Here’s how you can benefit from influencer marketing during this end-of-the-year holiday season:

Why Influencer Marketing Wins the Holiday Season

In 2025, effective holiday season marketing isn’t about louder ads — it’s about smarter storytelling. Shoppers are tuning out traditional promotions and paying closer attention to creators they already trust. That’s where influencer marketing makes the biggest impact, especially influencer marketing during the holidays, when trust drives every purchase decision.

Influencers blend inspiration with credibility, turning everyday posts into moments that drive discovery and purchase intent. It’s why brands continue to increase their investment — U.S. spending on influencer content is projected to exceed $10 billion in 2025, according to eMarketer.

During the holidays, this kind of content outperforms static ads in engagement, shares, and sentiment. From personalized gift ideas to cozy “shop with me” videos, creator-led storytelling adds warmth and authenticity to your seasonal campaigns — two things money can’t buy but influence can.

Holiday Campaign Ideas That Work in 2025

The strongest holiday season marketing campaigns in 2025 are rooted in creativity, timing, and trust. Instead of relying on mass promotions, brands are seeing bigger results through personalized influencer collaborations that feel festive — not forced.

1. Influencer promo codes.
According to recent data from eMarketer, nearly two-thirds of U.S. shoppers regularly search for discount codes when buying online — and that behavior spikes during the holidays. Partnering with influencers to share exclusive codes gives followers a reason to act fast while helping you track sales in real time.

2. Curated gift bundles.
Bundle products into thoughtful “for her,” “for him,” or “under $50” gift sets. Influencers can unbox and review them on video, turning ordinary bundles into must-have gift ideas.

3. Short-form video storytelling.
Reels, TikToks, and YouTube Shorts are still where shoppers spend most of their scrolling time. Let influencers showcase your products naturally — a cozy morning routine or festive DIY — to turn inspiration into conversion. 

4. Give email marketing a Try

Believe it or not, email marketing can be a great way to benefit from the holiday season as it offers an ROI averaging between $32 and $45 earned for every $1 spent in 2025. You must, however, start planning early to benefit from email marketing as you must have a solid email list in order to send targeted emails to your potential clients.

Optimize Your Holiday Content for Social Search (2025 Style)

In 2025, holiday season marketing is less about hashtag overload and more about smart social SEO. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram now rely on captions, audio, and keywords within posts to decide what content to show.

Encourage your influencers to write descriptive captions: for example, “3 easy holiday gifts under $25” and say those phrases on video for stronger search visibility. Keep just two or three relevant or branded hashtags for tracking and consistency.

It’s not about chasing trends; it’s about helping the algorithm understand your content faster and serving it to ready-to-shop audiences.

Turn Holiday Buzz into Measurable Results

The holidays move fast — but the right creators can help your brand stand out with authenticity and warmth. Influencers bring the personal touch that shoppers trust, making every campaign feel more human and effective. 

Ready to find your perfect match? Explore verified influencers on Afluencer and let CreatorGPT help you plan smarter, faster collaborations this holiday season.

The post How Brands Can Benefit From Influencer Marketing During the Holiday Season appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/how-to-become-a-micro-influencer/ Fri, 14 Apr 2023 01:57:57 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=21883 How many times have you scrolled through TikTok or Instagram, watching content from influencers, and thought, “I could do that”? Probably more often than you’d like. If you’ve been dreaming of making it big as an influencer, there’s never been a better time to start. Business Insider reports micro-influencers can make as much as $5,000 […]

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]]> How many times have you scrolled through TikTok or Instagram, watching content from influencers, and thought, “I could do that”? Probably more often than you’d like.

If you’ve been dreaming of making it big as an influencer, there’s never been a better time to start. Business Insider reports micro-influencers can make as much as $5,000 a month as brands increasingly turn to smaller-scale influencers to cultivate more authentic and meaningful relationships with their audiences.

But here’s the catch: becoming a successful micro-influencer takes more than just snapping a few photos and posting them on social media. It takes consistency, dedication, and hustle to stand out in a saturated space.

Feeling intimidated? We’ve got you covered. Read our start-to-finish guide on how to become a micro-influencer and start a profitable business.

What is a Micro-Influencer?

A micro-influencer is a social media personality with 1,000 and 100K followers. Micro-influencers create content on specific themes to build a niche audience and often go on to promote related products.

Even though their reach and influence are smaller than macro and mega influencers, micro-influencer marketing often delivers a higher return on investment for brands because these creators are close with their followers and have a greater sense of rapport than do larger-scale influencers.

One example of a successful micro-influencer is Pamela Soluri, a fashion influencer with over 70K followers on Instagram. She partners with beauty and fashion brands like MyBeautyBox, FEMME LUXE, Pixi, and more. Her content covers themes around her outfits, fashion advice, and beauty routines.

What Does A Micro-Influencer Do?

Here are a few tasks and activities that micro-influencers take up:

• Creating engaging content to entertain and educate their audience.
• Designing and optimizing their content strategy to stay ahead of the algorithm.
• Monetizing their content through affiliate marketing, merchandise selling, and other avenues.
• Using social media analytics and other tools to get a pulse of their followers and adapt their strategy.
• Collaborating with brands to promote their products or services through different formats of content.

How Many Subscribers Do You Need To Be A Micro-Influencer?

You need anywhere between 1000 and 100,000 followers to become a micro-influencer. Users with less than 10,000 followers can also be considered nano-influencers, but brands consider the 1000-100K range as the benchmark for defining a micro-influencer.

How Much Does A Micro-Influencer Make On Average?

A micro-influencer makes $1,420 per month on average, according to the HypeAuditor 2021 Influencer Income Survey. Influencer Marketing Hub reports that micro-influencers charge between $100 and $500 per post on different platforms, while the Creator Rates Report indicates that micro-influencers charge $200-$1,000 as their baseline fees.

A Complete Playbook on How to Become a Micro-Influencer

Maybe you’re ready to take the first step toward your micro-influencer business, but you feel intimidated by so much competition on every platform. Will anyone even follow me? Will I ever cross the 10,000 follower mark?

If self-doubt and confusion are holding you back, this is the only guide you need to create an airtight plan and build your career as a successful micro-influencer.

1. Determine what you’re passionate about

Most influencer profiles fail to take off because their content is scattered and disconnected. You have to create content around a few related themes for people to associate you with a certain type of content—entertaining or insightful.

So, start by defining themes you’re passionate about. Since you have to create a lot of content around these themes, it’s always a good idea to pick the ones you enjoy or specialize in.

For example, Kryss DeSandre started her journey as a fitness micro-influencer because she was a certified personal trainer. She decided to share her expertise as a trainer through Instagram content and motivate her audience to live a healthy life.

Like Kryss, your first task is figuring out what drives you and identifying topics you love discussing. This step will lead you to your niche. Here are a few actionable tips for finding the perfect niche once you’ve discovered your passion:

• Research the competition on multiple platforms and check out other influencers’ profiles in the same niche.
• Experiment with a few themes to see what performs the best, and keep evolving your choice of topics.
• Find topics that align well with your personality to keep your content as genuine and engaging as possible.

Defining your niche will guide all the next steps—your content strategy, branding, formats, and types of brands you collaborate with.

2. Find the ideal platform for your audience

Once you’ve narrowed your niche, it’s time to learn everything about your target audience. At the end of the day, your performance as an influencer relies heavily on how well you understand your audience.

A niche and hyper-engaged audience is one of the biggest differentiators for micro-influencers. So, if you want to build a standout profile, find and familiarize yourself with your target audience early on.

Start by analyzing similar influencers in your niche to identify the type of users engaging with their content. Create a basic profile of the people you want to reach. Define the ideal age, location, purpose, and lifestyle for your ideal followers.

This research will also help you pick the ideal platform for your micro-influencer business. Instead of juggling multiple platforms, start creating content consistently on a single channel and diversify your presence gradually. Learn where your target followers hang out the most and design a strategy focused on that platform.

Pro tip: Once you’ve decided on your niche and ideal platform, sign up and optimize your Afluencer profile with all the necessary details. You can get offers from brands in your niche and collaborate on exciting projects.

Sign up today!

3. Create content in your unique style

Content creation is one of the most important parts of your role as a micro-influencer. Many aspiring influencers often give up too soon because they can’t publish content consistently. This is why your content creation process can make or break the deal for you.

Here are four best practices to create content that resonates with your audience and follow a good posting schedule:

○ Design a content plan

Posting content every day isn’t for everyone. Some days you’ll feel uninspired, and other days might feel tiring. Several roadblocks can break your momentum and put a jarring halt to your posting schedule.

An effective way to avoid this situation (when it inevitably comes) is to create a detailed content plan. Outline your core content pillars, post ideas, inspiration, timelines, and other details. This will help you organize your content creation workflow and keep you ahead of the curve.

○ Curate content for creative inspiration

A creative block is your worst enemy as a micro-influencer. It’s difficult for influencers to get out of a rut once their creative instincts hit the wall. Content curation is a great technique to never run out of ideas and fuel your creativity anytime.

