Is it Too Late to become an Instagram Star?

Are you thinking now is the time to make a big push on your Instagram account? It's getting a lot of traction but now we need to monetise the traffic?

I think a lot of people have that leap of faith moment, but are unsure on whether they've missed the influencer boat. 

Is it too late to enter a saturated market with only a modicum of the following that some of the big boys have?

You might want to first ask yourself the following questions such as Why do you want to become an Influencer? 

1. Is it to get freebies?

2. Is it because your current job sucks and you need a way out that doesn't involve study or rebranding?

3. Did you just catch your own reflection and think you're too good looking to be working as a cashier or flipping burgers?

Ok so you whatever the reason, let me just emphasise that I know very few influencers, even the big ones, that have given up the day jobs to leverage their social media accounts. Especially a lot of friends I have in the industry will often utilise other content related skills. Videography, podcasting, ghost writing etc. 

My short answer is, NOPE, never too late.

I like this article from Nicolas Cole who posed a similar question in INC magazine. Basically none of the monoliths in the tech industry today knew their terrain when they first started out. 

Even AMAZON started solely selling books. Facebook was exclusive to University students. Let's just say when you started your page you might have been posting pictures of your chicken dinner, now you want to focus on fashion or beauty products. 

Who cares, what you want to post about. So long as it's a genuine interest of yours. 

Here are 3 chunky facts for you to take away:

1 billion people use Instagram every month

I recommend you check out this article on Hootsuite that gives you the skinny on some Instagram facts for 2019. 500 million people use Instagram every day. That's a huge global resource and if you're telling me that your genre is saturated then perhaps you need to find the niche within a niche. 

OR just think logistically, that you have the potential to reach 500 million people. No matter if there's a bunch of you all focusing on the same thing, no one is doing it the way you're doing it. 

Instagram Posts That Include a Location Receive 79% More Engagement

Check out some more statistics about Instagram in an article on Influencer Marketing Hub. What does this tell you? That some people still don't know how to truly leverage their audience potential.

Imagine if you somehow did shed tonnes more research than the person who is competing for your campaign, on how to capitalise on a theme or product, then all of a sudden it's not such a saturated market after all. You can climb the ladder and get a bigger market share. 

Photos With Faces Get 38% More Likes

I pulled this one from Omnicore. So imagine what people are engaging with? People. The personal touch. The human element. No matter what your face looks like statistics show that it’s what people are more interested in engaging with. 

I hope this has helped. I hope you find what you're looking for on Instagram. Remember it is work, although not real work