Hopefully, we all have people we turn to when we need advice or guidance. It’s a vital part of finding answers. It may be a parent, a boss or a friend.
But sometimes they don’t have the answers we are seeking. That’s when we look elsewhere, now – often using social media. Whether we are an individual or a business, we all listen to the opinions of others about products and services.

Connecting With The Right Influencers Form Your Market

The growth of online social influence is affecting the growth of many businesses. Word of mouth marketing or social influence marketing is changing fast with social media. In fact, 74% of consumers rely on social media to influence their purchasing decisions, while 81% are influenced by their friends’ posts when making a buying decision.
In the last five years, social media has ballooned from the place where friends connect with each other to a phenomenon where businesses connect with millions of Internet users.
Influence marketing is the process of identifying, engaging and supporting others through conversations that can and do impact your brand, product or service. It’s the process of connecting with authorities in your niche.
Partnering with the industry authorities and leaders has been a successful marketing strategy for a long time. Think about how big brands have been marketing with sports figures or celebrities. This same concept can help you grow your business by connecting with the influencers in your market.
A key influencer isn’t necessarily the most powerful brand. It is someone who is very active online and is followed by your target audience. They won’t be your competitors necessarily, but instead individuals and other businesses who are passionate about their industry.
You want to be aware of who these influencers are and to connect with them. They are the ones who can get you in front of the audiences you haven’t been able to reach yet. They can help drive leads to your business and visitors to your site.

Why should you use Influence Marketing?

Connecting with influencers allows even the smallest of businesses the opportunity to increase their trust and gain a larger reach. There are many reasons you should be using influence marketing in your own business.

1. Influence marketing is a great way to drive a ton of hits to your blog as well as increase your own influence in the social networks.

2. Connecting with influencers raises your trust among your customer. Top influencers in your industry can increase your reach to more targeted customers. This gives you brand trust just by association.

3. Consumers and readers trust recommendations from their peers. Again, connecting with those influencers in your niche to gain trust for your blog or business brings in a flood of new readers and potential customers.

Search engines, like Google, are now factoring social influence into page rank – which means the more social influence you have, the better your SEO (search engine optimization) and SERP (search engine results page).
This isn’t a fad, and it is the evolution of the Internet combined with how we connect with each other through social media.
Share this article with these Tweetables:
• Grow your influence with the right connections online – Click to Tweet
• Need more high influencer connections? Here’s how – Click to Tweet
• @SusanGilbert shows you how to connect with the right influencers for your niche – Click to Tweet