Curation is sourcing and saving great content that inspires you. This can be in any format—like a section of a book, newsletter edition, blog, or similar. You’re essentially finding unique ideas from multiple sources to create similar or contrary content in the future.

○ Follow your visual aesthetic

One way to set yourself apart from the competition and create a more appealing profile is by defining your unique aesthetic. Create a visual style reflecting your personality and choose the right color palette, typeface, imagery, and mood board.

Think of your profile as a brand. This step will make your brand more memorable and easily recognizable. So, when non-followers come across your content randomly, they’ll instantly remember you and maybe hit the follow button.

○ Collaborate with other creators

While establishing and perfecting your style matters, partnering with other influencers in your niche and combining your styles is equally important. This will be a mutually beneficial partnership and expand the influence of everyone involved.

Choose creators who share the same values as you. Remember to brainstorm something that showcases the unique style for both of you.

4. Analyze your performance and build a portfolio

You need a stellar portfolio to bag projects with good brands in your niche. Since the competition is higher among micro-influencers, your portfolio will prove your credibility and give brands or marketing teams the right reasons to choose you over others.

Here’s how you can create a good portfolio:

• Use analytics tools: Track your content performance using analytics tools. These tools provide useful insights into your audience demographics, engagement rates, and reach. You can use these insights to identify what type of content performs well. They also help in building case studies for every project you work on.

• Source client and audience testimonials: Social proof is a great way to add credibility to your name. You can earn social proof by requesting your clients for a testimonial. If you don’t have enough clients, source positive reviews from your audience. Ask them to share how you’ve impacted their lives and add these clips to your portfolio.

• Showcase your best work: Your portfolio shouldn’t just be a set of posts and metrics. Elaborate on your process and thought behind every post or project to highlight your critical thinking skills. Explain the meaning you wanted to convey through individual posts to add more meaning to your work.

You can host your portfolio on a micro-site created on Notion or make a full-fledged website. For example, Mima and Peter are two travel influencers creating content for their Instagram account, auldsouls. They designed a website to detail their story, work, and partnerships.

5. Define value propositions for brand partnerships

Why should brands hire you over tens of other micro-influencers like you? The last step in building a strong profile as a micro-influencer is determining the value propositions you offer brands. These are the major differentiators that give you an edge over the competition.

You can highlight these value props in your portfolio and your Afluencer profile too. Let’s look at a few popular ideas you can spotlight for bagging more brand partnerships:

• Audience demographics: Give your prospective clients a clear insight into your audience—their age, gender, location, and interests. Build your positioning around this niche audience and target brands catering to this specific group.

• Content formats: One of the first considerations for a brand looking for micro-influencers is whether your content aligns with its strategy. So, highlight the content formats you’ve tried in your value propositions. Showcase examples of each format you’ve tried so far to make a stronger case for your skills.

• Engagement rates: Another attractive point for micro-influencers is their engagement rate. A higher rate promises more exposure and clicks for brands. So, they’ll likely make their call based on this percentage. While you strive to proactively engage with your followers, highlight your engagement numbers as a differentiator.

• Authenticity and credibility: As we mentioned, one of the biggest reasons for brands to partner with micro-influencers is their genuine connection with their target audience. Show your audience’s trust in you by adding clips of their positive messages and comments.

If you’re pitching brands for partnerships, aim to include a few collaboration ideas along with your primary value proposition. This will give potential customers a peek into your creativity and market knowledge.

6 Top Skills of a Successful Micro-Influencer

Now that we’ve covered our roadmap for becoming a micro-influencer, let’s break down the six most important skills you need to develop in this role:

1) Audience Engagement

For micro-influencers, their audience is everything. Brands come to you to tap into your engaged audience and drive more conversions. If your followers don’t engage with your content, it’s an immediate red flag putting you out of contention. So, knowing how to engage your audience is among the top skills for micro-influencers.

2) Storytelling and writing

While most social platforms are visual, you need good storytelling skills to reel in more viewers and create a strong impact with your content. Learn the nuances of storytelling and refine your writing skills to create meaningful content around any topic or brand.

3) Adaptability and creativity

As a micro-influencer, you’ll have to work with brands from multiple verticals—even if they don’t align exactly with your niche. This means you should be adaptable enough to produce engaging content for each brand and make it relevant for your audience.

4) Social media management

Effectively managing your social media presence is undoubtedly one of the core skills for micro-influencers. You have to be aware of algorithm changes, platform updates, trends, and user preferences at all times to iterate your strategy accordingly.

5) Analytics and data analysis

Actively tracking your performance and monitoring your audience preferences is a big part of the typical micro-influencer role. Explore and pick your analytics tech stack to do this effortlessly and make data-driven decisions to one-up your competition.

6) Business and marketing skills

Building your micro-influencer profile is nothing less than running a business. Besides creating content, you have to find the best ways to market your brand and create systems for repeatable success. Learn these business skills and boost your hands-on marketing knowledge to maintain positive client relationships.

The bottom line: Learning is a constant for micro-influencers. You have to keep upskilling to offer more to your audience and bring better ROI for your clients.

Get Ready to Launch Your Micro-Influencer Career

That’s a wrap on our complete guide on how to become a micro-influencer. While taking the first step and setting up your micro-influencer profile is easy, maintaining the right momentum and consistently posting content is difficult.

With this start-to-finish guide, you can unlock the secrets to starting and scaling your career as a micro-influencer. Don’t forget to sign up on Afluencer to bag inbound brand projects.

The post How to Become a Micro-Influencer appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/youtube-insider-secrets-for-creators/ Fri, 17 Mar 2023 03:47:30 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=21577 Jake Fellman was an average guy until he started creating content on YouTube in 2020. From September 2020 to this day, his YouTube creator account has been one of the fastest-growing channels on the platform, with over 15 million subscribers (and counting). The secret behind Jake’s success? Producing short-form videos for YouTube Shorts. In his […]

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]]> Jake Fellman was an average guy until he started creating content on YouTube in 2020. From September 2020 to this day, his YouTube creator account has been one of the fastest-growing channels on the platform, with over 15 million subscribers (and counting).

The secret behind Jake’s success? Producing short-form videos for YouTube Shorts. In his own words:

“Short-form video is 99% content, 1% everything else.”

As of 2022, there are at least 51 million creators on YouTube, but only a small percent succeed in making an impact like Jake.

If you want to be one of them, this start-to-finish YouTube guide for creators will help you start and scale your channel with proven tips on starting a channel from scratch and maximizing its ROI.

Why Create Content on YouTube?

First things first: Let’s talk about why creators and influencers should focus on YouTube as a distribution channel.

While TikTok’s popularity has soared in recent years, YouTube continues to be a reliable channel for distribution. It promises visibility and organic growth to creators repurposing content from different platforms.

What’s more: creating content on YouTube has many benefits, such as…

Multi-language Audio to Widen Reach

Multi-language audio is one of YouTube’s latest features to let creators add audio tracks in different languages. On top of auto-translated captions, this feature allows you to reach a global audience and deliver content in their native language. The result? Higher reach and increased watch time. Look at this feature in action on MrBeast’s YouTube channel:

Means to Build & Engage a Community of Followers

Unlike other social media platforms, YouTube has always placed more emphasis on community-building. With memberships, creators can monetize their community and engage better with their subscribers. Many creators are also posting original content to give members exclusive privileges. For example, Swagg’s membership offers subscribers a chance to play with the gamer:

Greater Visibility via YouTube SEO

Another great advantage of creating content on YouTube is the share of traffic you can win by optimizing your channel and videos. Having a YouTube SEO strategy can boost rankings in search results, which means more views and long-term traffic. By capturing traffic for several strategic keywords, you can gradually level up your performance with higher watch time, more subscribers, and greater engagement.

Increased Revenue as a Casual Creator with Shorts

Creators can replicate Jake Fellman’s success on YouTube by posting Shorts, which are a section dedicated to short-form video content on the app. This is an opportunity to distribute content from Instagram and TikTok to get more views and boost engagement. In fact, the number of channels uploaded to Shorts daily on YouTube grew by over 80% in 2022. Muaaz, a YouTube creator and strategist, predicts the potential of Shorts for creators:

Enjoy More Monetization Options to Maximize Earnings

YouTube has expanded its monetization capabilities for creators in many ways. Your earning potential goes beyond ads with additional avenues like subscriptions, shopping, and digital goods. Jin Yong-jin, a South Korean creator, multiplied his revenue by adding over 30,000 members to his channel in seven months.

One thing is clear: YouTube can help you level up your creator business by building a deeper connection with your audience and increasing your earning potential. Wondering how to get started on the platform? Next, we’ll share a fail-proof framework.

How to Start Your YouTube Channel: A Quick and Actionable Guide

There’s no shortage of advice on how to start a YouTube channel. But with so many varying tips and best practices for starting your channel, it can get overwhelming when you’re trying to filter the right advice and create your action plan.

We did the legwork for you to create this short and actionable guide on starting a YouTube channel with only the most essential steps. Let’s dive in.

1. Determine your niche and build a foundational strategy

The first piece of the puzzle is finding topics you’re passionate about and creating a strategy around them.

