Stop Worrying About Being An Influencer-Resonance Is The New Standard

In this episode of 'The Visibility Standard,' host Jazzmyn challenges the traditional notion of what it means to be an influencer. She discusses the power of genuine influence, stressing that follower counts don't determine impact. Jazzmyn encourages creatives to embrace their unique voices, show up authentically, and create content from a place of passion rather than chasing trends or metrics. She illustrates that true influence lies in consistency, storytelling, and originality. Jazzmyn also offers practical advice on breaking free from societal expectations and burnout, highlighting the importance of enjoying the creative process and being open to the evolving paths of one's career.

Transcript

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Are you sitting with thousands of hours of B-roll content and telling yourself, I'll start posting tomorrow? Are you in your head worried about your friends and family thinking your friends were choosing to be visible? Are you chasing trends instead of building influence? Welcome to the Visibility Standard, where the visionaries of today are changing the roles of their industries and letting their voice be heard. I'm your host, Jasmine, and we are setting this together. What does it mean to be an influencer? What do you think of when you hear the word influencer? And I truly think the content space would be so much stronger if people who were truly influencing, shaping culture, changing how people think, behave, believe, reclaimed the word influencer. And that's what I'm going to talk about today. I'm Jasmine, the host of the Visibility Standard, therapist, podcast host, visibility strategist for healers, creatives, those who are willing to step up, show up in their fields, and be a voice of their focus, of their energy. And I was thinking about this week how a lot of us avoid the word influencer, how it elicits this cringy response within us. And a lot of people choose not to say, I'm an influencer because of the way other people might respond. Like, who are you to say you're an influencer? Why would you want to claim you're an influencer? Most of that energy is jealousy, wishing that they had the confidence to show up, to speak up, to shift the way people think about their profession, their work. But unfortunately, we have equated influencer culture to following. So somebody with 50 followers couldn't possibly be an influencer because they don't have a hundred thousand followers. But follower counts don't necessarily reflect a person's reach. Sure, there are 50,000 people following somebody, and that might be the only 50,000 people they're reaching. Someone could have 50 followers and they're at conferences, they're keynote speaking, they are in their communities, they're doing in-person events. Like social media metrics is just one reflection of someone's reach, of their audience, of who they're resonating with. But I wonder what the content space would look like if more people felt confident enough to claim the word influencer. To keep this conversation grounded in some logic, I looked up the word influencer and its definition, and I'm going to read it to you all. Something that has influence has the power to change or affect the meaning of something else, whether it's an idea, a word, a situation, or someone's beliefs and actions. I am sure that you can think of five people online who don't have a large following, who maybe aren't posting all the time, who have influence over your behavior, of how you think, of how you show up. Any one of those things. Hell, my supervisor is an influencer. By that definition, she is my biggest influencer. She's iconic. Love you. If you're listening to this. But there are so many people in your orbits who are already influencing you, who have more influence over you than the Alex Earls of the world. But we get so caught up in vanity metrics that we forget that what we're creating, what we are putting out there, has influence on how people think of our work or our profession or any of one of those things or how they see us. We do not know what influences someone's behavior. We do not know if what we said last week on a podcast, what we shared in our short form content resonated with somebody enough to start making content, to create the newsletter, to build the offer. We have no clue who we have influenced. When you are choosing to show up, when you are choosing to use your voice to influence folks to imagine their worlds differently, to imagine their self-care differently, to reconsider their behavior in relationships, you are working to build influence in people's lives. There are so many of us who are already embodying what it means to be an influencer, but we think our numbers do not reflect that title of being an influencer. I think that 2020 really shaped how we think about influencers. A lot of folks who were jumping on the really big dance trends, and we saw the hype house, we saw all of these folks who had the access, the ability to create content 24-7 and create and build a brand and get the sponsorships and travel and collaborate with people. That is one way to be an influencer. They have influenced people to make content, honestly. They influence people to be more creative. And we have people in Spears who are doing meetups, who are encouraging folks to think outside the box of their career, to to imagine offers that actually feel good for them versus how they have to show up, or are building their business that actually feels good versus what they were were taught by that business coach or what they see reflected in media. Those people are also influencing how people think. And you are probably listening to this, and you are probably someone who is doing something completely different than what you were taught. I hope that you're sharing it. I hope that you are letting people see it because that will influence people. There's so many content creators who are influencing how people imagine their content, imagine their work, imagine what is possible for them in their career. We get so caught up in trying to mirror what other people are doing that our originality is what people are going to be looking for. Copy and paste. There's so many folks doing the same beige static content or the same like aesthetic where it's that like black and white and really mysterious and clean girl aesthetic. Even think about it with interior design too. Like we all want the