The Difference Between Being Influential vs. Being an Influencer

Editor’s note: I wrote this post in 2019 when public speaking was a central focus of my work. The advice still holds.

My work has since evolved — I now focus on messaging strategy and marketing for established consultants and service providers. If you’re curious about working with me to create your marketing message, find out more about that here. If you want to use speaking as one of your marketing strategies, that’s exactly the kind of thing we dig into inside the Expert Up Club.

I am so excited to talk to you about one of my favorite words, and I know that sounds a little bit odd, but this is actually a word I’ve been hesitant to use because I think it gets confusing for a lot of people.

The word that I’m totally in love with is the word influential, but as I’ve started using it in conversation with my friends, my clients, colleagues, they all say the same thing.

“Oh Michelle, I don’t want to be an influencer. Influencers, they’re meaningless. It’s all about vanity metrics. It’s all about how big is your audience and how many likes and comments do you have. They show up and they just sell other people’s crap and they’re not adding anything to the world.“

I get that.

I don’t want to be an influencer. In fact, I don’t want you to be an influencer either because being influential is very different from being Kim Kardashians and an influencer.

So that is what we’re going to dive into because I firmly believe that when we embrace how truly influential we are, then we can start reaching more people with our work and being recognized.

So let’s dive in.

Tune into the audio:

The first question is what is an influencer?

We hear this word thrown around all the time and, I agree, it’s a pretty meaningless term.

In fact, it just reminds me of being the popular kid in high school, but now we have the popular kid on Youtube and on Instagram and those people have built huge followings.

My hat is off to them, but at the same time, they’re really not adding a lot of value into the world.

For them, it’s about vanity metrics. It’s about making money and monetizing the following that they have.

Kim Kardashian is your stereotypical influencer and if y’all love Kim, I’m so sorry. I’m sure I’m going to piss you off with this, but why Kim gets paid is because she is famous.

She gets paid to go to events because she is famous. She is really adding nothing in terms of deep transformation to her audience. She’s just there to show up the sell herself and make some money. And that is essentially what an influencer is, it’s about the money and being one of the popular kids.

On the other hand, being influential means something quite different.

Being influential means showing up and sharing your expertise and experience so that you’re serving people, you’re helping people, you’re changing lives on the daily.

Additionally, it means that your changing your industry.

You have a unique set of thoughts and viewpoints that you want to express the world because it can shake up the status quo in your industry.

You can evolve what your industry is currently doing and the bottom line is when you’re influential, it’s not about you.

It’s about making things better for other people.

It is about profiting through your impact and not just profiting because you’re popular. It’s about changing lives and making a difference and if you’ve been a fan of the show for a while, you know that that’s what I’m all about.

That’s what the 3 Word Rebellion is all about, helping you become influential so that more people know about you, you’re recognized for your work and you are making an impact.

So I think a great example of this, and this is not from the business world, there is a woman named Hannah Shaw (check out her Instagram here) and this woman has a nearly a million followers.

My friends, she is not an influencer. In fact, she was in the media recently and she was really ticked off because the reporter positioned her as an Instagram influencer and she’s not, she’s influential.

Her mission is rescuing and fostering neonatal kittens.

So teeny tiny kittens that are left by their mother or they’re abandoned on the side of the road. They’re very vulnerable and she fosters them and nurtures them until they’re ready to adopt.

Not only that, but she also educates people about fostering kittens because there’s a lot of kittens in this world and we need more foster parents for them.

Then the really cool thing, she also has a nonprofit to help these teeny-tiny kittens to provide care for them to provide training for people.

So yes, she shows you cute, cute, cute pictures of kittens all the time.

But she’s also being influential because she is showing us how she’s transforming the lives of these kittens, she’s showing us when she adopts them. There are these kittens in their happy home with their new owners who are so excited and in love with them.

She is changing the industry around fostering kittens and rescuing kittens and creating a conversation. She’s very against kitten breeders because she feels like, there are hundreds if not thousands of kittens born and who perish because they don’t have the proper care. Why would you add to that when there are so many cute adoptable, fluffy ones?

So at the end of the day, she’s pretty kick-ass and influential. She speaks all over the United States. She has a New York Times bestselling book about kitten rescuing and yes, it’s incredibly adorable and if you love Kittens, you should totally follow her.

But that’s what being influential is. It’s about making an impact. It’s about changing the way we do business or the way we do kitten fostering.

So absolutely 100% do not be an influencer. Don’t be a Kim Kardashians when you can be a Hannah Shaw because influencers are not changing lives daily. They are just lining their pockets with your money.

Be influential, transform people, make your industry better. Frankly, it’s time for you to be recognized and to step into that most influential version of you.

I feel so passionate about this because I see so many amazing business owners who are just kind of hiding out and feeling like a fraud and not being recognized for their work and I want to help them.