have about 300–400 messages to write each day.
My Facebook videos alone get about 200 new comments per day. My Medium posts? Probably about 10–20 new responses per day.
I do my best to respond to everyone on Tuesdays — where I easily spend 2–3 hours getting back to the most important messages.
Some people even get angry that you didn’t respond to them.
This is very unusual! It takes some getting used too, but if you want to be an influencer get ready for this one day.
People Will Viciously Attack You
People are mean online. Yes, you may have had a tizzy with your weird uncle on Facebook about his political views once or twice, but you’ve never had dozens of people come for you in the comments section or your inbox before.
It gets nasty and at times can feel like the entire world is against you.
I don’t know how else to describe it except that it feels like you’re getting bullied at school — just, it’s ten times worse because sometimes it can be quite public.
I knew the internet was nasty, but I never thought I’d be the target of so many personal attacks at once like you may have seen with your favorite influencers.
If you get big enough, the personal attacks will come. Just get ready.
You’ll be Intellectually Attacked
A better form of attack from others online are the intellectual ones. The ones where people attack your ideas, not your character.
I won’t talk about this too much, but I never expected such thoughtful responses to my ideas.
I’ve received 10–15 paragraph article-length responses from people before. It’s pretty cool to see someone read what you wrote and take ten or fifteen minutes to respond to it with great insight.
These comments are diamonds in the rough. Respond gracefully if you’re wrong and thank them for reading.
People Will Use You
When you get big, people like to start using you, or more specifically, your audience. Be wary of those who come out of the woodwork. They have everything to win from an affiliation with you while you, well, don’t always.
Yes, I could attend every event, interview on every podcast, and help everybody with their ventures.. but that’s taking time away from what I want to build and if you in turn keep doing favors for people, you’ll never have time for yourself.
So, pick your affiliations carefully. Be generous with your time and help those who want to interview you, but don’t give too much time away to snakes in the grass who don’t actually give a crap about you.
They do exist, and they’re more prevalent than you think.
You’ll Meet Your Idols
I’ve met many big names on Medium. I thought I’d actually get to talk to Niklas Göke or meet Tiffany Sun in person in Vietnam, but even crazier, I never expected to get to watch them grow even bigger or evolve even more over the years.
Niklas Göke was already such a big name on Medium when I got started, but he has since doubled his follower count and grown his own blog off Medium too.
You’ll Actually Have Influence
Okay, so one thing that’s super obvious here is that you get INFLUENCE when you’re an influencer. But let me tell you a secret..
You detach yourself from the views at a certain point. It’s weird to think I could look at 50,000 views and not think much of it, as if it were just a drop in the bucket or something, but when you’ve made videos that got 9,000,000 views, it’s easy to look at 50,000 as nothing.
But what so many of us forget at a certain point is that our creations are affecting MANY other people on a variety of levels.
Sometimes it’s not that big of an effect, but sometimes we can literally change the minds of hundreds of thousands of people if we strike internet gold and go viral. If we aren’t careful, we could end up doing much more harm than good.
Being 26 and having influence over the number of people I do with the cognitive and emotional gaps I know I possess is terrifying, and it’s not something I was ready for.
You May Have Less Time for Your Family and Friends
I regret not having enough energy to respond to my friends and family lately. I end up responding to so many people that the thought of sending one more digital message makes me want to vomit.
Not to mention sometimes these messages can get lost in the mountain of other ones I receive.
When so many people want your attention, the close relationships you do have may suffer. I’m not saying there’s no work-around to this, but I am saying that after three years of doing this I haven’t come up with a good work-around to it.
You’ll be Generally Confused About Where to Go Next
I have two online courses. I’ve monetized Facebook, Youtube, and Medium. This is great and makes me feel financially secure, but I have no idea where to go from here.
Will social media always be around? Will I start some sort of actual business next year? Will I write a book, or do a two-week mastermind in Spain this winter?
I don’t know where to go from here, and that’s both the beauty and curse of being an influencer. You have so many options but the impact of making a big mistake is infinitely more costly for me than for someone who has a steady job, because, well, I don’t always know where my next “paycheck” is going to come from..
My advice? Just surround yourself with awesome people who do what you do. They will help give you tips on how to monetize and take your business to the next level.
People will Support the Heck Out of You
I wanted to save the best for last. I have been the beneficiary of immense support from my audience. I can’t even begin to describe it.
Like I mentioned in my first point, I typically get hundreds of messages per day. People have given me gifts, made artwork for me, and driven four hours just to meet me at a meetup in Manila.
Having influence online is tough for a variety of reasons, but it’s always the support you receive that will keep you going. Funny how one great thing can outweigh many, many bad ones.
I thank you all for the support, and I pray for those who want to gain influence that you find ways to show your supporters gratitude.
They deserve it.
Never forget them!
When it comes to receiving nasty comments, someone once said. “Never argue with a pig. You will both get dirty but only one of you will enjoy it.”