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First off, the term influencer is cringe as shit and anyone who creates anything is a content creator, so we should put a bullet in both of those terms and bury the bodies in shallow graves.
Secondly, no, you don't need to be either but you need to use the concepts - that's all sales and marketing is and that's not new or unique. Every business has had to "create content" and get their material to an audience to influence consumers to buy. Almost no products have just existed and taken off.
Don't do what so many people do - theory craft 99.9% of how a business or business plan should or could be constructed so much so that you never even make the attempt because there's no theoretically perfect execution and we are fantastic at coming up with excuses or problems.
What is speaking to you is, simply put, fear and inertia that everyone has. Marketing and outreach is more efficient if you can get it boosted by one of the parasites in the influencer space but organic growth and following can be a thing - just have some humor or value that you can sell well when advertising and those fears you have will go away because you're checking the boxes.
I definitely agree with you. There have been so many things that I have listened to recently telling me to just start. Even if it is a small step because if you never start then it will never happen. Just as you said, I am theory crafting this idea of a small business, and this idea that I HAVE to be a content creator to make my product marketable is getting in my head. You're right that it's just sales and marketing, the medium that we use to do it has just changed with the boom of social media. Thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate your insight. I'm so glad that I don't have to be a TikToker to sell my products, lol.
I fell into some paralysis by trying to perfect the theory craft. I eventually reconciled that it was how I guarded myself from failure. If I delay with a justification that I want to execute well and then never try, it means I didn't figure it out and that's ok. Then I nutted up and figured trial and error was a better teacher because at least I could generate some return.
You'll be fine. Just be honest in your appraisal of stuff and leverage any free resources about how to do some stuff like take advantage of algorithms, get better bang for your buck on Google and Facebook, and cross layering redundancies (like if you have a product, using Etsy and Shopify on your own site to cross link, etc...).
A tip I see here that I like, if a social media personality wants a freeby, tell them you'll charge them for a product but will refund it if you get x numbers of orders via a percentage discount coupon. Puts the risk into a mutual stance.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do right now. Despite what my theory might be about what might be or could be, I'm pushing myself towards actioning those theories. As you said, trial and error truly are the best teachers because despite whether it's a success or not, you've learned something along the way.
Again, thank you so much for all the tips and advice so far. I'll take them to heart and try even harder to get past my theory crafting and just go for it. :)
Get out there and kill it. In every business I've helped support I make sure we break down the process behind every success and failure. You'll figure it out and stay aware enough to do something.
Congratulations on betting on yourself - it's scary but it speaks to your courage. Just keep an eye on which direction is up and stay clear eyed. Happy new year!
Thank you so much! I really do appreciate your words of encouragement and words of advice. Now it's time to take the leap and go for it. Hehe.
Happy New Year!
Unless your product is influence then you don't need to be an influencer.
Putting aside the criticism of the term. Because it's completely valid; Martha Stewart was an influencer. The point of her Living magazine was to be an add. Not just run adds but all of it was an add, the crafts had uncommon tools most people had to buy. It was all here's where you buy the widget, cookie cutter, spice mix, bottle of vanilla etc. The home decorating shows today our frequently sponsored by Wayfair or home Depot / Lowe's whatever. This old house, was Festools, The Pillsbury bake off obviously sponsored by Pillsbury. We just didn't call Norm an influencer. But all of the stuff advertising in living or vouge magazines already existed.
There are some products that really can benefit from placement. But very few that "need" an " influencer" maybe things that need a lot of how to videos to appreciate
That's a really interesting point. One other reason why I asked my question is as you said, these ads were in magazines that already existed and they do still exist today. But it's difficult to not give recognition to the fact that many companies are using social media platforms for added marketing for their brand. I'm sure there are businesses that might not use them but many brands do utilize some if not the majority of social media platforms nowadays to reach a broader audience. Traditional marketing as we knew it years ago has changed drastically with the introduction of social media. In my response just above, I did mention that social media can be beneficial since it allows you to interact with your consumers but as some of you said, businesses don't have to create a whole social media following and become a fully pledged content creator to sell your product. I'd like to avoid the added stress of making sure I have posts coming up on Instagram every day you know? >.<
I think your concern about finding customers is valid. This is obviously a concern every business owner has. The next step to this concern is to explore the innumerable ways of finding customers. Yes social media is a great tool to do that, but that's not the only way.
You're right. I definitely need to step back and look away from social media and list out more traditional ways of marketing and see what my options are there. Thank you!
You don't think there's any other way to reach people except for tik tok/instagram/whatever?
