Building Influence Without Going Viral

 

In an era where going viral is seen as the ticket to fame, clout, wealth and success, those who wish for the latter but don't care about the former often feel a sense of dismay owing to the fact that they may be missing out on growth opportunities big- time. But you can build influence without shouting from the rooftop in an attempt to go viral.

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As a matter of fact, sudden and intermittent virality is no guarantor of your ability to influence people as a content creator. Rather, slow and steady outreach is a better strategy, and you would do well to abide by the tortoise and the hare fable.

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Let your expertise shine through

As AI becomes increasingly all-pervasive, it is not gimmickry and your ability to make noise and attract attention that will stand you in good stead, but your proven expertise. This is what will help you build a rock solid reputation over time affording you the opportunity to monetise your skill. Somebody like Christopher Nolan lets the sheer quality of his motion picture creations cement his reputation as one of the greatest cinematic creators of all time. It is not VFX generated special effects or super budgets that define his abilities, but raw film making ability honed over years that marks him out as the genius that he is. This has not surprisingly resulted in spectacular box office earnings for his latest masterpiece, The Odyssey, which have already crossed $1.5 billion globally.

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You don’t have to be an influencer to bear influence

We seem to be living in the age of influencers of all shapes and sizes. The internet has democratised the playing field for would-be celebrities and influencers, and that is a good thing too. However, not everyone is willing to, or indeed inclined to, be a bona fide influencer, yet want to bear influence on a target audience that is relevant to them.

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The good news for them is the fact that there is much more to bearing influence than hordes of followers and the ability to create viral posts. Your conduct can help you influence others. Gandhi and Mandela influenced millions simply by the way they lived their life. Their lives truly became their message. If you are someone with unimpeachable character and are able to provide or add value to peoples’ lives in a substantial manner, you will definitely make an impact and, therefore, bear considerable influence over them.  You don’t need social media to validate your ability to bear influence- you need to possess the ability to add positive value to people’s lives.

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Understand what influence is

Influence is not defined by your ability to go viral. It is also not about being present everywhere and collecting as many followers as you can. If you have clarity of thought and a clearly defined vision which you articulate on a consistent basis, you will leave a mark. You will not merely be popular; you will be looked up to. You will be able to build a bridgehead of trust to your people. The popularity of newsletters and their growing viability as a means of creating a regular income stream is a testament to the powerful, slow and steady, willful and mindful outreach and engagement.

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You don’t have to work on cultivating star charisma to become a thought leader and influencer in a certain genre of expertise. What you need to do is to display your expertise and the value you bring to the table to win you over the admiration and support of people who are ready to swear by you. Elon Musk didn’t become the innovator and entrepreneur par excellence on account of his movie star looks. He achieved celebrity status and even bought social media giant Twitter by showing the world what he was actually capable of. The electric car revolution that we are witnessing around the world or the increasing participation of the private sector in sending satellites and people to space, is all on account of his pioneering vision. Today he may be a rock star influencer, but that is not how his journey began or what he is about.

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You can build influence by virtue of what you bring to the table in terms of what people value. Going viral is not a necessary step in that process.

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Why Your LinkedIn Profile Is Significantly More Important Than Your Resume

These days, more than your resume, it is your LinkedIn profile that is your professional calling card when it comes to furthering your career prospects. While your resume may willy-nilly make its way to a handful of people you thought you must approach, your LinkedIn profile can be accessed by its 1.3 billion registered users. Of these, the largest segment is an impressive 33%, comprising people in the 25- to 34-year age group.  This means that rather than you chasing would-be employers, they find you themselves. In fact, thanks to your Linkedin profile, they are reasonably aware of your credentials even before they have exchanged pleasantries with you. There is not much you can do with the good old simple resume in comparison.

​LinkedIn has changed the whole paradigm of the hiring process, making it more dynamic, interactive, real and personal. You don’t just send out resumes to people you want to engage and forge connections with and hope for the best anymore. Instead, LinkedIn professes your case better than a paid advertisement or PR exercise to just the people who can best help you enhance your career prospects. It represents who you are professionally in terms of your achievements, complete with the relevant testimonials, giving people more than an up-to-date snapshot of your credentials.