To succeed as a YouTube creator, you need to consistently publish niche content with unique insights and appeal. So, if you pick a niche randomly—or worse—don’t pick one at all, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

“When it comes to being a creator, the quality of your content is just as important as the quantity. Far too many people advise just to post six times a day, but that doesn’t mean anything if the quality of what you are doing isn’t up to par. Quality matters in terms of storytelling, editing choices, and even the length of a video.”

Chris Lawrence, YouTube Creator

Picking a niche requires research and self-analysis. You need to know the competition and visibility for any niche you choose. Here are five questions to consider when finalizing your niche:

• How much do you already know about [your niche]?
• What other creators are already producing content in [your niche]?
• How will you position yourself to differentiate your channel from others?
• Will you enjoy creating unique content and sourcing insights for [your niche]?
• What’s the traffic volume for some of the most and least popular keywords in [your niche]?

With this prep work, you can decide the best option for your channel. Try experimenting with multiple inter-related niches and then picking the best-performing one.

Once you’ve narrowed down your niche, focus on setting the groundwork for your channel. This means performing market and audience research to guide your content strategy in the next steps. This initial research will prepare you to create high-quality content targeted at your ideal viewers.

2. Outline goals and benchmarks for your channel

Creating a YouTube channel is a lot like going on a road trip. Without an itinerary of where you’re headed, you might get lost in the middle of the journey.

For YouTube creators, an itinerary includes a set of goals, milestones, and metrics that will help evaluate success. This roadmap helps creators plan content to help achieve those goals and prevents them from going off track and delaying their growth targets.

“My first 30 days, I posted a video every single day on YouTube. This was back in 2020, before Shorts. Each video was around two to eight minutes long. It was a ton of work, but ‘putting in the reps’ was wildly helpful to learn what worked. For YouTube particularly, I think if you base your topics on SEO keyword research, it’s a no-brainer to help you start ranking. Quality will come. Perfection is what kills 99% of new channels, in my opinion.”

Dara Denney, YouTube expert

Here are a few best practices to determine the goals, milestones, and metrics for your YouTube channel:

• Look at your direct competitors and map their growth to set basic benchmarks for yourself.
• Create a big-picture vision for your channel to define where you want your channel to be in a few years.
• Break down this big picture into realistic and time-bound goals—these can be a set of quarterly or yearly goals.
• Go deeper to establish smaller milestones and timelines for every goal to ensure you have a clear game plan for achieving these goals.
• Do a risk analysis and survey fellow creators to identify potential challenges you might face and create a mitigation plan.
• Select relevant metrics for every goal and set a review workflow to monitor your progress.

Remember: goal-setting isn’t a one-and-done process. You have to revisit your goals and milestones as you move forward and modify them to push harder instead of becoming comfortable.

3. Design an airtight content strategy and start creating

When you know your target audience and core topics, chalk out an in-depth content strategy to create meaningful content.

Listing your preferred topics for an entire week or month at once and batch-creating content can help you maintain a steady momentum and stick to your publishing schedule without breaking a sweat. That’s the mantra Matt Gray follows for publishing content across platforms, including YouTube.

Follow these actionable tips on creating your YouTube content strategy:

• Define your core content pillars and list the main goals for each video—educate, inspire, and entertain.

• Outline the guiding principles for your content based on what you want to achieve with your channel—build awareness, create a community, maximize revenue, and more.

• Decide and divide your topics into these categories:

• Create a distribution plan to maximize visibility for your content by sharing it on different channels in other formats.

Put simply, a content strategy prevents you from shooting in the dark. It encourages consistency and streamlines your content creation and distribution workflows.

“I try to leverage other platforms like my blog, email, and Instagram to share my new YouTube videos. I use my Community tab (although not consistently) to tease a new video and spark conversations. It’s also wise to try to answer each reply, as it helps build community.”

Elna Cain, YouTube Creator

4. Create, verify, and optimize your YouTube account

Now that you’ve created a fail-proof roadmap for your YouTube channel, it’s time to create an account and get the ball rolling.

Sign up on the platform or log into an existing account. Go to the menu on the right and hit the Create channel option. Follow the prompts to set up your account and then customize the layout. Add your branding to the channel with a profile photo, banner, about section, and more. You can also customize your channel’s URL when you collect 100+ subscribers.

Once these basic details are in order, focus on verifying your account. Note that account verification isn’t the same as the verification badge you receive on crossing 100k followers.

Verify your YouTube channel to prove the validity of your contact information to upload custom thumbnails, long videos, live streams, and more.

The final step is about optimizing your YouTube account for a search-friendly presence. While we’ll discuss the nuances of YouTube SEO in detail shortly, you can start with these tips:

• Create a channel trailer to give new visitors quick context about your content.
• Create custom thumbnails with overlay text and your branding to attract more viewers.

Wono, a YouTube strategist, stresses the importance of custom thumbnails and titles…

• Design topic-based playlists to club together videos on the same themes for a longer watch time.
• Choose the most popular keywords in your niche and add them to your channel description.

With that, you’ve finally started your journey as a YouTube content creator. But it’s not over yet.

5. Monitor performance to see what resonates with your audience

The final step in starting your YouTube channel is tracking your progress. Winning new subscribers and watching the numbers on your analytics dashboard grow feels great. But if you want to sustain and scale this growth, you have to consistently track performance and see what’s working and what’s not.

“Compelling video thumbnails oftenresult in more views. Create ones that are compelling (not clickbaity) but enough to catch someone’s eye while they’re scrolling and. I use Canva, so I also make sure that any words or font contrast well with the thumbnail to make it pop.”

Josh, Host of of The Wild West Extravaganza

As a best practice, choose metrics relevant to your goals and monitor this data to analyze your progress. Besides checking the numbers on the Youtube Creator Studio Analytics, you can:

• Add trackable links to your video descriptions.
• Split-test different video thumbnails to see what format performs best.
• Ask customers if they heard about you via YouTube.
• Keep an eye on referral traffic sources from other platforms.
• Use social listening tools to see who’s mentioning your YouTube channel.

Use this five-step framework to set up your brand-new YouTube channel and diversify your presence as a creator. If you’re already posting content on the platform but struggling to increase visibility, the next sections are for you.

How to Increase YouTube Views: 4 Best Practices 

Ask any YouTube creator why they stopped creating content on the app, and you’ll likely get the same answer: not getting enough views on their videos.

Creators can easily feel discouraged when they don’t attract enough viewers to their content. Imagine hours of hard work and creative effort resulting in hardly 500 views. So, we curated these hands-on tips to help you increase YouTube views and watch your channel thrive.

1. Optimize your content for YouTube SEO

SEO isn’t the silver bullet, but for YouTube, it’s the closest thing to one. Optimizing your content and channel for search can win you higher rankings in relevant searches and increase your visibility.

Here are a few tips to make your content more SEO-focused:

• Perform keyword research using tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to identify high-volume keywords with a good reach.
• Decide topics and content formats for your shortlisted keywords and incorporate each keyword in the video title, description, tags, file name, and thumbnail.
• Add transcriptions and captions to your video to help the algorithms understand your content easily.
• Create timestamps for the ease of watching your videos and engaging your viewers.
• Selectively add CTAs to encourage viewers to perform the next steps and maximize engagement.

Tap into the power of the world’s second-largest search engine to drive more traffic to your channel and add more subscribers.

2. Implement audience engagement tactics

Your engagement rate can make or break your YouTube channel’s success. It tells the algorithm whether subscribers enjoy your content or not.

Here’s our best advice to ensure you’re engaging your audience effectively and giving them content worth consuming:

• Hop on the viral trends bandwagon and put your personal spin on it to attract more viewers.

• Design catchy and appealing thumbnails supported by intriguing copy to get more eyeballs.

• Create short-form videos and repurpose original content into Shorts to maximize engagement.

• Regularly interact with your audience through live streams and incentivize engagement through giveaways.

• Use techniques like pattern interrupt—a change in the visual style and tone in a video to refocus viewers’ attention—in your content to avoid boring your viewers.

Remember: the more seamless the viewing experience, the higher engagement levels you can achieve.

3. Maximize watch time with topic-wise playlists

Watch time is a crucial ranking metric on YouTube. It measures the total time users spend on your channel. Rather than calculating the watch time for individual videos, it counts the collective time spent watching multiple videos from your channel.

If people stick around for a long time, it’s a positive indicator of high engagement levels on your channel. As a result, this can bump up your rankings and increase views.

Grouping videos on similar topics or themes is a surefire way to maximize watch time. This allows visitors to consume content and watch multiple videos seamlessly. For example, a finance content creator, Eric Andrews, has designed these topic-wise playlists to educate his audience on different subjects.

4. Create a distribution strategy to promote videos

One area where most YouTube creators drop the ball is distributing their videos properly. A solid distribution strategy can spread your content across multiple sites and reach diverse audiences, leading to even more views.

Design a steady pipeline to promote every new video on your channel. You can repurpose it into a carousel for Instagram and LinkedIn, a Twitter thread, an email, a blog, and so much more. Choose the most feasible options and then create different spokes to distribute your original video.

