Why Freelancers Should Become Influencers to Increase Their Earnings

Freelancing may be freeing and fulfilling, but at some point, it becomes challenging to scale. After a couple of years, you might find yourself struggling to keep up with the deadlines as you take on more projects than you can handle. You could even get stuck with just a handful of clients in spite of your attempts to grow your client base.
The best way to tackle all these challenges with freelancing scalability is by becoming an influencer yourself. Here are five of the best reasons why you should become an influencer to increase your freelance earnings:

1. You Get to Grow Your Social Media Reach

Becoming an influencer involves growing your following, which translates to better reach. So even when sharing your content via social media, you’ll no doubt get more impressions and engagement as an influencer.
This can lead to several outcomes for your freelance earnings:

• Your content could reach prospective clients, meaning you could grow your earnings with more (and possibly even better) projects.
• If you have affiliate links in your content, better reach and visibility will help you get more clicks and therefore, better earnings.

Plus, you could use this reach to showcase your portfolio to a broad audience. This further helps you attract prospective clients while helping you market your personal brand.

2. You Become a Credible Name in the Field

It goes without saying that holding an influencer status comes with higher credibility. As you gain more visibility as an influencer, you automatically market your personal brand. This makes it easier for you to effectively lead conversations on topics you specialize in by sharing informative content and insights. As such, you become well-known as a credible source of information in your field of expertise.
Not only does this help you attract a relevant audience, but it also establishes trust in prospective clients. You’re not just telling them that you know what you’re doing; you’re showing them how intimately you know the subject. Eventually, this will help you become the go-to person for anyone who needs help with the types of projects you specialize in. So it becomes a lot easier to gain high-paying clients who can help you increase your freelance earnings.

3. You Can Build a Strong Professional Network

The powerful combination of visibility and credibility that comes with being an influencer has manifold benefits for your freelance career. One of those involves strengthening your professional network.
When you’re an influencer in a certain field, there’s no doubt that you’ll gain plenty of following from people whose interests align with yours. For example, a freelance digital artist could have tons of people who follow them because they enjoy their artwork. They’ll also gain a following of fellow artists as well as brands and entrepreneurs who might want to work with them in the future.
As such, you’ll build a strong and powerful professional network that can work wonders for your freelance earnings. There are several things that could happen to deliver this outcome:

• The brands and entrepreneurs who follow you will approach you with business and partnership proposals. Whether it’s to hire you for your skills or to for your influence, this eventually translates to higher earnings.
• Some of your followers could refer you to friends and acquaintances who need help with a project that you specialize in.
• Your fellow freelancers could refer you to prospective clients when they’re not equipped to take on the project. Alternatively, they might reach out to you for freelancer-to-freelancer collaborations when they have to work on bigger, more challenging projects.
• You could get plenty of opportunities to contribute and share your expertise through reputable blogs, podcasts, interviews, webinars, and more. This leads to more exposure, which could further boost your credibility and lead to more opportunities for income generation.

4. You Get to Build an Impressive Portfolio

One of the best indirect impacts of becoming an influencer is on your freelance portfolio. Being an influencer exposes you to high-paying clients who might even be an authority in their respective fields. So the work you do for them automatically adds more substance and credibility to your portfolio, which further helps you land even bigger clients with more reputable brand names.
This impressive portfolio becomes the very thing that defines your skills and capabilities as a freelancer in the eyes of others. That means it could pave the way for much bigger projects and better earnings well into the future as you win over prospective clients with reliable proof of what you can do for them.

5. You Can Uncover Alternate Income Sources

The biggest benefit of having an influential status in any niche or industry is that it opens up many more alternate income sources for you. That is in addition to helping you maximize your earnings from existing sources.
When you become an influencer, you can increase your earnings through these methods:

• Affiliate marketing – It makes even more sense to join an affiliate program as an influencer because you’ll have a much bigger reach and therefore, generate higher commissions. This is a particularly desirable option because you get to keep generating income passively from even just one piece of content.
• Brand partnerships – Brand sponsorships are an obvious income source for influencers as companies regularly look for influential personalities to promote their products. In alignment with your skills and service offering, you can find creative ways to partner with brands and maximize your earnings.
• Speaking events – As an influencer, you could earn some extra income from speaking at important industry events as well. Whether you get invited as a guest or a keynote speaker, companies and organizers often pay industry influencers to add value to the event by sharing valuable insights and expertise.
• Tutorials/courses/eBooks – Make the most of your influence to market your expertise to others who want to learn from you. You could develop tutorials, eBooks, and courses and make them available for a small fee.

Start Your Freelancing Influencer Journey Today

Even if you’re just starting to grow your influence, you can still start maximizing your earnings through the alternate income sources listed above. Affiliate marketing, in particular, is a viable way to grow your earnings even with limited reach.
Just be sure to focus on affiliate programs that align with your niche and specialization. For freelancers, the affiliate programs from AND.CO and Fiverr would be the perfect place to start.
With the AND.CO program, you could earn a 50% commission on the Pro plans or $108 per annual plan. The Fiverr program lets you earn a dynamic CPA up to $150 or $10 CPA plus a 10% revenue share for each referral. So make sure you visit the respective affiliate pages and click on the “Join” button to sign up for the program while you build your influence.