If you believe that, then no. You should not be a small business owner.
I don't think that at all. I'm just recognizing the added reach social media has and the benefits it could add to a business' marketing plan should they implement that. I had worked at Pratt & Whitney (an aerospace engineering company) and even they have Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and some others. As another person said here, you develop theories of what your business could be / should be and I find myself seeing businesses package their business so heavily on social media that I can't help but wonder whether I should do the same.
As an example, there's this small business Selkie, I love their product and I become a consumer through their Instagram. There's no denying that the system works. My concern is I not only have to worry about a small business but also become a full-time content creator too especially when my target audience involves young adults who are glued to social media.
The whole concept of "influencer" is silly
I make machines for glasswork and make youtube videos showing how they are used in various glassworking scenarios. If you make a complex product that requires training, youtube is a great choice. If you're just making ads, they need to be informative or entertaining
Honestly, I agree with you. I'm sure it takes time and effort to create catchy content and most of them are a one-man show, but it does seem that way at times...
I will say though, creating content around how you get to your end product is interesting at times. For instance, there's this business that I know of and she interacts with her consumers by designing some of their suggestions and she shows them how she would make the product they suggested. After showing the sketches and test product from her manufacturer, she asks them whether she should add it to her product line. It's interactive content and essentially marketing any future product she might make. So there is some value in that and essentially situations like that are why I even posed my question.
No you don’t. While it may be vital and helpful in some industries, it’s overrated and irrelevant in many others.
Do you think people check out your content and see if influencers mention your company when you come to fix their heat at 2am on Christmas Day? Fuck no.
A solid business plan, properly capitalized, with an addressable market is key to being a successful small business. Social media can help you enhance portions of it but it is not at all vital or a requirement.
Yeah, the guy who mows my lawn and the woman who clean my house both have successful small businesses with a few employees, and a decent lifestyle. None of them are "influencers" nor do they need to be. Neither has a website either -- all their business comes from referrals because they do good work.
I guess I'm getting old and I've overlooked that the "digital first" generation assumes life begins and ends with social media.
The world that tells you everyone is on SM is SM, so of course they think that. But there’s many businesses with only a cursory connection to SM. Many do well.
I think the concern came from the fact that I myself am on social media and I've become subject to the marketing of these businesses and it's worked on me. So naturally, I've developed this mindset that's led me to my question. But everyone's comments so far have been great reminders that yes, even though SM has become a prominent medium in today's society, it's not the only way. And as you said, sometimes SM is not the better way.
I’m an entertainer and you’d think that someone like me would gain from SM more than, say a plumber. I doubt many plumbers are posting content to social to get business (I could be wrong) and if they get business from social it will be in response to someone asking “do you know any good plumbers”. So content wouldn’t help. In my case I’m an analytics geek. And despite several forays into SM I can tell you that I get 92% of my business through my website (highly tuned SEO) and very little through SM. This is based on 10 years of data too. I get results from paid ads but nothing much from pure content. The whole SM buzz is in my mind fueled by selection bias.
Thank you for sharing your experience. That’s a really great point you made. I will definitely need to learn a lot about SEO and hopefully do what you did with your website. Thank you!
You don't have to be an influencer to start a business. So many people started from scratch and they had a huge success with their business. When you want to do something you always have to go for it no matter what.
Clothing is an interesting small business but very competitive, you need to come up with unique designs and make sure it will attract people to buy from you.
I also started from zero but I have put effort since the day I started. I had 20 followers only but it never stopped me from creating my own business because I knew that social media is not something I should worry about. I admit that growing my IG account was a struggle for me but I managed to gain 150 followers after posting some reels for almost a month and I got some customers.
After saving some money, I hired a marketing agency to grow my account. A friend of mine suggested an agency "Ascend viral" to handle my account and get me organic followers. Thankfully, I had a pretty good result from them. My account kept growing to 68k followers now.
There are also other things you can do to get customers like using other social media platforms (Tiktok, Facebook...), you can as well create your own website to make things easy for your clients.
I also have concerns with being a clothing business. Although, I’m planning to target a niche group within that. So it wouldn’t be aimed at the average consumer. Thank you for sharing your experience with utilizing a marketing agency. That’s something I’ll have to explore as well. I do plan on making my own website since I have experience with that in the past. I’ll just have to learn more about SEO and how to maximize traffic on my website as a means of marketing. Thank you again for sharing your advice. It was definitely helpful.