Here’s a great example from freelance writer and creator, Colleen Welsch. She runs a YouTube channel named The Freelance Writer’s Guide and promotes every video on her newsletter and also her Instagram feed.

How to Win More Subscribers for Your YouTube Channel

You’re getting great views on every video, the watch time is increasing steadily, and the engagement rate shows promise. Now, the bigger question is: how to scale these numbers and grow your channel?

The short answer: adding more subscribers

Getting more views is easy if you optimize your content and promote it well. But getting more subscribers is a long-term process to build enough credibility for yourself and win viewers’ interest. Here are four solid ways to do this for your channel:

Make your channel appealing to new visitors

What happens when a user lands on your channel for the first time? They’ll either get confused/bored and leave the page or explore different sections and watch your content. If you want the latter (duh!), then you have to design your channel to appeal to these first-time visitors.

One way to do this is by cleaning and organizing your channel. Do regular housekeeping to delete fluff content, re-write descriptions, and create more intriguing thumbnails.

Your channel trailer also plays a critical role here. It has to be compelling enough to hook your viewers and hold their attention till the end. Besides, it should give them convincing reasons to watch more videos and hit the subscribe button.

Invest time and money to improve content quality

Let’s face it, you might be losing your viewers to your competitors because their videos are of better quality. Improving quality doesn’t necessarily mean buying expensive equipment for your video setup. You can level up your content quality by:

• Sourcing unique and fresh ideas to educate/entertain your audience.

• Editing your videos for a more professional look and feel with tools like VEED and Filmora.

• Creating timestamps to break down the content into skippable sections.

• Talking to your target viewers about their preferred content and adjusting your video creation process to match these preferences.

Create irresistible calls-to-action (CTAs) to increase subscriptions

Adding CTAs is a fairly common tactic to add more subscribers. But not every creator uses this tactic properly. You can overwhelm viewers with too many CTAs, confuse them with unclear phrasing, or create zero impact with generic lines.

To hit the right spot with your CTAs, create multiple variations and run A/B tests. This will tell you the overall performance of each CTA and rank all the versions based on their impact.

For example, Max Müller adds a simple CTA in the description of his videos for viewers who want to learn more about the topic.

Promote your channel among relevant audiences

Distributing your content can increase views on individual videos. But promoting your channel is a great way to get more visitors to your account and convert them into subscribers.

Reach the right audience by promoting your channel in niche communities. You can also partner with fellow creators to tap into their network for promotion. Besides, don’t forget to use your own network to share glimpses from your YouTube channel.

Here’s how Kaleena Stroud, a copywriter, and creator, promoted her YouTube in a community of content marketers on Slack.

Measure & Scale your YouTube Channel with 7 Metrics

We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again: tracking your progress is non-negotiable for success on any platform. But when it comes to YouTube, you might get confused by too many KPIs—which ones to track and how to analyze the numbers?

To eliminate this confusion, we created this list of seven essential YouTube metrics to measure your performance:

1. Watch time: The total time people spend on your channel watching multiple videos. The YouTube algorithm prioritizes channels with higher watch time in the search results. The Watch Time metric will show you the time for individual videos and also a ranking of all videos based on this value.
2. Engagement: Includes multiple metrics such as views, likes, comments, shares, subscribers, and more. It measures viewers’ interactions with each video and determines the content’s ranking accordingly. It also includes the average view duration to indicate whether viewers like the content.
3. Traffic Sources: Records the traffic coming from external channels. It tells you where users found your channel or video. This metric is crucial to shaping your content distribution strategy to double down on channels driving a large chunk of the total traffic.
4. Subscriber Growth: This metric tracks the increase or decrease in your subscribers. It also gives you more insight into your subscribers, covering parameters like location, age, gender, and more.
5. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Calculates the percentage of people clicking on your video. It’s a good metric to test the effectiveness of your thumbnails and titles. A higher CTR means more people resonated with the thumbnail/title and wanted to watch the video.
6. Audience Retention: Indicates how many people watch your video or drop off. The rate is available for every second of the video so that you can get granular insights into the retention and drop-off rates.
7. Playlist Engagement: Engagement rate for individual playlists. You can learn which topics or themes resonate more with your audience and differentiate the top-performing playlists from the rest. If your engagement rate for playlists is poor, change your approach to increase retention.

Get Ready to Build Your YouTube Empire

Done right, YouTube can unlock the gateway to a stronger community and more revenue for creators. But while most creators start on a strong note, they lose momentum, and their YouTube channel takes a backseat.

So, we created this start-to-finish guide to help creators like you launch their YouTube channel and sustain its growth in the long haul. Remember to be patient and put in consistent effort to see your channel thrive!

Once you’ve built an impressive channel, set up your Afluencer profile to secure brand partnerships and earn more.

The post Cracking the YouTube Code: Insider Secrets for Creators to Build a Thriving Channel appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/user-generated-content-guide/ Sun, 06 Nov 2022 02:04:00 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=20149 When IKEA wanted to break into the UK and Ireland markets, they faced the challenge of creating a mix of global and local content to drive sales. The furniture brand nudged its local customers to share pictures of their products at IKEA at Mine, a platform dedicated to user-generated content (UGC). This emphasis on UGC […]

The post A Start-To-Finish Guide On User-Generated Content appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> When IKEA wanted to break into the UK and Ireland markets, they faced the challenge of creating a mix of global and local content to drive sales. The furniture brand nudged its local customers to share pictures of their products at IKEA at Mine, a platform dedicated to user-generated content (UGC).

This emphasis on UGC marketing increased IKEA’s engagement rate by 2.7X, the conversion rate by 3.54x, and social media reach by 27%.

If you’re wondering what it takes to unlock this massive level of success using user-generated content, we’ll give you all the tips, best practices, and examples in this article. Stick with us till the end, and we’ll also tell you how working with influencers can ramp up your ROI.

What is user-generated content?

User-generated content is all the organic content your customers create for your brand. It can be a social media post, an email, a video, or other formats. Users post this brand-specific content organically to share their experience with your brand or participate in a community contest.

“People already consume user-generated content daily. A few examples: Product or company reviews, how-to’s demonstrating how to use a product, and shopping hauls with latest purchases.”

-Shama Hyder, CEO & Founder at Zen Media

Here’s a great example of UGC by Chubbies. The apparel brand has a popular hashtag, #chubbiesshorts, on Instagram to capture user-generated content in a single place. With close to 20,000 posts, this hashtag acts as a real-life, unfiltered catalog for the brand.

6 Undeniable benefits of creating UGC content

It’s no surprise that the ecommerce market is more competitive than ever, with marketing campaigns raising the bar every year. If you want to convince target buyers, win their trust, and hit your revenue goals, you must go beyond the mainstream marketing tactics. This is where UGC can turn the tables in your favor. It’s a customer-centric and cost-effective marketing technique with a good ROI.

“The mistake brands make on social media, especially when trying to create community, is focusing on being interesting without investing their interest in people. Sharing user-generated content is critical to success now.”

-Kurt Elster, Shopify Expert

Here are a few reasons you should invest in UGC to connect with your target buyers:

1. Creates an authentic brand image

Customers don’t want to buy from just another brand. Instead, they dig deep by searching on the internet or asking their friends for recommendations to weigh all their options and make a buying decision.

One key factor that outweighs all others in this pre-purchase research is authenticity, as 88% of people agree. To build an authentic brand image, you must go beyond the standard hard-selling ads and branded content. That’s where UGC comes into the picture.

User-generated content is unfiltered and unsponsored content shared by actual customers. It works as word-of-mouth marketing, showing interested buyers what they will get if they buy from you, thus building more authenticity for your brand.

Put simply, UGC connects actual and potential buyers to make a case for you and create a positive reputation.

2. Builds social proof for the brand

Starting an ecommerce store is not enough. You need to win your customers’ trust and create social proof that your products are worth the price.

As opposed to the planned and polished branded content flooding your social media feeds, UGC brings real experiences to the table. It includes organic insights and opinions from your happy customers. This content nudges potential buyers to trust you over other brands and buy from you. After all, 91% of shoppers rely on customer reviews to finalize purchases.

3. Accelerates buying decisions

User-generated content creates a positive sentiment around your brand. It wins people’s trust, influences them positively, and pushes them down the sales funnel toward a purchase. Not just that, but it also builds enough confidence in interested buyers to speed up these buying decisions.

For example, if a customer posts a glowing review of your products on Instagram, their friends and acquaintances looking to buy something similar will be more inclined to place their order with you.

This explains why 90% of US shoppers consider UGC a decisive factor in their purchase decisions—it assures them that they’re making the right decision.

4. Wins customer loyalty and trust

UGC is not just about driving sales; it’s equally about creating a community of loyal customers. Sharing brand-specific content allows your buyers to be a part of your brand’s growth instead of just being a sales figure. It deepens engagement and solidifies their relationship with your brand.

This brand affinity results in long-term loyalty and trust. In essence, UGC shows customers they matter and makes them brand advocates.

