With a little work and some smart outreach communications, you can identify influential people in your field, connect with them and benefit from the relationship.
This is the age of new media, right? There are generally fewer degrees of separation. Great ideas can emerge faster. Big thinkers can find a way onto the radar of business leaders.
It’s called influencer marketing
I’d like to help you understand what it is and how to make it serve your goals.
Influencer Marketing is…
- Targeting people your prospects trust for information.
- Engaging people who guide the important conversations in your niche.
- Creating kinships with people whose endorsement will forward your marketing objectives.
The people I refer to are influencers. Considered one of the most popular dream jobs, particularly among tech-savvy Millennials and Gen Z, there are estimated to be more than 30 million active influencers in the world today.
The marketing tactic that goes to work when you get influencer marketing working is word-of-mouth, the most powerful kind of marketing in any era, market or media.
The process isn’t exactly magic, but its effect could indeed be magical.
The process is essentially relationship building
An influencer might be a celebrity, business leader, teacher or author. The influencer’s audience might be large or small.
How do you build relationships with someone who sways opinion?
The key is reciprocity. This powerful principle of persuasion has been taught countless times as a key to building influence. Influencer marketing essentially amounts to building influence with influential people.
Best friends: influencer marketing and content marketing.
The key to succeeding with influencer marketing with your online efforts is to concentrate on content.
Content is the currency of influence. It powers an exchange of value and based connections based on that exchange which means higher-quality, longer term connections that those that may have been built based on money.
Align your influencer and content strategies by exercising
- (1) active listening,
- (2) collaborating with influencers to produce content,
Listen closely and actively
Perhaps the largest challenge in influencer marketing is understanding how to create a content strategy that aligns with your objectives.
The answer, at large, traces to uncovering the subject matter and media “plays” that will best resonate with your audience. Let’s get into the specifics.
Tune into your audience
The influencers you want in your camp are, of course, accomplished content marketers. Their approach to content will help determine yours. The key is “listening,” which in the world of content marketing, really means reading (of course you may also be “playing” and “viewing” media assets that showcase multimedia).
Rather than setting out to consume everything, focus on what influencers are creating and how the content is received. You’re bound to see which topics create the most conversation and sharing.
You may identify gaps your content can fill and the questions you’ll address with your content. Ultimately, the sometimes overwhelming task of editorial planning, will come together far more easily when you commit to observing real-world engagement.
Plan your content
By auditing who’s doing what and what is and isn’t working, you’ll have the insights you need to create a content plan that includes your topics and influencer targets.
Your research should help set a content creation agenda of sorts, which may be a 30 to 90 day editorial calendar. I caution you to not plan further in advance or be too rigid in your approach because it’s important to be nimble and responsive to remain on top of emerging trends.
Don’t torture yourself with content planning. Assemble your team, toss out the conclusions you’ve drawn from your research (listening) and commit to getting busy on what now feels like the smartest plays. You’re marketing in the digital age, so remember, everything is an experiment. The good news is the results come back fast.
Keep up
The strategies discussed thus far are perpetual ones. Keep listening. Keep auditing. Keep adjusting.
Use your influencers as your content thermometers. Track their work with social media tools, feeds and Google Alerts. You’ll get a feel for what’s coming, what’s hot and what’s not.
One cool tip is to use Visualping to get alerted when your influencer has changed their Twitter bio. More often than not, people change their bios when there’s an important change in life, so you will have a good reason for a reasonable reach-out.
[You can set up Visualping to only monitor part of the page. You’ll get notified when this Twitter user changes their profile picture or edits their bio]
Congratulate your influencer on a career change or a start of a new project: Build stronger connections!
If an influencer you’ve identified is addressing a topic repeatedly with consistently good results, don’t make the mistake of concluding the topic’s taken. Bring your point of view to bear.
Join the conversation
While executing your content plan is all-important, responding in real-time is crucial too. Speak up in these ways:
- Express your opinion in response to an opinion piece.
- Offer select pieces of your content that are relevant to the conversation.
