As a professional, you are well aware that due to the rise of social media and digital media, the interactions we have with our clients need to evolve.

You must be concerned with the growth of your personal brand as a service provider or consultant, just like other professionals, and maintain your "digital identity," as it is known in the industry. You should include this new role in your professional competencies.

Professionals who are committed to the field of marketing are aware that today, no matter how small the business, having a beautiful website highlighting the wonderful services offered or the products you sell is no longer sufficient to maintain effective communication with your target audience in digital media. Constant interaction with the public is more important than ever, and if you own a small business, your office staff members should take part in the discourse as well as you as a professional.

Therefore in the past, it was us, brands and professionals who controlled what the market had to know about us. We now live in an era of marketing trust and proximity a feature where professionals are leading the sector with care affection and maintaining personal relationships with clients but this should also move to the digital world where trust has spearheaded personal branding and influence.

But why do we need to be influential and how we can use it to strengthen our personal brand?

The influence of digital media can be described as an ability of a person to influence others with their opinions knowledge and content shared in digital media.

An influencer is someone who can help a person or a group of people to change their minds or behavior on a particular subject or topic.

There are very few people who actually have such a considerable impact on social media since it is estimated that only 3% of people who publish content on the Internet generate 90% of the online impact therefore to become an influencer in a particular niche is really difficult but not impossible.

There is a rule that is fulfilled by those professionals who influence their professional environment:

TRACKING + KNOWLEDGE = Influencer

Therefore a social influencer in any sector can be measured by the following:

• • Number of followers
  • Knowledge of Topic or Subject
  • Digital Footprint 

If an influencer speaks and others listen…

Influencers are also potential generators of interesting content related to their activity.

To your followers, you need to be a trusted person to share useful content and value? Nope! It does not mean that you should always be the original content creator as many professionals do not have the ability to research and find time out of their professional activity to write and publish but it is also based on selecting a quality and interesting content prepared by other professionals in the field and you think your fans should know about it is sufficient.

If your company has an official blog or you have a personal one can make a small post about a study or link to the content prepared by other professionals. You can work on it for one to three days and share it across on your blog.

And really as a content marketing expert, I can assure you that Google appreciates this type of very well-written content in many cases even better than the original.

But how do we know that someone is really an influencer? To detect an influencer marketing experts research these three metrics:

Scope: Measure the size of the audience that influencers have. The audience can be measured from the number of visits or its impact on their blog the followers on Twitter subscribers of YouTube channel etc.

Engagement: After calculating the digital scope here we take into account factors such as retweets backlinks to the articles posted on blog comments left and the participation of this influencer in other media as a guest blogger or online newspapers.

Relevance: Here we check the relevancy of the topics that a specific influencer has shared with his audience. Joining relevant users helps to increase the value of content created by a professional on a specialized topic and helps in generating debate among the audience.

Building an influence around us is not easy requires a certain amount of time to understand other people in the network. Also constantly work outside the profession without expecting anything in return in the beginning.

You should also make time to participate and share your knowledge with other professionals in different groups and forums without expecting anything in return but it counts worth it.

Furthermore, not only content sharing but have a very good relationship with your followers informing them about important issues and even helping them at certain times if they have doubts.

To be a professional influencer you must have an innate curiosity about dominating issues and must always be very motivated to spend hours researching and studying with a clear objective to share the knowledge with others.

In my point of view these are the main characteristics of a professional influencer

Altruism: The professionals who are really looking forward to becoming an influencer in a subject or topic should be altruistic with their knowledge and share the knowledge without asking for anything in return. Should also write on a blog participate in discussion forums or LinkedIn groups participate in events share valuable information and sometimes without intending to receive any material compensation and use their talent in the service of others.

Empathy:  The definition of empathy has always been “the key quality to differentiate a good leader and a great leader”. This concept extrapolated to the subject at hand and would help to identify a real influencer and the big difference is empathy considered as the competence to read others. An influencer must understand the needs of his audience and must know the content their readers demand. Must maintain and build a relationship in which everyone wins.

Participation: It is vital for a professional to participate in groups on LinkedIn to share useful content and participate in specialized forums for visibility in the digital world.

I'll provide you 10 to get you started building your own brand and social impact.

1. Find a topic with which you can define your personal brand.

If you are an expert in any discipline no matter how small, for example, web hosting, why not exploit? It is better to have a niche audience rather than position yourself in the general category.

2. Give your audience what interests you.

Watch the active listening skills, and what is spoken in the web hosting industry? What concerns are there? Data Protection, and much more.

3. Be specific.

Better get specialized in a subject, following the example of hosting, when do you think that a business owner can start creating his business website and influence specific sector, writing about types of hosting services, their advantages and disadvantages can be of help. The bigger the theme chosen to dress your personal brand will get harder to be more relevant, so choose wisely.

4. Brand publishing goals and consistency.

If you have opted for a content marketing strategy to boost your digital identity, building a content calendar and overturning the ideas that emerge will help.

5. Use tools for content curation.

It is very difficult to be aware of everything that is said on the network on a given subject and when the subject is as specialized as web hosting, use tools that allow you to through information and be aware of what is written and said about your specialty. Google alerts, scoop.it, Quora, Flipboard, and Feedly can be interesting examples in this regard.

6. Be human and altruistic, and interact with your followers.

If someone follows you on Twitter, thank him, if someone sends an invitation to connect on LinkedIn, accept and thank them, and be communicative, although it seems difficult, at times we run, our digital communication still needs the human component that is disappearing.

7. Share content only from sources that you believe are reliable.

8. Be selective in the quality of each piece so that it adds value to your readers’ knowledge.

9. Find professionals like you.

To master your professional area they can be influential you should find professionals like you, who will always be a source of inspiration, they may also share your content, allowing a greater range.

10. Be relevant and consistent.

Select the most valuable content, this will allow the audience to not only value ​​you for your expertise but also as the most reliable source.

The goal of this post is to pique your interest and get you thinking about how to create a digital identity that will help you both professionally and personally.