Find the Right Influencers to Create a Trusted Brand

How do you find the top leaders in your niche who can become brand ambassadors?
Would you like to know how to better connect with them?
There are several factors that need to be in place in order to know exactly where and how to connect with the right influencers.
There are many ways to seek experts out. The social networks and places you already visit online are great places to begin.
This includes three main strategies you can use to connect with them.

• Social networks
• Social influence metric tools
• Search engines

Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook are the top places to connect with the right authorities in your industry. Here are a few ways you can conduct your online search in a few of these networks:

• Twitter – Use Advanced Search for finding new influencers. With this free tool you can follow the hashtags of others to find who and what is being talked about as well as track mentions in your community of brands.
• Facebook – Research people in your industry in both Groups and Pages. Go after those who have a large and active Fan base and high level of engagement. Not all influencers are active on their Pages, and so you will wan to determine whether they are posting and communicating more in groups and/or live videos.
• Instagram – Because of the instant nature of this social network it’s much easier to find industry leaders based on hashtags or through the connections of other influencers. After following them you can ‘like’ their posts and add helpful comments.
• LinkedIn – Find groups inside your specific industry where influencers are socializing with their communities. As you join these places and start contributing helpful information you will begin to generate more interest.
• GooglePlus – Here you can also join relevant circles and collections where there is more of a larger number of loyal brand followers. This platform is also a great place to find the best content from top blogs in your niche. If you have a YouTube channel remember that you can also cross promote your videos and double your visibility.
• Pinterest – Search for and follow those who frequently engage with your niche keywords. Look for broad Pinterest categories to find those with a lot of repins. Take a look at their group boards and the types of followers and make connections there as well.

Most high level networkers will have at least 500 connections, are very active online and have complete profiles. These are the decision makers in your industry who have connections to the media and are perceived as an authority by their fans and followers.
Take advantage of social influence metrics tools that crawl the social media sites, collating and analyzing interactions of the users. These rank each business or individual based upon authentic social influence. One such tool, Klout, is still a top measurement resource to use, but there also places like PeerIndex, Kred, Hubspot, and Crowdbooster that can all help you discover the top influencers who are reaching the most people.
Use these websites only as a base to start from, and then go and explore their online properties to find out how active and engaged they are not only with their communities, but with others who reach out to them.

“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” ~ Ken Blanchard

Search engines are still a quick way to find content and blogs with a large number of subscribers in a specific industry. For example, maybe you have a online retail business. You’re looking to find the top influencers in your geographic area or your demographic market. You can get an idea of who the top bloggers are just by doing a Google search.

Why do I need influence marketing for my brand?

Connecting with influencers allows even the smallest of businesses the opportunity to increase their trust and gain a larger reach.  It is also a great way to drive more traffic to your blog as well as increase your own influence on social media.
As your brand is recommended by others that your audience trusts this raises your level of authority with your leads and customers who are more targeted and most likely to make a purchase of your product or service. Consumers today rely on trusted recommendations from their peers and brands, not just advertising.
Search engines are also now factoring your social influence into page rank – which means the more you have, the better your SEO (search engine optimization) and SERP (search engine results page).
Establishing brand authority online takes time, commitment, and relationship building with the right people. Make it a point each day to reach out to others, share content, and leave valuable feedback that gets noticed.