- Facilitate connections and new relationships amongst influencers and audience members.
- Say “thank you.”
How might you do the above?
- Comment in blog comment threads.
- Respond via social media.
- Create new content in response to what you’ve seen start a conversation.
- Write targeted and personal emails.
- Write reviews where applicable (such as a book review on Amazon).
- Bring the discussion to special interest groups such as LinkedIn Groups or Google+ communities.
These types of activities will not go unnoticed by your influencers. They’re influential because they’re forever aware of the sentiments of the people they influence.
Collaborative content creation is the ultimate influencer marketing play.
I’m often accused of being influential in the content marketing space. Why? I’ve created content for and with marketing influencers.
Creating content for and with marketing influencers – can be done in so many ways:
- Include their content in yours. Embed their tweets, Pins, videos, etc. Quote influencers in your post. Showcase their media such as SlideShares, YouTube videos and infographics.
- Interview them. Do a video interview, record a podcast on Zoom or other platforms, written interview, roundup post or all of the above. Don’t be bashful about asking. You may not get 100 percent participation (influencers are busy), but you’ll be surprised by the outcome. Almost everyone I ask for interviews accepts and I accept most requests I receive. Influencers enjoy being interviewed and value opportunities to find new audiences (even if they are small). Include them into your lead magnet to boost its conversions and hire a podcast production agency if you need support with starting a podcast.
- Create roundups. Your roundups need not require the participation of influencers. You can simply write about several in one piece. You can even turn this into a separate project and come up with alternative ways to monetize it! Try this business name generator to come up with some name ideas. You’ll feel inspired!
Takeaway: influencer marketing isn’t just reciprocal; it’s contagious.
- Base stories on your influencers. I heard Mr. X speak and… I read Mrs. Y’s great book and… I tried Group Z’s ideas and… That’s influential stuff.
- Return all favors. When you’re practicing influencer marketing, your turn will come. You’ll be asked to be included or featured in your influencers’ content. Be 100 percent available and generous.
Consider also, driving the process. Reach out to your influential friends when you’re confident you have something of value. Some examples of things I do (or hope to):
- Offer your infographics and presentations.
- Invite them to your webinars.
- Deliver research you’ve conducted.
- Invite them to guest post for your site.
- Simply pay your influencers. They’ll appreciate it. They need to make a living from their content creation.
To improve your response rate, use our email finder to find best email addresses to use:
Meaningful momentum-maintenance tips.
Here are some tips for maintaining the momentum of the content marketing tasks critical to your influencer marketing program.
Create an idea file.
Use WordPress, a spreadsheet, a planning calendar or any tool you prefer to record ideas. After creating them, let ‘em stew. They may or may not look compelling when you return. That’s okay. If they do, you’ll be glad you captured them.
Stay positive.
Again, influencer marketing is largely reciprocal and your deeds will mostly be rewarded. When they’re not, don’t take it personally. Move on. If you’re in an attractive and lucrative space, you’ll score plenty of meaningful relationships by putting in the effort.
Be helpful.
It can’t be overstated how reciprocal influencer marketing is, so “do unto others.” Understand how you can be most helpful and get on it.
Make it easy.
Key tip here. If you want the cooperation of a busy leader in your field, offer every conceivable option when asking for something… We can have a call, chat, email… You can point me to a resource. Don’t be difficult or needy.
Keep tabs.
I’ve deliberately stayed away from metrics and analysis to keep the length of this post under control, but do establish a measurement system—formal or otherwise—to help you ascertain whether your efforts are being rewarded or not.
Apply patience.
Your first round-up, book review or interview may not deliver you from zero to well-known, but you need to be realistic and patient. When roadblocks occur, try other avenues. If you have the chops to pitch your guest blogging services, fallback to this strategy often.
Stay social.
Influential people in your industry, especially the content creators, are forever in-tune with social media. Don’t forget this. Forward their cause.
Collaborating with niche influencers can really boost your marketing performance. Good luck!