5. Aligns with social commerce

UGC builds a stronger case for social commerce—shopping directly from social media platforms.

You can integrate your social store with UGC marketing. So, when users see a customer’s post about your brand, they can instantly jump to the relevant products in the post, read its specifications, and check out to finish their purchase.

UGC simplifies social commerce for brands and customers alike. Brands don’t have to push their products through ads to get more sales. On the flip side, customers can see your products in real life, decide to buy a product, and buy it in a few clicks without ever leaving the app.

6. Increases organic reach

With so much marketing noise and clutter, reaching the right people is no cakewalk. Good quality and positive reviews are not enough to put you in front of your target audience. You need that extra boost of visibility to reach untapped markets and meet buyers where they are and convert them.

UGC enables brand discovery and enhances your reach to bring more buyers into the funnel. It’s a proven way to increase audience engagement, leading to more shares and visibility across social media.

7 User-generated content examples that work (and why)

Building your user-generated content strategy from scratch can be challenging. The best way to learn what would work for your brand is to analyze what other brands are doing and why their UGC strategy is a hit.

We’ve done the legwork to give you seven great examples of user-generated content and why these campaigns work.

1. KeepCup

KeepCup sells reusable cups and bottles. The mission-driven brand has a great community of buyers on Instagram, creating UGC with the hashtag #keepcupbrew. The hashtag has over 4000 posts in different formats, spotlighting different KeepCup products and sharing reviews.

With over 170k followers on Instagram, the brand effectively uses this platform to engage with its existing customers and attract new ones. Besides this hashtag, you’ll also find user-generated posts on their main IG feed.

2. One Kings Lane

One Kings Lane is a furniture brand with its own hashtag, #myOKLstyle, to bring all its UGC content to a single place on Instagram. The brand has a massive network of nearly 900k followers on IG with over 200k user-generated posts on their hashtag.

These posts make it easy for any interested buyer to look at the brand’s catalog in real life and make a purchase decision. Since buying furniture is a significant investment, people can also get added assurance about the quality and look of OKL’s products.

3. d’you

d’you is a skincare brand with a solid UGC marketing strategy for Instagram. They actively post user-generated content in their main IG feed. Most of these posts include product reviews and advice on how to best use d’you’s products.

This way, the brand can create enough social proof to convert potential buyers. They can also educate their audience on the best ways to use their products to see visible results quickly.

4. Benefit Cosmetics

Benefit Cosmetics strategically uses its million followers on Twitter to produce and promote UGC content. The beauty brand frequently shares and retweets user-generated posts to show how customers love their products.

Their strategy helps engage its existing customers because they feel validated when the official account retweets its content. What’s more, it convinces potential buyers to buy from Benefit Cosmetics because so many people are already sharing great reviews for them.

5. Tecovas

Tecovas is an up-and-coming footwear brand with a sizeable network on Twitter. They frequently retweet their customers’ content to pepper their Twitter feed with UGC content.

This tactic creates a positive reputation because interested buyers can see what these boots look like in real life. These user reviews also convey that the customers are happy with the product’s quality and style.

6. Supergoop!

Supergoop! is a skincare brand selling sun protection products. Their UGC strategy is an excellent example of building social proof and creating buyer interest through high-quality user-generated content on TikTok.

Most of Supergoop!’s UGC videos show how to use their products. These videos also reiterate the brand’s key value proposition of caring for your skin correctly.

7. Jones Road Beauty

Jones Road Beauty differentiates itself in an oversaturated beauty market with a kick-ass UGC strategy for TikTok. The brand uses a mix of paid and organic marketing tactics on TikTok to produce a massive pool of UGC content.

Their aggressive UGC marketing efforts on TikTok ensured that 34% of their yearly revenue came from the platform. They specifically showcased women in their 50s on their TikTok page to garner a lot of buzzes and build a strong community of users creating brand-specific content organically.

How to create user-generated content: 5-step guide

UGC content is a double-edged sword—if you don’t have a solid strategy to guide your user-generated content campaigns, it can easily backfire and harm your brand. Thankfully, drawing out a user-generated content strategy is easy with our 5-step process.

Let’s break down all the steps to get you started:

1. Define strategic goals for UGC campaigns

First things first, start with your goals behind the UGC campaign. Answer why you’re creating UGC content and define your campaign purpose before you get cracking.

Your goals can be anything, including but not limited to:

• Building brand awareness
• Breaking into a new market
• Improving customer trust
• Ramping up engagement
• Driving more sales

Setting strategic goals will clarify what you want from customers. It’ll also help finalize the right platforms, choose the ideal content formats, and pick the best ideas for your campaign.

2. Decide platforms to create high impact

Once you’re clear on why you’re running a UGC campaign, focus on selecting the right platforms to hit these goals.

Every avenue offers a unique value for your goals. For example, posting UGC content on your website can improve your traffic and conversion rates, while putting the same content on social media can increase discoverability and engagement.

When shortlisting the ideal platforms for your UGC campaign, remember to factor in your customer preferences too. Check where they hang out the most and would be interested in sharing brand-specific content.

Broaden the focus of your UGC strategy to look at the following:

• Your campaign objectives
• Your social media strategy
• Your audience preferences

Use these insights to pick platforms with the most promising ROI. After finalizing the right channels, strategize for what works best on these platforms and revisit your audience preferences to create high-impact campaigns with content that resonates with your target buyers.

3. Learn more about your audience preferences

Your customers lie at the core of your user-generated content strategy. So, it’s crucial to understand their preferences and shape your campaigns accordingly.

Take a pulse of your audience by interacting with them through surveys, polls, and social media activity. Use these insights to choose the content format that works best for them. Here are a few formats to consider:

• Images
• Videos
• Livestreams
• Reviews
• Blogs
• Emails
• Podcasts
• Case studies

Pick a mix of these formats to reach multiple buyer personas with varying preferences. Keep in mind the platforms you’ve shortlisted in step two to choose the content formats for your campaign.

For example, if you choose Twitter as your ideal platform, you can share images, videos, and links to other content formats. However, if you pick Instagram, videos would perform much better than most other formats.

4. Create clear guidelines for the type of content you want

Now that you’ve established your goals and selected the best platforms, you’re all set to roll out the campaign to the end users. But without clear guidelines on what type of UGC content you want, the results might be disappointing.

More than 50% of brands tell customers precisely what kind of content they want. So, instead of leaving it all on your customers, give them some ground rules for their content. This will also make the results more consistent and impactful.

Guidelines can include specific details like your hashtags, main channels for posting, and accounts to tag.

5. Work with influencers to maximize reach and trust

Including influencers in your UGC strategy is an underrated tip to take these campaigns to the next level and maximize the ROI. Influencers address a wider audience and help you reach more people unaware of your brand. This way, you can get more traction for your campaign and skyrocket the results.

We’ll explore the best ways of working with influencers to double down on UGC marketing for your ecommerce brand.

Working with influencers and creators to produce UGC at scale

On the surface, influencer marketing, and UGC marketing seem like they’re on two different ends of the spectrum. But in reality, ecommerce brands can leverage influencers to accelerate their results from a UGC campaign.

Collaborating with influencers for user-generated content means you can target a broader audience, encourage more people to participate, and drive more conversions.

Take a look at these four best practices to work with influencers and creators for your UGC marketing campaigns:

1. Prioritize long-term partnerships over one-time projects 

Brands can’t take the paid influencer marketing route to succeed at UGC. Instead, you need to build a meaningful partnership with a select few influencers who champion your brand. This shows how these influencers are genuinely invested in your brand and not vouching for it for the sake of a sponsorship.

Building such partnerships is also crucial to win users’ trust. Think about it—who would you trust more, an influencer vouching for a brand since the very start or an influencer randomly posting about a brand for the first time?

The bottom line: find brand-fit influencers and prioritize healthy influencer relationships over transactional projects to turn them into brand ambassadors.

2. Design a comprehensive brief for the influencers

Like any other influencer marketing project, a UGC campaign requires you to share a list of dos and don’ts with the influencers. Create a detailed brief to clarify your expectations.

Here are a few things to include in your briefs:

• Brand voice, tone, and purpose
• Preferred content formats and channels
• Products and core value propositions to spotlight
• Creative directions for shooting the content
• Content ownership rights and permissions
• Ways to reuse and promote their content

Add any details that will help influencers create laser-focused content to influence your existing customers. You can also include a breakdown of the review and approval workflow to keep them on the same page for the next steps.

3. Experiment with different post ideas for UGC campaigns

Give your influencers the creative freedom to test various ideas for your campaigns. Analyze these posts carefully to see what’s working and what’s not to make your strategy more airtight.

Here’s a list of ideas to experiment with for your UGC campaigns:

• Create hashtags and run contests: One of the more popular ideas on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, brands create custom hashtags to create a library of UGC content. Influencers can also start trending contests, encouraging more people to participate and increasing traction for your campaign.

• Produce brand reviews or testimonials: Influencers can also create review posts or videos highlighting the benefits of buying from your brand. These posts create solid social proof and get more customers to share their experiences.