​LinkedIn is the place for business and professional connections

LinkedIn is by far the best place to forge and foster business and professional connections. This is the place where you can zero in on a large number of job opportunities and offers. It is the junction where you can easily not just connect, but also engage with companies seeking to employ people like you and help you further your career prospects optimally.

​For business people too, LinkedIn is the ideal platform for efficiently connecting and engaging with prospects and future clients. Besides, business leaders can also project themselves as influential voices of industry- something that enhances their personal profile as well as that of the brand they represent. Apart from that, businesses are enabled to source the best talent in their respective industries by virtue of the clout they have built up on LinkedIn.

​LinkedIn Delivers

A mere traditional resume cannot possibly compare with what a well made LinkedIn profile can deliver. It is pertinent to note that there are a whopping 67.1 million companies on LinkedIn, with as many as 6 people being hired every minute through the platform. Can anyone, therefore, doubt that it delivers in spades? According to LinkedIn itself, while its hiring technology possesses the ability to make use of both user profile and resume data, the icing on the cake is the fact that the profile is searchable by a potential hirer even if someone is not actively searching for a job. This social media platform par excellence actually works towards improving your job prospects, without your even being actively involved in the process. Can your resume do any of that?

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Why Expertise Is the New Currency

 

You are what you do-at least to the world that interacts with you. They value you for the value you provide them with or bring to their lives. This has been true since the earliest times when people bartered their skills to make their lives easier and better collectively.

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We live in an unprecedented era where AI is taking over the jobs and professions of more and more people, leaving them to figure out what to do for a living. What is it that people will employ them for? As always, it is their expertise, the caveat being that they possess what AI cannot offer.

Any individual or business would like to tap into the creative imagination, unique skills, experience and specialist expertise of talented and empowered individuals. These are people who can help tackle hitherto intractable problems. In a universe that swears by AI and Big Data, cutting-edge information, knowledge and expertise can empower you like nothing else. It is the new currency of our times.

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According to PWC, 23% of CEOs worldwide think that the availability of workers who possess key skills is a threat to growth. That is the reason why employees consider an upskilling opportunity to be the major factor behind their decision to continue their association with their employer. Expertise comes from knowledge, so it follows that knowledge itself could be viewed as currency. Knowledge helps you deal with challenges by empowering you to adapt and adjust to an ever changing, and  ever dynamic environment,  thereby allowing you to identify and capitalise on opportunity upon opportunity. Expertise created from knowledge helps add value to your resume like nothing else does.

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Expertise to Power the Creative Economy

The advent of the creator economy brought about by the internet revolution is a wonderful thing. It demolished gatekeepers and allowed anybody who thought they had something to pitch or present to people easy and unimpeded access to the latter. But with managing to attract attention turning out to be the centrepoint of this ecosystem, the really meritorious people could sometimes not earn as much as they deserved.

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There is no dearth of content on the internet, especially in the wake of a slew of GenAI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. This has made people place a premium on expertise earned through real experience and knowledge- something that can help address real people’s real problems and issues. Because expertise is difficult to come by, it is valued all the more.

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People who have proven expertise will lead the charge for the creator economy, henceforth. Now is the time to establish your credentials as a bona fide creator in a specific category or niche. Those who do that will be able to cash in on their skills and scale up their business model or enhance their employability in a major way.

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Skills and Expertise Trump All

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More than your qualifications, it is your demonstrable skills that will determine your usefulness to businesses across industries. Skills and expertise are the new in-demand currency that opens pathways to opportunity. They help you navigate the uncertainties of a dynamic environment in a resilient manner.

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Is it any wonder then that the global e-learning market is expected to reach more than $400 billion this year? Given that 39% of workers’ current skill sets are likely to be in need of change and transformation if not become redundant by 2030, the importance of updating your skills cannot be understated.

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The way that the internet has replaced the old system of earning access in order to progress with a free-wheeling one with an evolving code of conduct, you are often not sure of getting your rightful due. That era is coming to an end, and we are in the throes of the unfolding of the era of expertise. Do you have it in you to thrive in it?

