Engaging your students - what teachers can learn from social media influencers.

• Data analysis - social media influencers love their data. They use it to work out what demographic their audience is, what their interests are, what their habits are, who they associate with, and so on. They constantly ask questions and conduct polls to further ascertain what their audience wants, and then they give it to them.
• Relationships - social media influencers place a great emphasis on building relationships with their audience by make efforts to respond to direct messages and comments. They make sure their audience knows that they care about them. 
• The ‘know, like and trust’ factor - people are more likely to believe in them and buy from them if they know, like and trust them. Influencers who are authentic, real, and share their back-story are more likely to be trusted by their audience. They also make a habit of giving their audience a lot of free content that adds value to their lives. 
• A range of mediums - text, photos, audio, videos, on all of the different platforms - they do it all to try to appeal to as wide a market as possible. 
• Design aesthetics - they know the importance of making sure their content looks good. Not only does it create a good first impression, it lets their audience know that they have pride in what they create. 
• Getting attention - whether it be clickbait titles, catchy phrases, using shock value, humour, etc - the best influencers know how to grab someones attention. 
• Going ‘viral’ - they know how to create something that will be shared and viewed millions of times. 
• Quality content - their content adds value, meaning or purpose to the lives of their audience. 
• Branding - they have a certain look or image which people can easily recognise - recognition helps with the know like and trust factor. 
• Storytelling - the best influencers are master storytellers. They know how to hook, engage and motivate their audience through story-telling using an array of techniques such as humour, shock, sadness, compassion, excitement, etc. This helps to personalise the experience for the audience and makes it much more memorable and emotive.  
• Selling - they know how to sell to their audience. They know their audience’s interests and desires, and present the product or service in such a way that it will best appeal to them. They know how to make it a highly desirable and 'must-have' item. 
• Case studies - they show real people who have gotten results using their products/ services. 

• Think about how you could better use data to find out more about your students abilities and interests, and then try to create materials that cater for this. 
• Focus on building rapport with your students - make an effort to chat and get to know more about their lives. Kids learn best from people that they know care about them. 
• Be authentic and share your life experiences in order to build the ‘know, like, trust’ factor. 
• Deliver content using a range of mediums so that you can cater for all learning preferences. 
• Make sure your classroom environment, your personal appearance, and the materials that you create have good aesthetics. Have a consistent theme or look so that they can be instantly recognised as yours. If students can see that you have pride in your work, they are more likely to have pride in their work. 
• Become a master storyteller. Weave stories into your lessons at every opportunity. Use techniques such as humour, shock, sadness, compassion and excitement. 
• Use case studies wherever possible to personalise and illustrate your points. 
• Become better at ’selling’ - whatever you are teaching, you need to sell it to their students. They need to know exactly what it is that you are selling and why they need it. Provide a ‘hook’, engage their emotions, and help them to become excited about what they are learning. 
• Make it meaningful - whatever it is that you are teaching, you must make it relevant and meaningful to your students.