• Do a how-to sequence about the product: Brands also go for how-to videos, educating customers about the best ways to use their products. Influencers become a trusted source for users to learn more about your brand.

• Make unboxing content: Another popular collaboration idea for UGC campaigns is unboxing videos. Influencers can tell viewers your primary value propositions while unboxing a hamper of products they’ve received.

Let your UGC creators and influencers take the reins of your campaign to experiment with their ideas and produce standout content to wow your audience.

4. Go beyond social sharing for UGC influencer content

When you think of UGC marketing, social media is the number one (and potentially the only) platform you’d think of. But collaborating with influencers means you can cross-promote your UGC content in many channels, like:

• Ads: Convert the best-performing posts into ads to create a more authentic brand image and convert that into sales.

• Website/app: Publish your UGC content on the website or mobile app to show users how much your customers love your brand.

• Email newsletters: Spread the word about your user-generated content as far as possible, with newsletters going out to a select list of subscribers.

Don’t limit yourself to just social media to get the benefits of influencer-led UGC. Put this content to best use on various customer touchpoints to reinforce the value customers find in your brand.

Leverage the benefits of UGC to establish a prominent brand presence

User-generated content is like word-of-mouth on steroids. It helps you stand out in an aggressively growing ecommerce market, builds a genuine rapport with customers, and gives potential buyers the confidence to buy from you.

The best part: you can multiply these benefits of user-generated content by bringing influencers into the equation. Influencers expand your reach to a bigger audience, maximize engagement, and create more credibility for your brand.

Find the best influencers to collaborate with on Afluencer and plan your UGC campaigns with our tried-and-tested best practices.

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]]> https://afluencer.com/the-dos-and-donts-of-an-online-marketing-campaign/ Mon, 20 Dec 2021 20:38:31 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=15136 Using online sources to communicate a message about a company’s merchandise or services is known as online marketing. Social media platforms, paid ads, and SEO techniques act as means of online marketing. The goal is to reach out to online customers through the mentioned sources to increase website traffic and sales. If you’re going to have a […]

The post The Do’s and Don’ts of an Online Marketing Campaign appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> Using online sources to communicate a message about a company’s merchandise or services is known as online marketing. Social media platforms, paid ads, and SEO techniques act as means of online marketing.

The goal is to reach out to online customers through the mentioned sources to increase website traffic and sales. If you’re going to have a successful campaign, then you need to be aware of the dos and don’ts of online marketing.

Here, take a look at what online marketing companies should adapt and avoid while making an online marketing plan:

Dos Of Online Marketing

The following are the things an online marketing company should include in its website plan:

— User Friendly

Make your website user-friendly. It might be disastrous for your business if you don’t make your website compatible with mobiles. Nowadays, most online users avoid websites that aren’t mobile-friendly. Google has ranked mobile-friendly pages higher than non-mobile-friendly pages. Therefore, it’s recommended that you make your company site mobile-friendly.

— Relevant And Fast Loading Content

The best way to attract online users to your website is by adding relevant information and updating your site with a fast loading speed. Nowadays, as Gen Z wants easy and fast solutions to their problems, it’ll decrease its traffic rate if the site is slow.

— Easy Domain Name

The website name should be easy to remember for the users, so the clients can revisit the website easily without forgetting the company’s domain name.

— Follow Maslow’s Theory

Maslow introduced his theory of SEO content, which every successful digital marketing company has used. He gave major pointers to meet the SEO needs to make your company flourish.

1. Make your website crawl accessible so that search engines can read it.
2. Add Insightful content that responds to the online user’s needs.
3. Only use relevant keywords to attract online users and increase your chances of being on the front page of the Google search engine.
4. Quick loading time and an appealing user interface.
5. Interesting, shareable material that creates credentials and links.
6. To get a high ranking, use catchy headings.
7. Use a snippet to make your website stand out in search engine results pages.

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Don’ts Of Online Marketing

The following are the things an online marketing company should avoid in their website plan:

— Black Hat SEO

Including black hat SEO tricks in your marketing techniques is a major red flag that can impact your company’s reputation. The best way to avoid this problem is by not using irrelevant keywords or not stuffing the keyword in your content.

— Incomplete Website

Launching an incomplete website is another red flag for online marketing companies. Make sure your company’s website has all the relevant information about its location and services before launching it.

— Targeted Audience

Sometimes companies forget about the targeted audience and just write about their company’s information. Your content should be linked to the audience’s problem for them to visit and relate to your website.

— Long Registration Forms

Nowadays, people go for simple tasks, and if you include long registration forms, they’ll shift from your site. Ensure that the registration forms are easy, short, and to the point.

— Irrelevant Pictures

Adding low-quality and irrelevant pictures to your website can make your website seem unprofessional. To avoid this situation, add those pictures that connect to the subject and are appealing.

Now you know the do’s and don’ts of online marketing, it’s time to find influencers to help run your campaigns. You can connect with top social media influencers when you sign up with Afluencer. Brands love our platform for finding influencers and managing their influencer programs.

The post The Do’s and Don’ts of an Online Marketing Campaign appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> https://afluencer.com/how-to-win-the-hearts-of-people-as-an-influencer/ Thu, 02 Sep 2021 14:40:00 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=13508 Being an influencer is not an easy task considering you always have to look for ways to engage with your audience. Moreover, in today’s world, this task can be tricky as one small mistake can make you lose your followers. Cancel culture has created a significant impact on our digital lives, especially in the lives […]

The post How to Win the Hearts of People as an Influencer appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> Being an influencer is not an easy task considering you always have to look for ways to engage with your audience. Moreover, in today’s world, this task can be tricky as one small mistake can make you lose your followers. Cancel culture has created a significant impact on our digital lives, especially in the lives of influencers.

This is why influencers always look for ways to positively engage with their followers. In this blog, we have made a comprehensive list of ways through which influencers can win the hearts of people.

Don’t Simply Criticize, Condemn and Berate Others

One of the main ways to win the hearts of people is by sharing positive things and ideas. If you create content that is negative, it will be difficult for people to see the good in you and like you. This is why it is better to create engaging content that can bring positive, meaningful, social change.

Moreover, while you should hold back unnecessary criticism, it is better to be generous with praise. If you like someone’s work, you should promote it and praise it on your platform. This will showcase how you want to build a positive digital community that believes in lifting people up.

Be Genuinely Interested in the Content Topic

There is a difference between creating content and creating high-quality content. You can only win the hearts and engage with people and steer conversations when you produce high-quality content. And that can only happen when you show genuine interest in that topic.

Make Sure you are Promoting Authentic Products

One of the many responsibilities of influencers is to promote products. This is because when it comes to making decisions, many people look up to their influencers for guidance. One way to win people’s hearts is by winning their trust. And to win people’s trust, influencers must make sure whatever products they are promoting are authentic so their followers do not get scammed.

Remain True to your Platform

It is important for the influencers to remain true to their platform and not engage in any activity that contradicts their values. This is of utmost importance when it comes to promoting products. We highly recommend you don’t start promoting a product that might go against the values you have long stood for. For instance, if your platform aims to create cancer awareness, promoting a cigarette brand would stir a plethora of criticism.

If you are a brand looking for top social media influencers who know how to win people’s hearts, you can check out our services. We have the best social media influencer programs that can help your brand to grow.

SIGN UP WITH THE AFLUENCER PLATFORM TODAY!

If you need more information, you can contact us at (916) 480-8425.

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]]> https://afluencer.com/stock-market-influencers/ Mon, 30 Aug 2021 14:30:00 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=13014 The stock market is both scary and rewarding but we’re not here to talk about it. We’re here to have a look at some of the best stock market influencers who can help you know what’s happening in the industry and which stocks to buy and which stocks to stay away from. Why Follow Stock […]

The post 25 Stock Market Influencers | Offering The Best Tips For Investing appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> The stock market is both scary and rewarding but we’re not here to talk about it. We’re here to have a look at some of the best stock market influencers who can help you know what’s happening in the industry and which stocks to buy and which stocks to stay away from.

Why Follow Stock Market Influencers

The stock market can make you a millionaire overnight if you take the right steps. There are dozens of websites offering stock market tips including paid and free newsletters.

The interesting thing is that these tips work but not all ‘experts’ are reliable. We understand that it can be difficult to predict the stock market but there are people who seem to have mastered the art.

Following stock market influencers can help you gauge where the market is heading to. There are many examples of people following stock market influencers and making huge gains. A good example is the meme stock (GameStop) shooting through the stars that helped people get rich overnight. However, similarly, some even lost money.

But this is not all that influencers offer. They can even help you know when to buy, when to sell, and for how long to hold.

More importantly, they can help people stay away from scams. This is important because scams are very common in finance. There are fake investment apps and accounts that rob people of their money.

By following top stock marketing influencers, you can know which app or tool to try and which to avoid. More importantly, these influencers usually provide tips for free.

While some may ask you to buy a paid package and sign up for apps, most provide tips using their social media handles.

25 Top Stock Market Influencers Who Will Help Improve Your Investment Strategy

Let’s now look at our top picks. We must mention that not all stock market influencers may give the same tips as some are more inclined to support certain companies or markets.

