How to Have Influence Without Being an Influencer

Episode 71: How to Have Influence Without Being an Influencer

In this episode, Holly Hibbard - Social Media Consultant & emotional intelligence nerd - shares with you...

• the difference between influence and being an influencer
• why being an influencer doesn’t guarantee growth for your business
• three actions you can take to boost your influence with your clients and audience immediately

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Transcript

Welcome to the Holly Hibbard Show.
I'm Holly, a relationship coach and emotional intelligence nerd turned social media consultant.
This podcast podcast is for coaches, consultants, and service providers ready to simplify their social media strategy, create impactful content, and grow their audience without the overwhelm.
If you want to attract dream clients and free up more time for the things that you love, you are in the right place.
Let's make social media work for you starting now.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the Holly Hibbard Show.
Today, I'm going to be talking with you about how to have influence without being an influencer.
And you may be listening to this thinking, I really want to be an influencer because I think it would be good for my product, my service, the business that I'm running or getting off the ground.
Or you might be listening to this and thinking, oh my goodness.
Thank God Holly just said that because I do want to make an impact, but I don't have any desire to be an influencer.
So regardless of the path that you have set forth for yourself, whether you want to, at some point, become an influencer or not, or you just wanna run your business successfully and you know that your content creation and your digital presence online is a part of that, I hope this episode really, really helps.
This topic came up for me because I have been playing around lately with the difference between the word influence and influencer as I have been merging really the topics I've been passionate with for a very long time.
If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that I, back in 2014 or so, started coaching and teaching leadership courses and workshops.
And prior to that, and also during that time, I also was a relationship coach in my coaching practice that I built up from nothing.
And so being around people who want to set goals for themselves and go for it, develop that leadership is something that I'm very passionate about.
And I was thinking lately, how do I combine this leadership aspect of my life with my passion for social media content, having a strategy that works for you, creating content that looks like you and sounds like you, and also, most importantly, feels good as you create it.
It doesn't feel like it's too overbearing or impossible to keep up with.
And at the end of it, I was thinking upon it going, well, the one reason I even made social media content to begin with a long time ago was because I wanted to get my message out there.
I wanted people to hear the thoughts that were in my mind.
I wanted people to, just have something different to think about when it came to how they see the world, how they see relationships, how they lead people, how they allow themselves to be led, and it turned into a following.
So I never set out on this journey saying, I wanna be an influencer.
In fact, back when I started my social media content creation journey, not only was becoming an influencer not my intention, it wasn't even a thing.
That wasn't even a word that people used at the time, influencer.
Now, I heard something the other day that there are there's Generation Alpha, which my daughter is currently a part of, like elementary, middle school age kids.
Becoming an influencer is one of the top most coveted careers that a lot of kids today have.
That is how much in the last decade that I've been in this industry, being a person of influence and becoming an influencer are 2 totally separate things and influencers are very much a part of our culture today.
So in case you live under a rock or you are not, a consumer of social media as much as someone like myself or other people, what is an influencer to begin with?
Well, people in general, I think it's safe to say, would think that an influencer is a person who has a large social media following.
Meaning, when you are doom scrolling on any platform, but primarily platforms that have short form video like TikTok or Instagram Reels or Facebook Reels or YouTube Shorts, These are the accounts that get shown to you and you've never seen them before.
They're on your your for you page.
They're people you've never had exposure to because they've generated this really big following.
And they become influencers because when you have a following that large, oftentimes, it's because people like the content that you're putting out there, whether it's the products that you're promoting or the message that you are delivering, the content that you are teaching, you're really entertaining.
There's so many different things.
And as a result of of those views and subscribers, but also because of brand deals and collaborations, influencers are kind of like the new commercial of you know, we used to watch television when I was growing up and see commercials on TV all the time and something would peak our interest and we would look into it.
We might purchase it.
We might ask a friend if they had tried this or that product.
And influencers today are not only putting out their message in their own products for you to potentially purchase, but they also might be promoting other people's products and making a commission or an earning off of that.
So when I talk to service providers or business owners, small to medium sized businesses, where they know that digital presence online could really support their business in growing in some way.
They get turned off by the term influencer oftentimes because they think to themselves, okay, but my business over here, whether it be brick and mortar or they run an online business like a coach or a consultant perhaps, they're not looking to have these brand deals and promote other people's products.
