Discover How to Best Connect with Today’s Online Influencer

Are you trying to find the right influencer outreach for your brand?
Not sure where to find the best connections in your industry?
The most powerful brand messages today come not from brands themselves, but from consumers with loud online voices who have the ability to reach broad audiences and the power to drive action. These users, known as influencers, are passionate, and have invested time and effort in growing an audience that trusts their authority.
When your community spreads the word about your products or services this can dramatically increase your reach and sales. According to Tapinfluence, “influencer marketing content delivers 11X higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing.” They also report that nearly half of all buyers on social media make a purchase based on recommendations.
If a lead or customer is impressed with your company based on meeting their needs then this can provide free advertising for your brand. Word-of-mouth marketing is becoming a dominant force online as more people strive to find trusted sources. Even just one positive recommendation can have a viral effect online.
Konnie Brown of Dell shares her thoughts about this on the TopRank blog:

Key factors will be a brand’s focus on customer experience, in this case in brand publishing,  and much improved understanding of building long-term, human-to-human influencer relationships.

There are several ways you can identify influencers and measure the impact they can have on your marketing program.

1. Start to identify and engage with influencers

Make a list on a spreadsheet, app or online software program of top leaders in your industry. Start with your own social media connections and lists and segment them according to their area of expertise. As you go through each business or individual you will discover how many followers they have, who they are connected with, how active and engaged they are with their community, and whether they are relevant to your target market.
An influencer may or may not be familiar with your brand name and so you will want to start the process of reaching out them by sharing their content, offers, and so on. You can even write a great post that mentions their name with a review or quote from their website or an eBook. As you promote them chances are they will be more interested in building a relationship with you online.

2. Discover like-minded people based on reach

There is a way to attract influencers and that is through shared, similar content. Conduct a search for blogs that have similar topics to yours — preferably ones that have a large number of subscribers. The goal is to get noticed based your shared interests such as book marketing tips or small business budgeting.
Use a spreadsheet or something similar to record all of the content that is close to yours. These don’t need to be exact, but in the same topic. The best avenues to accomplish this is through trending posts in your niche, specific hashtags on places like Twitter and Facebook, videos, slideshows, ect. After sharing their content you could reach out to some of these authors and ask them to share yours as well, especially if you have a mention of them in your posts.

3. Integrate into your current campaigns

If you have a live video channel, podcast, or blog series consider partnering with other influencers to share their insights and product or service information. Most people love to share their expert views, especially if this means promoting their brand name to an active and engaged audience.
Encourage your participants to share your coverage on their social media networks, which will help increase your subscribers and traffic back to your blog. A great example of this type of exposure is Pat Flynn’s podcast, Smart Passive Income, which features various experts like Amy Porterfield, Dan Clark, and Chalene Johnson on topics like list building, sales, and branding.

4. Measure your success

After a few months you will want to take a look at who is exactly recommending your business and how your audience is responding. This is most effectively done with the analytics and online software that can pull information from your blog and social networks.
Take a look at each campaign to find out how people are interacting with influencers recommending your brand. If their follower numbers are high, but engagement levels low then you might want to consider other leaders in your industry to connect with. This will directly impact your conversion rates as you attract more interested buyers.
Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to reach your target market today as more people look for authenticity and transparency. Once you have established good relationships this can translate into a greater ROI — especially as you diversify your content into videos, infographics, webinars, blog posts, and social media advertising and campaigns.
There has never been a better time than now to promote your business online through the right connections. Recommendations are like gold — leverage them the right way and the payoff can be great!