Written In Partnership With AscendÂ
Photo Credit: Akil Henley
Akil Henley is an African-American social media influencer who doubles as an aerial photographer based in New York City. Akil has over six years of experience as a photographer, relying on aerial photography as his desired form of sharing his creativity with the world. Akil comes from the finance world but juggles many bags, including content creation and playing various musical instruments. He is a natural-born content creator who has captured the world with his fascinating and detailed aerial photos. Some of his amazing shots can be found on his Instagram page.
The world of social media influencing is a dynamic and fast-paced one that is seeing many rapid changes. Like any other influencer, Akil has had to keep up and adapt to the changes. Two decades ago, social media was not a thing. In fact, no business or brand was keen on social media and its growth until recently. The same is the case for influencing, no one ever thought of making a career off of social media influencing but now it’s happening. Individuals like Akil are comfortably making a living as influencers as many others are making it big on social media.
So, what are some of the changes in influencer marketing?
- Â Growth of non-celebrity influence marketing
Initially, celebrities were considered the only people influencing the masses in marketing. It’s when the realization came that having a massive following does not equally translate to engagements that the ability to create a personalized relationship and influence with the audience mattered. The focus has since shifted focus from celebrities to influencers.
- Â Increased love for personalized content
Consumers now want to see the influencers physically interact with the product and give honest reviews of the product or service. This has proved to have a massive impact in determining the influencers’ influence over the target market.
- Â Hashtags and trends list marketing
Modern-day influencers have come up with new marketing techniques such as initiating new hashtags that support or give credit to a brand. Another popular technique is the placement of products between trending hashtags to make the brand more visible.
- Creative content with added content
Social media users yearn for value-added content that is offering more than just an advertisement. They are rushing for that refreshing, entertaining, and educative content that will keep them glued to the social media handles of influencers.
How Influencer Akil Henley Has Adapted to these changes
Being a natural creative, Akil has found it pretty easy to keep up with changes and remain on top of all the new trends. Some of the actions he has taken include:
- Keeping up to date with the current trends across social media platforms
- Creating a personalized relationship with all his followers through chats and comment section engagements.
- Diversifying his content to make it richer and more captivating. Being a photographer, he focuses on different things like beautiful landscapes, buildings, current happenings, and many more.
- Being active on various social media platforms to create a presence in as many as possible
- Aligning his social media brand to engage and attract a wide range of audiences for his content.
The future of social media influencing is undoubtedly bright, with many brands and businesses embracing it and placing social media marketing at the core of their advertisement campaigns. Going forward, Akil expects a growing number of users to be interested in engaging both short-term and long-term with various influencers promoting themselves and other brands on social media.