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How LinkedIn became a business newspaper

 

Do business people read the pink papers anymore? Maybe they do, but they certainly engage with LinkedIn and read everything they need to know about what's happening in their world there.  How did this change come about? In the early years of the new millennium, when LinkedIn was launched, it was an online platform to showcase your resume-something that allowed professionals to place their credentials in front of would-be recruiters. It also helped you network with your colleagues and other peers.

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Over the past two decades and more, LinkedIn has become much more than that. It is the definitive space for exchanging ideas, insights and more among business and thought leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals. This is where content becomes a medium to express, profess, educate, learn, enhance clout and grow brands. It is not surprising that it is so, given that LinkedIn has more than a billion users, making it the go-to social media platform for business professionals.

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LinkedIn is taking over from traditional business newspapers

LinkedIn content, being user-driven and backed by its huge professional network, is increasingly preferred over traditional business newspapers owing to its dynamic and participatory nature. It's more driven by genuine conversations and healthy interactions amongst professionals with recognizable faces,  than by storied prestige and authority accompanied by a rigid structure of news dissemination.

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What makes LinkedIn score emphatically over traditional business newspapers is its democratic nature that encourages an exchange of ideas instead of the latter’s rigid pontificating from the top format. An Op-Ed in a pink paper, no matter how enlightening, is a one-way street, while one on LinkedIn can start a healthy discussion among many people. What this ensures is that one obtains real value and depth from the platform-something that the business papers of old were somewhat constrained in providing.

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This is because LinkedIn possesses a unique ability to provide access to worldwide networks, via content algorithmically targeted at specific sets of people based on their credentials.  It can also help   obtain instant feedback through likes and shares, giving it a tremendous advantage over traditional business newspapers, which lack in both speed and dynamism.

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As a matter of fact, some of the most iconic media brands in the world thought it necessary to have a presence on LinkedIn. These include The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Forbes. Not surprising, given that its reach now straddles continents, with the United States accounting for 252 million members, EMEA (Europe, Middle East & East Africa) for 407 million members and  Asia Pacific (APAC)  for 385 million members. What’s more, as many as 69 million businesses are listed on LinkedIn,

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Preferring LinkedIn over business newspapers is a natural consequence of the digital age. One uses smartphones not just to make calls, but to text, shoot pictures and videos, make payments and entertain without giving it a second thought. Similarly, LinkedIn has increasingly become the go-to medium for everything to do with business, entrepreneurs, industries and professionals. It has, in effect, become the new business newspaper of our times.

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Why Every Professional Should Become a Creator

You are as good as your brand, or you could go a step further and say you are your brand. Even if you don’t like the idea, you cannot help but be a brand in today's day and age. This is especially true of professionals whose success depends upon how they are personally perceived.

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The emergence and spectacular rise of the creator economy has made a media professional out of almost anybody- students, teachers, cooks, coaches, wanna be actors and singers, budding musicians, freelancing journalists, intrepid travellers and consultants of all manner.

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They blog, create YouTube videos and podcasts, make Instagram and Facebook reels, come out with newsletters for their subscribers and create digital products for their target audience. The whole process is driven by their ability to create a brand persona that resonates with people.

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Why is a personal brand important?

Julius Caesar, the famed Roman general and conqueror, was assassinated by his rivals who did not want him to be emperor. However, his image and persona as a fearless warrior who brought glory to Rome ensured that a new line of Roman Emperors called Caesar ruled their vast global Empire for a millennium and a half. The German Kaisars and the Russian Czars are variations of the same name. That is the power of a brand for you.

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A creator makes and promotes his or her own brand

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People in the creativity business like artists, singers and actors are renowned for their skill and artistry, and this is reflected in their fame and the adulation they receive from fans. Their names become a representation of what they embody. Their brand value is such that they don't need to introduce themselves or announce their names.

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Everybody knows who Tom Cruise is, and Michael Jackson never went unrecognised. This kind of brand recognition can be and is often monetised by those that possess it with huge success. In today’s digital age, when everyone has the avenues available to express themselves creatively to large numbers of people, it makes eminent sense for professionals like architects, journalists, teachers, chefs, authors, marketing executives, realtors and a host of other professionals to build their brands by displaying their creative skills.