Their first and foremost concern, as is mine in my own business, is to promote my own product and, generate a new customer base and let people know that my service, my product actually exists.
That's business.
Right?
If you don't have people purchasing your stuff or your service, you don't last.
And so I wanted to use this episode to separate influencer from influence.
So if you are a coach, a consultant, a service provider, a small to medium sized business owner, or even a larger business owner, and you are turned off by the term influencer, I want you to consider that as a leader in your industry, or if you want to be perceived as a leader in your industry, right?
Then you want to be known for having influence.
And influencer, yes, with the brand deals and the followers and all of that, but and to have influence, you don't need all those followers.
You don't need the brand deal.
Influence simply means that people know that you exist and they listen to your opinions.
They trust your judgment.
They know that you are, for example, a lifelong learner, that you are open minded and always trusting and trying different things.
They know that they are going to get your opinion and your take on what you think is best for each individual customer or client or patient that they have.
You have influence with that person regardless if you have tons of social media followers or if you have none.
Maybe your company, your business, your service, your consultancy isn't even on social media yet.
So consider just for yourself, if you ever thought to yourself, I don't wanna be an influencer, but you wanna make a difference or you just wanna have a thriving business, influence is very important.
So I know that, as I said before, when I first started putting out my content years ago, I would start out my videos in time, not right away, but I would start out every longer video I put out by saying something along the lines of my entire purpose of this video today is to give you something to think about.
You might agree.
You might disagree, but I just want to I'm committed to living in a world where people think critically and have new ideas presented to them, and that's all I'm doing in this video today.
And every time I went live for a while, I said that.
And what ended up happening is I put myself in a position of authority.
I put myself in a position of influence because I was committed to having people think about the world and what they see and their relationships and how they lead and their emotional intelligence and where they could grow.
I was committed to them seeing that.
And it had nothing to do, like I said, with a brand deal.
But it did, over time, boost my reputation as a person of authority in the domain of leadership, in the domain of relationships, in the domain of, emotional intelligence.
And without making that content consistently and putting it out there, not ever perfect, you know?
But but at least getting it out there, I honed my message over and over again and became very comfortable with saying I'm a person of influence.
And in time, I did gather a really big following.
But even if I were to say now I'm an influencer, it still doesn't I still consider myself more of a content creator, because an influencer, in my in my eyes, I feel like is a person who makes their entire living off of the brand deals, for example, and those collaborations.
And I think that's fantastic.
And if my life goes down that path at some point down the line, I don't think I'll be upset about it.
That sounds great to me, but it's not what everybody wants.
So that's the first thing I wanted to lay out for you all is that difference between having influence and being an influencer.
And if you want to be perceived as a leader in your industry, then you, in my opinion, must have influence in some capacity.
And if you're not having a strong social media presence or digital presence yet, start with what's right in front of you and who's right in front of you.
Do you have influence with your clients or with your patients?
Do you have influence with your staff if you run a business?
Do you have influence with your management team or, someone who is on the same level of you if you are a a c suite person?
I think it's important to start where you are and recognize, do you have influence?
And then if you're like, that makes me feel really weird, What does that even mean?
It sounds a little manipulative.
Here's another way I can phrase it for you.
What you influence in others reflects the principles that you have for your life.
What you influence in others reflects the principles that you have in your life.
So my principles in my life are things like kindness, compassion, emotional intelligence, openness, curiosity, leadership.
And so when I am teaching, as I do on my show here or in videos or with my family or my friends or anybody who's willing to listen, those are often the things that I am teaching about and learning about.
And they know that about me because I show up consistently discussing those things.
My principles are guiding what I teach, how I am with my clients, how I am with my content, and that my principles are what have influence on people.
It's not a manipulation strategy.
If anything, it requires more clarity from you about who you are and what you're about.
And as I said, back when I started my content years years ago, I had a belief that I had nothing that anybody wanted to hear.
I thought, who's gonna wanna listen to me?
I don't have anything important to say.
And that's a limiting belief that I had to work through.
So the content and just talking it out helped me in time to become clearer on my messaging, which really was me getting clearer on my life principles.
And my life principles really steer the ship of the choices that I make in my, yes, professional life, but also in my personal life as well.
So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, Holly, you had me convinced, I don't need to be an influencer yet, if ever, but I do wanna have influence.
What should I do?
So the first thing I mentioned is start where you are.
