Influencer by Brittany Hennessy is a quick (yet detailed) read for anyone curious about how to make a career out of being an influencer. If you’re looking for tips on how to gain more traction with your online presence this read may provide some useful tricks for you. Or maybe you already have a great online presence and are looking for guidance on where to take your business next, Influencer addresses it all.
Pairs With: Ferrero Rocher Fine Hazelnut Chocolate and a friend that influences you to try them because she’s obsessed!
Overview
Influencer is a great quick read for anyone working on building an online presence. Brittany Hennessy is a Senior Director of Influencer Strategy and Talent Partnerships at Hearst Magazines Digital Media. Hennessy works on casting talent (aka influencers) for various clients (aka high profile businesses) and has experience with what techniques work and what pitfalls to avoid.
As a blogger herself, Hennessy has “seen the role of influencers evolve and expand into something that few could have imagined with social media first emerged.” If you’re looking for insight on how to go viral on Tik-Tok, you won’t find it here. This book was published in 2018 and focuses mainly on Instagram, YouTube, and occasionally Pinterest as the social media platforms to focus on.
Hennessy also provides insight on how to create and improve your personal webpage or blog. She highly recommends having your own site because that is where you truly have the most control over your content.
Types of Influencers
Did you know influencers can be categorized into two buckets? I suppose I’ve never thought about this field that much but now I’m going to pay more attention. An influencer falls into either a Content Creator (who creates blogs, vlogs, etc.) or a Life Caster (think AOC, Gigi Hadid, or a real person living their best life). However, Hennessy makes a point to note that most celebrities aren’t true influencers. In that, they didn’t start with an online presence and become popular. Instead, they were already well known and then created an online profile.
Content Creators:
- Blogger
- Vlogger
- Expert (someone who specializes in a specific industry)
- Animal, Toddler or Inanimate Object
Life Casters:
- Special Talent (such as a chef or comedian)
- Entrepreneur
- High End Model
- Celebrity
- Notable (like a politician or activist)
- Real People
Most of us on the ol’ Bookstagram or Booktok fall under the Content Creator section. Although some of you definitely have a life I enjoy following and fall under the Life Caster category.
Instagram Tips
Hennessy provides many great tips on how to improve your Instagram page.
For the profile pic, she recommends having a well-lit photo of yourself smiling (with or without teeth) taken from the shoulders up.
As for the bio, Hennessy says people love to overcomplicate it. Instead of listing your astrological sign and personality type (guilty 🙋♀️), she recommends stating:
- Creator of _________
- ______ location based influencer
- your contact info
- a location pin (if you travel a lot)
- a link to your latest blog
When it comes to likes and comments, Hennessy expresses that it’s important to be generous and give both freely. She states, “people are generous when you are.”
As for follows, Hennessy recommends you follow people who have a high probability of following you back. They will most likely be creators who provide similar content and who have fewer followers than you.
Additionally, Hennessy provides an interesting formula to calculate your engagement rate.
It is:
(Likes + Comments)➗(Followers @ the time of post) = Engagement Rate.
Conclusion
This is a great quick read for anyone interested in learning more about how to create and manage a successful online presence. Hennessy demystifies what it takes to be an influencer by proving clear-cut action steps for no matter where you’re at in your online journey.
Although I listened to the audiobook version, I wouldn’t recommend it for one small reason. Hennessy references several accounts as examples and it was hard to look up these influencers just by hearing the name. I would rewind and replay where the reader said the account name and then guess how to spell it so I could look them up and follow along. For me personally, it would have been easier to look up the influencers mentioned if I had seen the handle names written out on paper.
Grab yourself a paper copy and follow along because this is a great book for any influencer!!
P.S. If you enjoyed this one, you may also like This is Marketing by Seth Godin!
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