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There isn’t a better way than by showcasing your skills as a professional to a desired target audience for influencing and networking with them.  You get to distinguish yourself from the competition, earn their trust and imprint your brand image on them in an organic and subliminal way. Not only does this incentivise your target audience to buy your services or offerings, but you will also attract the best talent to work for you. Somebody like Sanjeev Kapoor, who is quite an influencer thanks to his TV show, books, website, YouTube channel and brand collaborations, will have customers flocking to his restaurant and no dearth of outstanding talent willing to work for him.

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We live in a chaotic digital universe, where everyone is expressing themselves online. No matter how reticent you are personally, you have got to be there online engaging with your prospects and clients through your creative expressions. The online space is not only a place where people pick up their social cues, but also a place where AI seizes you up, which makes it all the more important to wear your creator garb and engage in outreach.

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A professional who doubles up as a creator gets to build a community of people who have a stake in them. This can help them in myriad ways apart from selling their offerings. It can help them test and launch new projects as well as obtain investment. What’s more, they can save massive amounts of money they would otherwise have to spend on paid advertising campaigns.

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The creator economy is not to be scoffed at

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The creator economy is not something to be scoffed at. According to Forbes, it could reach a whopping $480 billion by 2027. That means that not only can professionals who are creators as well earn more by growing their core businesses, but they can also supplement their income by monetising platforms like YouTube, Blogger.com, Substack, and Medium. Besides, they can earn from newsletter subscriptions, speaking engagements, book royalties, and affiliate marketing. Everybody from a chartered accountant and a chef to a PR consultant and a realtor can augment their income massively by participating in the creator economy.

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The Rise of the One-Person Media Company

There has never been a more opportune time for one-person media companies than now. Look around you- the evidence is everywhere. Individual influencers across genres and in every part of the world who have built multi-million-dollar businesses abound, with brands falling over each other to sign deals with them. As a matter of fact, they have more than given a run for their money to storied and well-established media companies.

​The advent of the internet age and now the AI era has made high and mighty media gatekeepers with their cosy clubs of networks and privilege not just redundant, but has also seriously endangered the business models of the many media firms still steeped in the old way of doing things.

​The moats keeping so many enterprising solopreneurs lacking in capital and manpower from achieving success have long been bridged, with anybody with the right set of skills, talent and aptitude being able to make it big in the world of media.

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The age of paraphernalia is gone

​The new age media company no longer necessarily requires paraphernalia to succeed in a major way. A single individual is perfectly capable of running a thriving media company sans an office building and a team of specialists handling editing, copywriting, SEO, photography, advertising, PR, social media posting and, of course, marketing.

​Smartphones and apps can help create all manner of audio visual content and text, respectively, which can then be distributed across a plethora of inexpensive and easy-to-access and operate channels and platforms. These include websites, e-mail campaigns, blogs, RSS feeds, social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Threads, as well as other channels of distribution like Spotify, Medium, and Substack.

​No longer does one have to struggle to get one’s content distributed across hoity-toity conventional media outlets with high entry barriers- traditional newspapers, magazines, television networks, radio stations, book publishers, and even well-established digital news publishers.

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What makes a One-Person Media Company Tick

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A one-person media company has certain inherent advantages over a much larger traditional one. First the fixed cost is nearly negligible for a one-man setup when compared to a conventional media company. 

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Second, unlike old school media agencies, whose growth is shackled by budget constraints, a one person media company will grow in direct proportion to the time one invests in it. Third, profitability is achieved quite soon, in the case of a single person media company in comparison to a conventional media company with a fair amount of overheads.  

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Lastly, scaling up business requires increased hiring in the case of old school media companies. Single person media companies, on the other hand,  can have low-cost scaling up thanks to AI and automation

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One Person Media Company- Carve Your Own Destiny

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A person running a one person media company is free to carve their own destiny in that they don't have to get caught up in the 9 to 5 grind and all the complexities associated with it. There are none of the interpersonal, inter personnel and inter-departmental issues to wrangle with, allowing one to focus on one’s own objectives.

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One can make decisions faster, pivoting as often and as many times as is necessary without having to engage in lengthy consultations and negotiations. A one-person media company provides an escape to brilliant professionals straitjacketed by the constraints of hierarchy in a traditional organisation where so much time is wasted on posturing and one-upmanship.