Notice what principles are important to you and how can you serve the people in your space with that come from.
And if you are venturing into, I wanna make some social media content, I wanna post something, I wanna write something, I want to share something to Instagram or record a short video or post a photo with a cool caption, use that same come from.
What would you like to share to the people who see this that can serve them?
And think back to your principles.
For me, if it's around leadership, kindness, compassion, empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, I'm going to teach those things or talk about those things, or I'm gonna share a story from my life about those things, or something I see in my client from those things.
So that's one thing is be in that mindset, that frame of mind of who can I serve in this moment and start where you are?
The second way to build your influence is to stay consistent over time.
And the beauty of starting this with your principles and learning to be a person of influence and and keeping those principles front and center is that your principles don't typically change that often in your lifetime.
I think now that I'm in my mid forties, I know my principles between my twenties and my thirties and my forties absolutely have some overlap.
I have always been about kindness.
I have always been about light bulb moments and supporting people and educating people.
That's always been a part of me.
And I think it wasn't until recent years that I added to that list back in my thirties, emotional intelligence, and really into my forties, realizing how important leadership is to me as well.
And so the list will grow in time, but it isn't like you have to reinvent who you are.
That's the beauty of starting with your your principles in life and not your hobbies or just what you're into at the moment.
Because those things can change very drastically with life circumstances.
So that's why I'm a fan of if you are a business owner, a consultant, a teacher, I want you to be clear on not just the actions you take and what you do for others, but the the feeling that you bring, those values that you bring, and share and serve from that as well.
And the third way to build your influence is if you do step out onto the social media stage or you dabble in it or let's say you don't create content yourself, what you can do is engage with other people who do make that content or answer people's questions when it is related to something that you do.
So when you're scrolling, be in that that frame of mind of, if somebody asks something and I can serve them from my principles or from my what I do.
You're not promoting yourself, but if you know the answer to a question, put it out there.
It's a way of reinforcing to yourself that you know what you're talking about.
You do have a viable amount of experience that they may benefit from, but they're only gonna benefit from your knowledge if you share your knowledge.
So having that engagement, having that interaction when you're working with clients or patient or your the people that you provide your service to, it's also really important to take the time to listen to them.
Yes.
I know small talk is so tempting to just say, how was your weekend?
How was your holiday?
And the like, how are your kids?
But really talk to them about what you can serve them with.
So if they are let's say, you are a physical therapist and they're coming to you because they're having lower back pain.
And, yeah, you can do the actions that you need to take during that appointment.
But let's say you have a little bit of knowledge about the connection between stressed out psychology and lower back pain.
Because in the US, that's a real thing, by the way.
And let's say you're just curious that they've ever heard about that.
You could be in conversation with them and say, hey, you know, what how's your stress been?
Because I heard this thing one day that said that your stress levels might really be impacting your lower back pain.
Just giving them that nugget, whether it's true or not, gives them something to think about and it also shows them that you are a multi dimensional, passionate practitioner in what you do.
You care more about not just you care more about the whole being, the whole person, their entire experience, as opposed to, let me just do this session and send you on your way and get you out of my clinic, my office, my Zoom call, whatever it is.
I think people like to know that that you have a multifaceted interest in them.
So those are some three ways to boost your influence where you currently are.
So I hope that's really, useful for you today.
And like I said, if you are a person who gets turned off by the word influencer, I promise to you, having influence is not the same thing.
Yes.
Influencers have influence, but I'm guessing that if you're listening to this show and you're you're, really wanting to have a digital presence, social media content that works for you, and you wanna stand out with your business, your brand, who you are, you want to shine as the person that you truly are, let's take your influence up a notch and let's not worry about the influencer part of that just yet, okay, if ever, if that's what you want to do.
I'm so grateful for you listening to this episode today.
Drop me a comment.
I'd love to know if you would love to be an influencer in your life or if you're great having influence.
Drop me a comment and just put 1 or the other, influencer or influence.
I'd love to hear, your input on that.
So that's all I have for you for today.
So I love you.
I mean it.
And until next time, I'll talk to you next time.
Thank you for listening.
I'm giving you a virtual high five for prioritizing your personal growth.
If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you could take a moment and leave a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts.
Share the show with friends and family, or snap a screenshot of this episode and tag me on Instagram at the holly hibbard.
You are not alone on this journey, my friend.
I'm always here cheering you on.
So until next time, stay curious, stay encouraged, and keep empowering yourself.
You are doing better than you know.