Influencers aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Influencer marketing continues to grow in its popularity. In fact, the influencer marketing industry is on track to be worth $15 billion by 2022, up from as much as $8 billion in 2019.

For many being an influencer seems like the dream. You get to go to cool events, are sent free products, have thousands to even millions of people who look up to you, along with several other perks. This lifestyle seems almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? Yes and no. 

There is a common misconception that influencers do not work that hard, which is quite far from the truth. Like just about everything, being an influencer has its pros and cons. It is not all just a glamorous lifestyle and posting a picture to Instagram every now and then. It takes hard work, dedication, and some thick skin.  

So what exactly are the pros and cons of being an influencer? Let’s get into it. 

Pros

They Are Passionate About Their Job

If someone is an influencer, they are almost always passionate about their job. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have been able to have grown such a large following, as it is likely people would have seen right through them. 

Most influencers have a niche that they are in, care about, and that is the primary reason they started the whole influencer thing. Influencers genuinely do love what they do. There may be certain aspects that they do not enjoy, but they would not trade their job for anything else. 

Flexibility

One of the greatest perks of being an influencer is the flexibility that comes with the job. In general, it is not the typical 9-5 as influencers have control over when their working hours are. They rarely have an office where they go to work every day. Usually, they are working from their home, or somewhere their job has taken them.

Influencers can take work with them wherever they go. They are often not bound to time nor locations, which is one of the most attractive aspects of being an influencer. 

Opportunities To Work With Brands They Love

Influencers have the opportunity to work with some pretty cool brands. Depending on how successful they are, they could even work with some big, well-known brands they genuinely love and believe in. The brands they work with will usually be within the same niche of the influencer. 

Building a Community & Inspiring Others

While building a community is what takes the most work, it is also the most rewarding. Those who follow an influencer generally have at least some commonality and are probably interested in the influencer’s niche. This opens up real opportunities to create a community of people who share content and encourage one another. 

An influencer has a unique opportunity with their platform and their ability to build relationships and inspire those who follow them. Growing this community does take work as the influencer must be willing to engage constantly with their audience. That is what builds a community, drives engagement, and makes both the influencer and their audience feel like they are part of something special. 

Being Sent Products & Invited to Events

No one can deny that being sent products from companies and being invited to exclusive events is cool. Many brands send influencers products hoping that they will like them and promote them to their followers. 

Brands will also invite influencers to different events so that they can post about it and help them reach their target audience that way. An influencer can find themselves at some pretty amazing and unique events as they grow. 

However, it should be noted that if you just want to be an influencer for these reasons, then you are in it for all the wrong reasons. This is a major plus of being an influencer, but people will notice if that is all you care about, and that will be reflected through your insights. 

It is also crucial that influencers are authentic and post things that they genuinely believe in and support. Their followers really do trust their opinion, and it is poor form to promote something they don’t believe in just because it benefits them.

Cons

Influencers Are “On” All The Time

Part of what comes with having an established platform as an influencer is having eyes on them all the time. An influencer’s audience may expect them to behave in a certain way and are often disappointed if they do not live up to those expectations. They must be constantly mindful of their actions because they never know who is watching, whether through their actions in person or their actions online. 

Influencers also have to be “on'' in the sense that they pretty much need to be constantly posting and updating their socials. They can not really take time off from posting content or interacting with their audience. The moment they do that, they see their engagement rates suffer. That’s why being organized and utilizing scheduling tools, such as Sprout Social or Hootsuite, is important to maintain consistency and relieve some of the stress of the demands that come from the influencer lifestyle. 

Critics or “Haters”

As previously discussed, influencers have eyes on them all the time. The harsh truth is that it’s impossible to please everyone, and every influencer is bound to have critics or “haters.” It takes thick skin to be an influencer as there will be people who do not have kind things to say or may even attack them. An influencer has to be able to ignore or brush off these haters. This is, of course, much easier said than done, which makes this a super tough part of being an influencer. 

There is also no denying that “cancel culture” is alive and well. No matter what one’s opinion may be on it, it is a powerful force that can seriously damage an influencers career if they are not careful. Influencers have to always be sure they are not making a move that could be cause for being “canceled” as it could ruin their career. 

Career Uncertainty 

Being an influencer does not provide much job security. The competition in the influencer space is fierce. An influencer must constantly be thinking of new and exciting content to keep their audience engaged and growing. They must also be searching for new sponsorships or brand partnerships continuously to keep their income afloat and remain financially stable. 

This is why being passionate about the particular niche/industry in which an influencer is influencing is important. Being able to establish long-term partnerships with brands that they love and trust provides an extra sense of job security. However, since influencers are often sourcing their income from short-term campaigns, always being on the lookout for more opportunities is a must to be able to support themselves and their goals. 

Maintaining Integrity Can Be Difficult, But It is Essential  

As previously mentioned, influencers must be authentic and post things they genuinely believe in and support. Once an influencer loses the trust of a follower, it is difficult to get it back. 

As an influencer grows their platform, they will begin to receive many requests for sponsorships and to advertise a company’s products. It is essential that an influencer maintains their integrity and only promotes products or events that align well with their brand and that they genuinely believe in it. While it may be challenging to say no to deals initially, sticking to promoting only what they actually believe in will pay off more in the long run. Not only is there a sense of integrity and satisfaction from staying true to what they believe in, but it’s greatly appreciated by followers as well. 

Is It Worth It?

Whether being an influencer is genuinely worth it or not can only be made on an individual basis. Success in the influencer industry is challenging to achieve, so you should be truly passionate about it if it is something that you shoot for. If you are lucky enough to achieve success, do not take the community you have built for granted, as it is an extraordinary thing.

For more tips and advice for personal branding strategies, check out the rest of Power Move Marketing's blogs.

 

 

 

Author: Alexandra Jalliet