clinging, like minimalist kitchen. What if more of us who wanted like the shaggy blue rug with the uh very patterned wallpaper? What if more of us decorated our houses that way? What if more of us created content simply from a place of creativity? From a place of influencing the people that we are going to influence to have an impact on the people that are we're meant to reach, rather than trying to fit into a mold that is unsustainable. Because I hear all the time, I'm getting really burnt out with my content. I'm getting really tired of making content. You're probably trying to be somebody that you are not. You are most likely trying to emulate somebody that you have seen that you perceive as successful. You're trying to mirror that into your content, and you're tired because it's not in alignment with who you are or where you are. And it's hard. It is so hard to not look at people who are miles in front of us and think, okay, if I do what they're doing, then maybe I'll get closer. Sustaining an audience is not about trends or virality or metrics. Sustaining an audience comes to storytelling, building resonance, consistency, getting people wanting to continue coming back. Couple hot takes here and there. The uh the rage bait clickbait content. I'm gonna talk about that in another episode. Sure, it's gonna give you really big numbers in like a short amount of time, maybe. But is that your brand? Is clickbait really like your brand? When I decided to grow beyond the therapy room, I knew I needed systems that could keep up. Enter Jane App, the practice management platform that has my back. From online booking to charting to payments, Jane keeps everything streamlined so I can show up for my clients and create content, build my brand, and run my business with confidence. If you're ready to level up your practice, head to Jane.app and use code JAS1MO for a one-month grace period. I think we have gotten to a place where we are s chasing virality so much that we have forgotten the process of building. Uh we're in a society where we can where things can happen instantaneously, where we want to wake up the next day and be a household name, a success. That comes with work. That comes with consistently showing up on good days, bad days, neutral days. It's allowing 20% of your content to crush it and the other 80% to make it. It comes with sitting with those uncomfortable days where you hit like 50 likes on this video when the day before you maybe hit 200 or 2,000. You had a post go viral last week, and so you're like chasing that high of okay, how do I keep this up? What do I how do I copy and paste this? And it's like they're not twins. You could post a video that could really resonate on Monday, and then on Tuesday, you maybe get half of that, and then weekends, you're lucky if you get some engagement. Sitting in those ebbs and flows of content creation, that is where you build a brand. That's where you start to build influence because people are like, this girl is showing up. This girl's not waiting until the sponsors are looking for her, she's not waiting until she has these big numbers. She is talking to her audience of five, she's talking to her audience of ten. You're talking to your audience and you're allowing your audience to find you, and that is so cool. It is so cool when we allow ourselves to be persistent in our passions. Being an influencer is showing people that if we work hard, if we continue to be consistent and passionate about the message that we're sharing, that's what people gravitate to. People gravitate to passion, people gravitate to interest, to fun, to excitement. We get so caught up in our heads about showing up perfectly or showing up with the right words or showing up with this clothing brand with this sponsorship. And it's like none of that really is important. None of that is how the people who we see have gotten to 100k, a million, like those really big numbers. That's not how they got there, and that's not how they started. But you have to start somewhere. If you want that future for yourself, you've got to start somewhere. And you've gotta start with something. Start with a story, start with a message, start with something that you're passionate about. Are you passionate about sports? Make a video every day commenting on a sport of some sort. Show us your fantasy football league. Are you passionate about line dancing? Go line dancing. Tell us how it was, tell us your favorite line dance. Just show up, just do it. Don't wait. I'm so tired of hearing the phrase the online space is oversaturated. There are a lot of voices out there who I wish believed the space was oversaturated. Jake from finance, Joe from development. They're not worried about if the space is oversaturated. They are showing up and stating their voice because they're like, someone's gonna want to listen to this, someone's gonna find this and want to listen to it. Feel the same way about you, feel the same way about your content. Someone is gonna want to listen to it, someone is looking for you. Someone wants to hear from you. No one wants to hear from Joe from Finance anymore. We're tired. But creatives, there's people who are doing the work on the sidelines, who are hiding in their trial reels, who have drafts of content just piling up. Post it, please. We need more brightness, we need more people who are creating for the sake of creating, because that's how you're going to sustain this work. If you're creating it, get viral and get a bunch of partnerships. That candle's gonna burn fast. Let me tell you. This is how I want my career to look like. I was driving today and I was like, you know what? Whatever happens with my career. I'm open. If it's aligned, if it feels good, I'm open to it. But when I have shrunken my vision of what I expect my career to look like, when I have only focused on very specific outcomes or very specific ways that I would deem myself successful in my career, I've only limited myself. I've only put myself in a box. That's no fun, and no one wins in a box. Give yourself the space, the permission to expand, to grow, to be curious about what your career could look like. And be an influencer. Embody being an influencer. That is my homework for you. Embody what it means to be an influencer. You are an influencer, write it down. Take a note. That's all I've got for you today. New episodes come in every Monday, every Friday. Leave a rating, leave a review. And I look forward to chatting with y'all again soon. Peace.