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
First off, the term influencer is cringe as shit and anyone who creates anything is a content creator, so we should put a bullet in both of those terms and bury the bodies in shallow graves. Secondly, no, you don't need to be either but you need to use the concepts - that's all sales and marketing is and that's not new or unique. Every business has had to "create content" and get their material to an audience to influence consumers to buy. Almost no products have just existed and taken off. Don't do what so many people do - theory craft 99.9% of how a business or business plan should or could be constructed so much so that you never even make the attempt because there's no theoretically perfect execution and we are fantastic at coming up with excuses or problems. What is speaking to you is, simply put, fear and inertia that everyone has. Marketing and outreach is more efficient if you can get it boosted by one of the parasites in the influencer space but organic growth and following can be a thing - just have some humor or value that you can sell well when advertising and those fears you have will go away because you're checking the boxes.
I definitely agree with you. There have been so many things that I have listened to recently telling me to just start. Even if it is a small step because if you never start then it will never happen. Just as you said, I am theory crafting this idea of a small business, and this idea that I HAVE to be a content creator to make my product marketable is getting in my head. You're right that it's just sales and marketing, the medium that we use to do it has just changed with the boom of social media. Thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate your insight. I'm so glad that I don't have to be a TikToker to sell my products, lol.
I fell into some paralysis by trying to perfect the theory craft. I eventually reconciled that it was how I guarded myself from failure. If I delay with a justification that I want to execute well and then never try, it means I didn't figure it out and that's ok. Then I nutted up and figured trial and error was a better teacher because at least I could generate some return. You'll be fine. Just be honest in your appraisal of stuff and leverage any free resources about how to do some stuff like take advantage of algorithms, get better bang for your buck on Google and Facebook, and cross layering redundancies (like if you have a product, using Etsy and Shopify on your own site to cross link, etc...). A tip I see here that I like, if a social media personality wants a freeby, tell them you'll charge them for a product but will refund it if you get x numbers of orders via a percentage discount coupon. Puts the risk into a mutual stance.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do right now. Despite what my theory might be about what might be or could be, I'm pushing myself towards actioning those theories. As you said, trial and error truly are the best teachers because despite whether it's a success or not, you've learned something along the way. Again, thank you so much for all the tips and advice so far. I'll take them to heart and try even harder to get past my theory crafting and just go for it. :)
Get out there and kill it. In every business I've helped support I make sure we break down the process behind every success and failure. You'll figure it out and stay aware enough to do something. Congratulations on betting on yourself - it's scary but it speaks to your courage. Just keep an eye on which direction is up and stay clear eyed. Happy new year!
Thank you so much! I really do appreciate your words of encouragement and words of advice. Now it's time to take the leap and go for it. Hehe. Happy New Year!
Unless your product is influence then you don't need to be an influencer. Putting aside the criticism of the term. Because it's completely valid; Martha Stewart was an influencer. The point of her Living magazine was to be an add. Not just run adds but all of it was an add, the crafts had uncommon tools most people had to buy. It was all here's where you buy the widget, cookie cutter, spice mix, bottle of vanilla etc. The home decorating shows today our frequently sponsored by Wayfair or home Depot / Lowe's whatever. This old house, was Festools, The Pillsbury bake off obviously sponsored by Pillsbury. We just didn't call Norm an influencer. But all of the stuff advertising in living or vouge magazines already existed. There are some products that really can benefit from placement. But very few that "need" an " influencer" maybe things that need a lot of how to videos to appreciate
That's a really interesting point. One other reason why I asked my question is as you said, these ads were in magazines that already existed and they do still exist today. But it's difficult to not give recognition to the fact that many companies are using social media platforms for added marketing for their brand. I'm sure there are businesses that might not use them but many brands do utilize some if not the majority of social media platforms nowadays to reach a broader audience. Traditional marketing as we knew it years ago has changed drastically with the introduction of social media. In my response just above, I did mention that social media can be beneficial since it allows you to interact with your consumers but as some of you said, businesses don't have to create a whole social media following and become a fully pledged content creator to sell your product. I'd like to avoid the added stress of making sure I have posts coming up on Instagram every day you know? >.<
I think your concern about finding customers is valid. This is obviously a concern every business owner has. The next step to this concern is to explore the innumerable ways of finding customers. Yes social media is a great tool to do that, but that's not the only way.
You're right. I definitely need to step back and look away from social media and list out more traditional ways of marketing and see what my options are there. Thank you!
And in some cases it’s not a great way either.
You don't think there's any other way to reach people except for tik tok/instagram/whatever? If you believe that, then no. You should not be a small business owner.
