How to Find and Work With Influencers

We have yet to see the full power of where the influencer economy will take us. What many don’t realize is this is only a new twist on the old game of having celebrities endorse your products or services. The difference now is what constitutes influence.

Where once only the rich and famous had significant influence (and they still do), today there are many paths to becoming influential enough to derive an income. We all have many more choices of influencers when we want to promote our book, product, or business.

Types of Influencers

Brands have been paying mom blogs to promote their products for years because their readers are loyal and trust their recommendations more than advertising.

Authors are investing money with social media influencers to push their content onto the “Most Popular” page of major sites like Forbes. They could spend more and get it featured on the home page.

Celebrities can now rise from the working class to become valuable on a specific social media platform. We see this most often on YouTube, Instagram or Snapchat, but that type of influence is also found on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

This fascinating story on Entrepreneur relates How This Entrepreneur Went From Dead Broke to Mega Influencer in One Year. He leveraged his connections to create demand for introducing important people to each other in a social setting.

While most of us do not have those kinds of connections, what he did is what I do to grow work for all my collaborators. The difference is that only those who can pay 4 figures can participate in what he is doing while anyone can benefit from working with us.

Influencers tend to know each other, and that influence grew out of their relationships. But what if you’re not an influencer? Maybe you want to become one or perhaps you would like to engage influencers to promote your business.

Finding and Working With Influencers

Fortunately, platforms exist to identify influencers and enable anyone to connect with them. ClearVoice is a creator marketplace enabling users to discover the optimum content creators for their needs.

I mention them because they go beyond just creating content or finding influencers; their platform provides a workflow for content strategy from start to finish.  Inside the ClearVoice platform, businesses can:

• search for ideas in their idea lab by topic or keyword
• create a project and add it to an editorial calendar
• find and hire a content creator
• provide specific, detailed instructions
• review, request revisions, and approve
• measure results

These new platforms make it much easier to stay on top of projects when you have many influencers involved.  Whether you automate your activities or do them manually, it is essential to stay organized from start to finish.

Using Influencers for Promoting Your Content

Creating content is just the first step. Just as important is promoting it well. If you choose content creators who are also influencers, ask them how much promotion is included and whether they offer additional types of promotion.

Babbly is a new method of amplifying social sharing. Unlike previous tools that influencers use to share your content on one platform at a time, when they use Babbly they click one button and the content is sent to their attached Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

Increase your reach by spreading the word among your collaborators about any tools you use. This one is so easy to use it should grow quickly, and the more users they have the more visibility the content you share there can receive.

This post offers some tips to identify additional influencers to promote your brand. Once you make contact with an influencer, ask them who else they know who would be a good fit for your projects.

Influencer Marketing Tips

The more guidance you give your influencers, the most satisfied you will be with the results you achieve. Share your goals in advance. Are you primarily interested in visibility, in driving traffic back to your site, or in capturing leads?

Develop your landing pages and 1500 word evergreen pillar content first. The better your existing content, the more your influencers can do for you. Work with a content strategist to determine your direction and set a strategy before you bring any influencers on board.

Influencers are in more demand than ever – and they’re very busy. Many brands do such a poor job of reaching out to them that they either get ignored or get a reputation as a company to be avoided.

Remember that influencers talk to each other, so if you treat any one of them badly, word will spread and getting influencers on board for your projects will become much more difficult.

Lee Odden at TopRankBlog has compiled these 50 Ways to Fail at Influencer Marketing. Be sure to read that post so you know what to avoid. If you don’t take these seriously, you will end up having to hire an influencer to try to fix your reputation among influencers!

The post How to Find and Work With Influencers appeared first on Growmap.

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How to Find and Work With Influencers

Twitter Changes Where to Find More Tweets; BuzzSumo and ViralContentBee More Important Now

Today brought yet another surprise from Twitter. Let’s review:

1. First they take away share counts, killing social proof for their site.
2. Twitter search removed the ability to see all historical tweets.
3. Today, the ability to see all recent tweets got moved.

Find out not only how to get to as many tweets of a particular URL or hashtag as possible, but also how to find out who shared and how influential they are on Twitter and on their own site.

In spite of much contemplation, I have not seen anyone come up with any logical explanation for Twitter commiting social proof suicide. Click To Tweet

Hiding historical tweets is likely to be to make them more valuable to sell to corporations who want data no one else can access.

Twitter must not realize that influencers view all tweets of a piece of content they want to share so that they can retweet the best image and text combination that has been shared. That makes our sharing more viral and increases our engagement.

Previously, when you did a search and clicked on “more”, tweets was an option you could choose to see all recent tweets. As you can see in the image below, when searching for #smallbizfunding, the only two options under “more” now are Periscopes and News, but we do have “Top” (shown immediately below) and “Latest” (second image below).

Twitter moves where tweets are found. Example for #SmallBiz Funding Hashtag

To get to at least some of the existing tweets, instead of clicking “more” and choosing “Tweets”, click “Latest”. Here is an example of what that search shows:

#SmallBiz Funding Hashtag Latest Tweets

Perhaps that is what they hope this change will bring. I doubt their algorithm is going to be better at knowing what image is most compelling than we are, but it is what it is.

Twitter has changed where to see all recent tweets and historical tweets.Click To Tweet

Why This Makes BuzzSumo More Valuable

Now that we can see even less in Twitter search, we must rely more heavily on other tools. Chief among these is BuzzSumo.  Even their free accounts will allow you to do a limited number of searches each day. This is a search by URL for 7 Ways to Improve Your Business Cash Flow on Lifehack.org.

BuzzSumo Search By URL For Shares

This is a new post, so you can compare this image to the actual search on BuzzSumo to see how they increase. By using BuzzSumo, you can tell whether a post is being shared organically or most of the shares are on one platform (usually due to paid promotions on Facebook although it can also be done on Twitter and LinkedIn).

While something may go viral on any network, excellent content should also have shares on the other networks.

Now, click on “View Shares” and you can see who shared that URL. In addition to the person’s Twitter account, BuzzSumo shows you these stats:

You can immediately see how influential each person who shares your content or content related to your niche is, how strong their individual website is, and how many followers they have on Twitter.

Use Influencer information from @BuzzSumo to develop relationships with the influencers important to your business. Click To Tweet

You can click on the image above or the links in this post to better view the power of BuzzSumo. Remember, you only have a limited number of searches per day unless you upgrade to a Pro account, so use them wisely. Look now while you know what to view.

Why This Makes ViralContentBee More Valuable

As influencers, we collaborate with other influencers. The easiest way to connect with us and get on our radar is to use ViralContentBee (VCB). It is totally free to use. You share content for us to earn credits to ask us to share content for you.

Whenever I share content for someone new on VCB, I follow them on Twitter. That is their invitation to follow me back and interact. Here’s a tip for building relationships:

Twitter Changes Where to Find More Tweets; BuzzSumo and ViralContentBee More Important Now