1. Nick Black
2. Allan Mantaring
3. Jordan Belfort
4. Tangie Seals
5. Rowan McInnes
6. Elon Musk
7. Mark Minervini
8. Vic Scherer
9. Steve Sturner

10. Brittney Castro
11. Garrett Ashe
12. Raja Al Mazrouei
13. Chamath Palihapitiya
14. Cathie Wood
15. Dave Portnoy
16. Oliver L. Velez
17. John Bollinger

18. Robert Ross
19. Kayla Kilbride
20. Errol Coleman
21. Timothy Sykes
22. Kritika Yadav
23. Trajan King
24. Denis Stelmak
25. Patrick Wieland

Nick Black

Nick is an influencer who hosts his own show on the RagingBull Investment network. The network enjoys more than a million subscribers who listen to what Nick and other hosts have to say.

Hosted live 3-5 times a week, these shows provide great insights and can be very helpful for people interested in knowing about the latest developments.

Nick mainly concentrates on digital assets as he’s a big supporter of cryptos and encourages people to try their hands at virtual coins such as Bitcoin. The man provides analysis on his show BullPen, a show with a live Q&A session.

His success story is quite motivational. The man has made a fortune by trading digital coins and is willing to help people.

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Allan Mantaring

Allan Mantaring is a speaker, entrepreneur, and author from the Philippines who enjoys having an international audience. He loves sharing his investment knowledge and helping others.

Some of his favorite topics include personal development, public speaking, finance, persuasion, public speaking, and online money-making.

He suggests his followers try different ways to make money, including trying their hands at the stock market. Most of his tips are geared toward beginners.

His story is quite interesting. He discovered the concept of Internet Marketing in 2013 while working as a seafarer. He studied more about digital marketing by going through articles and visiting forums.

The self-educated gentleman wants others to not face the kind of problems he had to face. His tips are very simple and easy to follow. Moreover, he’s quite active on social media and enjoys engaging with his followers.

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Jordan Belfort

Jordan Belfort is a man who needs no introduction. Anyone who has read the book The Wolf of Wall Street or watched the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio must be aware of the man who is not just a former stockbroker but also a motivational speaker and author.

Known as the #1 Sales Trainer in the World, Jordan is one of Wall Street’s most successful investors of all time. He started as a door-to-door meat and seafood salesman and soon moved to stock trading. A convicted felon, Jordan has turned a new leaf and enjoys sharing his knowledge with his 1.7 million Instagram followers who regularly comment on his posts and engage with him.

He regularly attends finance conferences and podcasts and works with a number of companies. However, his tips appear to be more inclined toward experienced traders.

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Tangie Seals

Tangie Seals is an investor who runs her own personal finance blog. With more than 36k followers, she’s one of the fastest-growing investing influencers who is best known for paying off $33k of debt in just 18 months.

The star is more interested in helping women build their empires; however, both men and women can follow her investment tips.

She believes in building wealth and focuses on not just stock markets but other investment niches as well including real estate and precious metals. The diva shares long articles with finance concepts to ensure her followers are aware of finance and understand how to improve their wealth and credit scores.

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Rowan McInnes

Rowan has one aim – to educate people in a fun and entertaining manner. He operates a finance account on TikTok where he covers multiple saving techniques to help build wealth.

You will find his motivational and real journey – from $0 to $10000 – on his TikTok profile. His followers appear to be very loyal and engaged. They actively comment under his posts and the man is usually fast to respond to queries.

In addition to informative posts, you will also find reviews and sponsored posts on his profile. He works with a variety of brands and likes to cover new products to ensure his followers are fully aware of the latest happenings in the market.

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Elon Musk

We understand that you didn’t expect Tesla’s head on this list since he isn’t known as an influencer but we cannot decline the influence he has over the stock market.

Some argue that he has too much power as he can single-handedly send a stock skyrocketing. However, some experts argue that his suggestions are not reliable and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Many credit Musk for sending Bitcoin through the moon and causing its eventual crash. A single tweet from a billionaire can cause stocks to soar or suffer. However, we must mention that Musk doesn’t identify as an influencer or analyst and doesn’t use his profile to provide investment advice.

However, many investors have benefitted from Musk’s tweets. He’s known for being very active and having strong opinions on changing situations.

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Mark Minervini

Mark Minervini is one of the most well-known stock market influencers who works as a technical analyst and seems to understand the market better than most people out there.

The man is an acclaimed author and independent trader with more than 30 years of experience. Featured in Stock Market Wizard by Jack Schwager, he enjoys more than 295k Twitter followers who appear to be keeping a keen eye on what he has to say.

His posts are taken as quotes by major publications as his predictions in the past have proven to be true. However, unlike some stock influencers out there, he doesn’t just share tips but also uses social media to keep his followers informed about his personal life and hobbies.

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Vic Scherer

Vic is a stock market trader who entered the industry in 1995 and has been going strong since. A trend exploiter, Vic is known for his predictions. His 14k Twitter followers are his fans. Plus, he has a strong following on other platforms as well including his blog where he posts content from time to time.

An engineer by degree, Vic seems to have an opinion on several things including politics. He doesn’t only concentrate on the stock market but also on other ways to earn and save money. He encourages users to study their finances and plan accordingly and not blindly follow influencers or experts.

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Steve Sturner

Steve Strutner is a technical analyst who likes to keep his followers aware of the industry’s happenings. You can follow him for great investment advice.

The man covers various aspects of investment and likes to post tips from time to time. He appears to be following not just the stock market but the commodity market as well.

You can even follow his LinkedIn page for detailed articles including opinion pieces on government policies.

He has been in the business for nearly three decades and has worked for a number of major companies. He has appeared on a number of news channels and is considered reliable.

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Brittney Castro

You will find a lot of male stock market investors, but let us introduce you to Brittney Castro, CEO of Financially Wise, Inc., who has carved a niche in no time. She enjoys more than 16.5k Instagram followers who appear to be very active and highly engaged.

Brittney is a young trader who mainly targets the youth and comes up with short tips that appear to be designed for new traders. She encourages more women to study finance and try alternative investment options such as digital coins.

The star is fast gaining momentum as the go-to influencer for people looking for some sound advice. She holds relevant degrees and is very good at explaining complex concepts in simple words.

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Garrett Ashe

Garrett is a micro-influencer with a presence on all major platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube.

He appears to be most popular on TikTok where he has more than 4.5k followers. He likes to post short videos covering different concepts and explaining the latest industry happenings.

A self-taught investor, Garrett focuses on sector-based swing trading and suggests people take calculated risks. He’s open to working with brands; however, his opinions are real and not biased. The man doesn’t seem to favor any specific investment and encourages his followers to diversify.

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Raja Al Mazrouei

The Executive Vice President of FinTech Hive at the Dubai International Financial Centre, Raja is one of the most well-known Arab influencers.

Her main focus is to bring attention to Fintech and make DIFC a top name. However, at the same time, she enjoys educating people and providing investment tips.

She tweets in both English and Arabic; however, she appears to be more interested in attracting women and pushing them to invest and learn the art of investment.

She regularly posts about industry events and opportunities. Those looking to start a career in finance in the Middle East should also consider following her.

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Chamath Palihapitiya

Chamath Palihapitiya is an influencer and investor with more than 1.5 million Twitter followers. He’s one of the most popular influencers of Sri Lankan origin who started his own fund after quitting Facebook in 2011.

He regularly tweets about the importance of technology and how it can be used to make smarter investment decisions. The star is known all around the world and currently co-hosts a podcast All In.

He has contributed to a number of platforms and is open to working with brands. Those interested in real knowledge should consider listening to his podcasts as that’s where the real information lies.

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Cathie Wood

Cathie Wood needs no introduction. The founder, CIO, and CEO of Ark Invest, Wood started as an assistant economist at Capital Group and soon moved to bigger names. She is known for picking growth stocks that offer fast returns.

She got immense fame when she bid on Tesla and claimed it would hit $4000 by 2023. Originally ridiculed for her claim, she got recognition when her prediction came true two years before the date she predicted (on a split basis).

She’s one of the few stock market influencers with the power to boost prices just by buying or mentioning a stock.

Selected for the 2021 Forbes 50 Over 50, Wood was called the best stock picker of 2020 by Bloomberg News editor-in-chief emeritus Matthew A. Winkler.

While she doesn’t provide much guidance or tips, it might be a good idea to know what she’s interested in as the woman has a sharp eye and most of her stock picks have proven to be successful.

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Dave Portnoy

“I own a ton of Penn Stock. I’m not a financial advisor. Don’t trust anything I say about stocks”, reads Dave Portnoy’s Twitter account.

With 2.6 million Twitter followers, he’s one of the most well-known stock influencers. The star, however, isn’t just known as the man who understands stocks as he does a lot of other things as well.

He is the founder of the sports and pop culture blog Barstool Sports and is often in the news for his comments including controversial remarks. Yet, his predictions have proven to be true and he seems to have a unique way of looking at stocks as he doesn’t just invest in big or popular names but growing companies as well.