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Besides, the profit margins are quite high and the risks relatively moderate for such organisations. Scaling up is that much easier, and that allows one to both grow one’s business and personal wealth at a rapid clip.

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For instance, leading the newsletter subscription business model are two creators on Substack- Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson with 2.9 million subscribers ($12 million plus yearly earnings) and Lenny’s Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky with more than a million subscribers ($2 million plus yearly earnings).

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The highest earning You Tube channel owned by a single individual, by the name of Jimmy Donaldson, alias Mr. Beast boasts an annual earnings of $300 million. As a matter of fact, the top 50 creators in the world made as much as $1.02 billion between March 2025 and 2026.

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We may well be at the start of a golden age for one-person media companies. Are you ready to join the gold rush?

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Why the Creator Economy Is Bigger Than Hollywood

Hollywood has been the stuff that dreams have been made of for more than a century and a quarter now. It has given us epic movies, larger-than-life film stars and directors and elevated the age-old art of storytelling into a spectacular audiovisual extravaganza.

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From cowboy westerns and Biblical tales to war movies and from classics like Gone With The Wind to comic superheroes like Superman and Batman, Hollywood has been a part of everyone’s growing-up years, youth and old age- a constant reassuring companion that makes you look at everyday life with curiosity, awe and wonder. It made life worth living.

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Yet we have, in our collective wisdom, decided to turn our back on that wonderful edifice of entertainment, spectacle and knowledge and replace it with what- the creator economy?!

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What is the creator economy?

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The creator economy comprises everyday people using modern technological tools like smartphones, digital cameras, laptops, and digital software to create content (text and audiovisual) for other people, which they monetise through ads, product promotions, subscriptions and memberships, digital products, and myriad other channels.

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The content creation industry, aided by the technological revolution, has given Hollywood and other traditional media a run for their money in vying for audience attention. Rather than watch movies in cinema theatres, hundreds of millions of people prefer to consume audiovisual content available on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook across every genre under the sun on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

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Size of the global creator economy

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Not only do these platforms provide customised entertainment as well as information on the go, but they also provide a viable income stream to millions of content creators and influencers around the world. The global creator economy market size is expected to touch $310.4 billion this year and reach a whopping $1345.5 billion by 2033. As many as 200 million people worldwide consider themselves to be creators. According to Deloitte,50 million content creators create content for 5 billion social media users worldwide, making the creator economy a buzzing hub of activity.

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Size of Hollywood

At $50.9 billion, Hollywood has a modest turnover compared to the burgeoning creator economy. A mere 407000 people work across the motion pictures and sound recording industry in the USA, which includes those associated with Hollywood. So, Hollywood is really a pygmy compared to the creator economy, and the number of people who are gainfully employed in this industry is constantly dwindling.

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The creator economy is gargantuan compared to Hollywood

In sheer size and financial heft, Hollywood is no comparison to the creator economy. However, it is in the colossal loss of its social capital, or to use a more political term, soft power, that Hollywood has suffered its biggest fall from grace. It is not its Oscar-winning movies and caped crusader fantasy franchises that have an all-pervading influence on communities and societies around the world.

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On the contrary, it is social media influencers rising from amongst the ordinary people around the world who carry tremendous clout with peoples across nations. If young people come out on the streets in support of a movement anywhere, it is social media that influences them. Politicians these days worry much more about their online support base than the number of people who turn up for their public meetings and rallies.

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While Hollywood is largely about the entertainment industry, the creator economy drives business itself. Brands know that they will get more bang for the buck chasing influencers than they will possibly get by signing up waning Hollywood celebrities at exorbitant prices. Things were tough as it is for Hollywood for quite some time now, but the advent of cutting-edge technology, especially AI, has in all likelihood put the final nail in the coffin of that venerable industry.

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The Hollywood writers strike a few years back in protest against the use of AI in writing was an early sign of things to come. Today, AI has pervaded every aspect of filmmaking, ranging from pre-production and actual physical production to post-production.  As a matter of fact, social media is already full of short films or reels which have been created entirely from scratch, right from writing and scripting to filming and composing the music to filming with virtual actors using virtual voiceovers.

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The creator economy is not just much bigger than Hollywood; it is fast becoming a way of life for hundreds of millions.

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