Nowadays everybody wants to be an influencer or a content creator or both. In fact, a great number of people will put one or both of those on their social media accounts to identify themselves as being exactly that, regardless of what level they’re at and/or if it’s even true or not.
And that, my friends, is a very common and serious problem worth analyzing.
Depending on the platform, I have social media accounts where I refer to myself as everything from publicist to podcaster to speaker to blogger to broadcaster to author. I can list all of those with confidence too, knowing that if someone were to attempt to call me out on one or more of them, I can overwhelmingly back up each and every one of them. (Mind you, this can also apply to your business card or the electronic signature in your email, meaning, not just your social media accounts.)
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Follow me on this exercise because I’m going to encourage you to test it out with yourself.
I am a publicist. You’re currently on the website for my company, Now Hear This, Inc. and here is an exhaustive list of past and present clients. I have been podcasting (every week) since February 2014 and am best known for my show, “Now Hear This Entertainment.” I am so much of a speaker that I have an entirely separate website for all the speaking that I do. I shouldn’t have to explain my being a blogger since you’re reading just the latest entry in what is now just about nine years of weekly posts. The broadcasting is not only past roles but still being active with three of the sports programs at the University of Tampa. And my author title comes from having done the four volume eBook series, “Bruce’s Bonus Book.”
So now think of the titles that you list for yourself. If someone were to ask you about one or more of them, could you give a succinct one-sentence description as I just did? More importantly, is there concrete evidence such as what I just gave or are you being vague to the point of leaving doubt with the person who just asked you to explain?
Equally important, as I said at the outset, is whether you’re actually doing what your title says or wanting to do it. If the latter, don’t be ashamed to put “aspiring influencer.” For starters, you’re showing your honesty, which is huge because trust is so important in that world. Brands want people who are going to rep them knowing that the followers trust the recommendation(s).
If you have a conversation with someone and tell them you’re an influencer and then they look you up on, say, Instagram, and you have 423 followers, you absolutely won’t hear from them again.
If you say that you’re a content creator, be prepared to be asked, “Well, what kind of content do you create?” That’s where the rubber meets the road. If you can’t come back with a strong, confident answer that they can find tangible proof of, your credibility has just gone out the window and they’re going to think you don’t create much of anything at all other than fabrications of what you want people to believe is substantive.
Another area to be wary of is scaring people off. An example here is emails that people receive, notifying them of a connection request that they’ve been sent through LinkedIn. I’ve gotten those, seen what people describe themselves as, and immediately decided, “Nope, I’m not going to accept it. He/she just wants to sell me something.”
On the flip side of all this is that you could be selling yourself short. If you are a singer, songwriter, guitar and piano player, as well as a producer, and you only list ‘musician’ for what you do, you very well might be missing out on work because someone had an opportunity for a producer or a singer and assumed you aren’t either one of those.
Has this made you rethink your approach? Do you want to bounce some of it off me so we can mutually agree on something accurate? Call me through the Owwll app so that we can connect via a voice call and get you in an even better position to succeed with all that you’re doing. I’d welcome the opportunity to bring some of my almost 20 years of experience running Now Hear This to the efforts that you’re making.