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Oliver L. Velez

With 34 years of experience, Oliver is a name to reckon with. He has more than 17.3k Twitter followers and a decent number of visitors on his website where he shares tips in the form of blogs.

These days he appears to be paying special attention to his YouTube page where he has more than 218k subscribers. The man posts new content almost every day and covers a variety of investment-related topics.

He covers everything from stock to digital coins to commodities. You will even find unbiased and detailed reviews on his channel with some very well-explained technical videos.

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John Bollinger

Owner of BollingerCapital.com, John enjoys more than 176k Twitter fans. He makes regular appearances on different YouTube channels and has been a part of different podcasts as well.

The star wants people to benefit from his experiences and mistakes. He is very active on Twitter, however, he mainly uses it to promote his website.

The author of Bollinger on Bollinger Bands is best known for publishing the Capital Growth Letter, a newsletter that covers the financial markets. It started in 1987 and has been going strong since.

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Robert Ross

Ross started TikStocks in 2021 April with the aim to help people understand financial concepts and choose the right investments. He has built quite a following in five months by posting creative and fun content. He’s known for explaining complex concepts in simple words.

While the star is mainly active on TikTok, where he has over 370k followers, he’s going strong on other platforms as well. He has nearly 21k Instagram followers and more than 700 community members on his Beacons page.

The star is known to work with brands and is fast growing as the go-to option for companies looking for investing influencers due to his high reach.

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Kayla Kilbride

A full-time content creator, Kayla is a TikToker who posts finance-related content. Her aim is to “elevate female voices”.

She’s available on almost all major social media platforms including LinkedIn, where she shares her experiences and life story in the form of interesting anecdotes.

If you follow her Instagram, you will find that she is more than just an investing influencer. She shares lifestyle tips and posts a lot of photos with her friends and partner. However, her TikTok account, where she has over 200k subscribers, appears to be solely dedicated to finance.

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Errol Coleman

Errol is on “a mission to inspire and educate”. The star has more than 8.4k YouTube fans and over 12.3k Instagram followers. However, most of his fans are on TikTok, where he is quite popular and active.

The young star mainly targets the next generation and often shares tips on saving money and investing wisely.

He appears to have formed a connection with his followers as he doesn’t claim to be an expert or someone who knows a lot. He’s open about his mistakes and accepts the fact that he’s a learner.

Eroll’s followers are both men and women who actively comment on his posts and seem to be highly engaged.

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Timothy Sykes

Sykes needs no introduction. He’s known for turning $12k into $7 million by trading stocks. His inspirational story has motivated several people to try their luck and invest in stocks.

He’s different from other stock market influencers since he doesn’t focus on a single market and appears to be a fan of investing in international stocks.

He regularly shares watchlists that contain a list of stocks that are expected to offer good returns. At the same time, he’s busy building schools around the world and helping people get educated.

Sykes has been associated with a number of organizations and has over 303k Twitter followers.

Known for being one of the smartest penny stock traders, he started investing while in college and is often in the news for being vocal and criticizing people for promoting “pump and dump” schemes.

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Kritika Yadav

Yadav is an Indian stock market influencer who mainly targets locals. Most of her content is in Hindi; however, her viewers include international investors as India has proven to be a lucrative market in the last few years.

Most of her content includes lists of stocks to invest in. According to her channel, she wishes to help people “understand the basics of money management, budgeting, saving, and debt investing”.

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Trajan King

Trajan King is the man behind InvincibleRobots, a website dedicated to investing and personal finance. While he mainly targets businesspersons, his website can be a great place for people looking for investing tips.

You will find detailed articles and guides on the platform covering different aspects of stock trading. He sends regular newsletters and has been a part of several podcasts.

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Denis Stelmak

Denis is an asset manager, entrepreneur, and YouTube blogger with 10.6k YouTube subscribers.

Originally from Moscow, Russia, the man is known to have a strong accent that is loved by his followers. He calls himself a long-term investor and mainly covers the US market.

He covers the latest happenings including company changes and predictions. You will find him on most social media platforms including Instagram where he covers different aspects of his life.

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Patrick Wieland

Patrick is a stock market influencer with more than 151k subscribers on YouTube. He’s quite active on YouTube and is popular on Stocktwits as well.

A filmer by profession, his Instagram is dedicated to different things including his love for the outdoors.

The star started young and suggests people waste no time waiting for the right opportunity. He covers not just stocks but also digital coins and is fast to cover the latest happenings.

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Best Stock Market Influencers: Conclusion

These were some of the best stock market influencers. Sign up with Afluencer to be a part of our upcoming influencer features. Being a member will give you access to great opportunities including dozens of brands looking to work with influencers.

And if you have a brand that needs to recruit the help of a few good influencers, then you should sign up too!

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]]> https://afluencer.com/secrets-to-becoming-a-successful-social-media-influencer/ Sun, 25 Jul 2021 15:00:00 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=12599 Social media has revolutionized marketing, and influencers are actively running the show. Social media marketing can be an effective way to increase your revenue and brand awareness. According to statistics, there are more than 3.7 billion social media users, and the influencer marketing industry is worth a whopping $5 billion! Although influencers are all over […]

The post The Secrets to Being a Successful Social Media Influencer appeared first on AFLUENCER.

]]> Social media has revolutionized marketing, and influencers are actively running the show. Social media marketing can be an effective way to increase your revenue and brand awareness. According to statistics, there are more than 3.7 billion social media users, and the influencer marketing industry is worth a whopping $5 billion! Although influencers are all over social media, it’s important to understand that creating and maintaining this profile demands hard work if you’re going to be successful.

If you’re ready to kick-start your journey, here are some tips that’ll help you out:

1. Find the Perfect Niche

The mistake that many influencer marketers chasing success have in common is that they try to offer everything under the sun.

Do not scatter your efforts, but instead just focus on a selected niche that you are great at. Then promote the heck out of it. And sell it well.

2. Create a Brand

Let’s face it; followers aren’t going to appear magically. You need to have a selling point that attracts an audience. While celebrities like the Kardashians may wake up to 3 million followers, this seems nearly impossible for an influencer who’s just starting out.

Your account needs to appeal to the audience for them to click the “follow” button. The trick of the trade is to choose something you’re passionate about. After this, start thinking of yourself as a brand that needs to be marketed. Discover your tone, color scheme, and layout, to make an appealing package.

3. Determine And Get To Know Your Target Audience

The next step is identifying your target audience. For example, themes like fashion can be gender and age-based, whereas travel or food are more general topics that appeal to everyone.

Take the time to learn about the products or services you are offering. As an influencer, you can then provide information that builds your credibility and increase your chance of becoming successful.

In turn, this will help you to create a website that converts extremely well, which in return will increase your cash flow.

4. Optimization is Important

Once you’ve identified your audience, explore which platform would be most suitable to launch your brand. For example, if you’re targeting Gen Z and Alpha, Instagram and TikTok are popular choices; for millennials and centennials, Facebook and Twitter would be ideal.

5. Create Irresistible Content

Once the base is set, it’s time to create content that is marketable and relevant. Remember the tone, language, and style you choose to play a significant role in attracting your audience. Social media users tend to have short attention spans, so the content you create should be short and to the point.

6. Embrace Changes in Online Marketing

Always stay on top of the latest marketing trends.

If you want to become a successful influencer, then you need to always spend time reading, learning, and embracing the changes in online marketing.

7. Diversify Your Marketing Efforts

Don’t put all your eggs in a single basket. Instead, try to promote different commodities.

Diversify so that you do not feel the famine effect if something goes wrong.

8. Get In Touch With Brands

Another surefire way to gain more attention online is by joining hands with brands. This collaboration will be a win-win situation for both parties, as the audience will begin to associate the chosen brand with your profile. If you’re looking to connect with leading brands and explore new opportunities, get in touch with us at Afluencer. We’re a top social media influencer platform that helps brands and influencers connect and grow.

9. Stay Focused. Never Give Up

Most of the time, those who dabble in influencer marketing fail at being successful because they give up way too soon.

It is important to be patient. So make sure you watch to see what is working and what is not. Before you know it, you will start receiving payments.

BONUS: Infographic Guide to Becoming a Success at Influencer Marketing

Want to see that again as a shareable infographic? Then carry on below and remember to share the love.

If you are looking for influencer programs that you can promote on the website you have just set up, then check out a couple of these:

• Top Fitness Influencer Programs
• Top Health Influencer Programs

Now let’s take a look at that infographic.

SIGN UP WITH AFLUENCER TODAY

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]]> https://afluencer.com/how-has-the-pandemic-changed-the-way-we-use-social-media/ Mon, 28 Jun 2021 13:28:00 +0000 https://afluencer.com/?p=12598 COVID-19 and the lockdown orders have changed everything. As governments shut down all malls, restaurants, and stores, people used the internet to connect with the outside world. Social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat are no longer just used for entertainment. Here’s how the pandemic changed the way we use social media: […]

The post How Has the Pandemic Changed the Way We Use Social Media? appeared first on AFLUENCER.

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