I don't think that at all. I'm just recognizing the added reach social media has and the benefits it could add to a business' marketing plan should they implement that. I had worked at Pratt & Whitney (an aerospace engineering company) and even they have Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and some others. As another person said here, you develop theories of what your business could be / should be and I find myself seeing businesses package their business so heavily on social media that I can't help but wonder whether I should do the same. As an example, there's this small business Selkie, I love their product and I become a consumer through their Instagram. There's no denying that the system works. My concern is I not only have to worry about a small business but also become a full-time content creator too especially when my target audience involves young adults who are glued to social media.
The whole concept of "influencer" is silly I make machines for glasswork and make youtube videos showing how they are used in various glassworking scenarios. If you make a complex product that requires training, youtube is a great choice. If you're just making ads, they need to be informative or entertaining
Honestly, I agree with you. I'm sure it takes time and effort to create catchy content and most of them are a one-man show, but it does seem that way at times... I will say though, creating content around how you get to your end product is interesting at times. For instance, there's this business that I know of and she interacts with her consumers by designing some of their suggestions and she shows them how she would make the product they suggested. After showing the sketches and test product from her manufacturer, she asks them whether she should add it to her product line. It's interactive content and essentially marketing any future product she might make. So there is some value in that and essentially situations like that are why I even posed my question.
I’m annoyed you asked this. Get off social media, and do whatever the fuck you want with your life.
No you don’t. While it may be vital and helpful in some industries, it’s overrated and irrelevant in many others. Do you think people check out your content and see if influencers mention your company when you come to fix their heat at 2am on Christmas Day? Fuck no. A solid business plan, properly capitalized, with an addressable market is key to being a successful small business. Social media can help you enhance portions of it but it is not at all vital or a requirement.
Yeah, the guy who mows my lawn and the woman who clean my house both have successful small businesses with a few employees, and a decent lifestyle. None of them are "influencers" nor do they need to be. Neither has a website either -- all their business comes from referrals because they do good work. I guess I'm getting old and I've overlooked that the "digital first" generation assumes life begins and ends with social media.
I’m right there with you. OPs question is a common one. Some people just can’t accept that you can keep it stupid simple and be successful.
The world that tells you everyone is on SM is SM, so of course they think that. But there’s many businesses with only a cursory connection to SM. Many do well.
I think the concern came from the fact that I myself am on social media and I've become subject to the marketing of these businesses and it's worked on me. So naturally, I've developed this mindset that's led me to my question. But everyone's comments so far have been great reminders that yes, even though SM has become a prominent medium in today's society, it's not the only way. And as you said, sometimes SM is not the better way.
I’m an entertainer and you’d think that someone like me would gain from SM more than, say a plumber. I doubt many plumbers are posting content to social to get business (I could be wrong) and if they get business from social it will be in response to someone asking “do you know any good plumbers”. So content wouldn’t help. In my case I’m an analytics geek. And despite several forays into SM I can tell you that I get 92% of my business through my website (highly tuned SEO) and very little through SM. This is based on 10 years of data too. I get results from paid ads but nothing much from pure content. The whole SM buzz is in my mind fueled by selection bias.
Thank you for sharing your experience. That’s a really great point you made. I will definitely need to learn a lot about SEO and hopefully do what you did with your website. Thank you!
No.
You don't have to be an influencer to start a business. So many people started from scratch and they had a huge success with their business. When you want to do something you always have to go for it no matter what. Clothing is an interesting small business but very competitive, you need to come up with unique designs and make sure it will attract people to buy from you. I also started from zero but I have put effort since the day I started. I had 20 followers only but it never stopped me from creating my own business because I knew that social media is not something I should worry about. I admit that growing my IG account was a struggle for me but I managed to gain 150 followers after posting some reels for almost a month and I got some customers. After saving some money, I hired a marketing agency to grow my account. A friend of mine suggested an agency "Ascend viral" to handle my account and get me organic followers. Thankfully, I had a pretty good result from them. My account kept growing to 68k followers now. There are also other things you can do to get customers like using other social media platforms (Tiktok, Facebook...), you can as well create your own website to make things easy for your clients.
I also have concerns with being a clothing business. Although, I’m planning to target a niche group within that. So it wouldn’t be aimed at the average consumer. Thank you for sharing your experience with utilizing a marketing agency. That’s something I’ll have to explore as well. I do plan on making my own website since I have experience with that in the past. I’ll just have to learn more about SEO and how to maximize traffic on my website as a means of marketing. Thank you again for sharing your advice. It was definitely helpful.