Influencers are a cross between journalist, salesperson, and lifestyle champion. @TaraMilkTea is a champion for travelers who love breathtaking locations, @JamieOliver is a champion for foodies on the hunt for mouth-watering treats and recipes, and @ZachKing is a champion for people who just want a good laugh.

The new career track that Insta influencers represent looks sexy and easy from the outside, but at the end of the day, it’s a real job. It pays real money, and it requires time, energy, and special knowledge.  

The influencer marketing industry could be worth $10 billion by 2020. This awakening giant is the wave of the future. Digital marketers today have powerful tools that can achieve incredible results with these IG influencers at the helm. If you are looking for a future proof job that can pay upwards of 6 figures, consider researching into the life of an influencer.

This article serves as a taste of the real world of Insta influencers. This means it does not include the results achieved by celebrity influencers like Cristiano Ronaldo or the Kardashian family.

This could be the best thing about the job of an influencer. The stereotype of a Western influencer who goes to a foreign country to pose in front of ancient world wonders is actually kind of spot on. For better or worse, people like you and me tend to follow accounts with exotic landscapes. For an influencer, this is quite a job perk!

All you need for these kinds of content is a suitable camera and an executable idea to pin the content around. This implies that countries with strict rules around camera will be tougher for an influencer to thrive in than laissez-faire destinations.

If you are a foodie Instagrammer, your office is wherever you are allowed to film a superb quiche.  

As mentioned, one of the jobs of an influencer is to sell and another is to champion an idea. Some of the most popular “ideas” influencers pin their content on are food, sexiness, fitness, fashion, and comedy. 

The combination of these two things is called affiliate marketing. Amazon is famous for wide employment of this tactic. They will literally pay you to promote their products on your channel. It can be ANY product. You choose and then get paid on commission.

The job of an influencer is highly entrepreneurial. Everything you create is purely up to you and your team. However, this means that sometimes you must get creative in order to remain loyal to your fanbase or face the consequences. 

Community means other people celebrating (caring about) the same thing as you.

What is the difference between fame and celebrity? One of the most important answers is that celebrities are celebrated. Dr. Fauci is an example of a famous non-celebrity. 

Instagrammers have been banking on this distinction by building novel ways of “celebrating.” These include likes, follows, subscriptions, merchandising, courses, and collaborations. 

A vivid community of like-minded people who will spend time and energy on hearing what you have to say is powerful. It pays to remember that influencers are journalists and journalists can take down a president. 

Avoid losing your hardcore fans and your channels as an influencer will remain alive. However, you should sign into this job with the knowledge that becoming a public personality opens you up to ridicule and scrutiny. It is not for everyone.

The reason influencers are celebrated is because they represent something larger than themselves. An influencer who does not fulfill this can quickly become shunned and ridiculed, often by his/her own fans. 

One of the nightmares that keeps series directors up at night is creating characters that fall out of character (ahem … Game of Thrones…).   

The internet has truly expressed democracy for the first time in history. One of the consequences of this resounding movement is ubiquitous online sexual content. 

It’s difficult to avoid. YouTube has created a separate entity called YouTube Kids with the express purpose of keeping “what sells” out of the hands of children.

If everybody is equal in their ability to open a Twitter account and post about their opinions, it is worth asking if it is a good thing that somebody who gets 1 million daily viewers all looking for twerking videos is really a worthy authority.  

Folks who did not grow up with Instagram and YouTube are not always very sympathetic to influencers. It is worth keeping an eye on this if you wish to be paid to get more followers on Instagram. Many jobs come from collaborations with established brands. If these have never worked with influencers before, there may be a good reason for it. 

You should always look for partners and collaborations who have at least worked with digital marketing in the past. Older generations tend to be skeptical and stingy with Instagram influencers.