How To Develop Influencer Marketing In Social Media Strategy

Need to know more about how to incorporate influencer marketing into your social media plan?

You have company.

You’re sitting on what may be the MOST EFFECTIVE marketing tool in your arsenal.

Let me take you on a brief vacation to Ancient Rome before I cram you with influencer marketing nuggets.

He, like today’s Formula One drivers, isn’t in the sport for the thrill of competition alone.

Every time he races, he collects a chariot load of sponsorship money. More specifically, in exchange for representing and endorsing major local enterprises, he was paid the Roman equivalent of $15 billion over the course of his career.

It’s safe to say that they’ve made it big in the online world. The people who are the forerunners in your field. Each has tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of devoted fans waiting for their next social media post. Also, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of blog readers who hang on their every word.

Let’s supposing someone with tremendous sway over your intended audience published your blog post on their Facebook page; the results would be fantastic. Maybe they shared one of your tweets. Think about how cool it would be if they invited you to join a Twitter discussion on a trending topic in your field. Or they made a major announcement of their support for your brand new offering.

Suppose further that you had developed a genuine rapport with this influential person—perhaps even a friendship—and that they routinely engaged in the actions listed above.

Doesn’t that just sound mighty?

Here’s something else to wrap your brain around:

You could cultivate the aforementioned relationship with a hundred of these influential power brokers if you used the strategies I’m about to share. With a total social media audience of over 2 million!

Are you beginning to see how influential marketing may be for building successful social media campaign?

If that’s the case, read on.

The 10 Essentials of Influencer Marketing

Find Your Crucial Stakeholders

How?

Okay, so first things first. Track down the key decision-makers in your game.

Using analytics applications like Klout, Kred, Traackr, Followerwonk, Little Bird, or Buzzsumo.
By keeping an eye on Who’s Who among America’s Top Influencers in Forbes.
Simply by doing a Google search for “top [fill in the blank] influencers.”

Second, divide and conquer your lists

You’ve done some serious mushroom picking to find such exceptional influencers.

You’ll shower them with affection for the next many years. Let’s not bury their contributions under a deluge of “here are 20 more images of my fantastic holiday” Facebook status posts and “here are 20 more tweets promoting my awesome holiday,” shall we?

Third, make yourself stand out by creating an impressive profile.

This is the deal

People in influential positions often garner a large number of supporters. This serves as the basis for the categorization.

That’s a lot of tiny gravatars and profile pictures people have to squint at every day. Probably hundreds each week and maybe even thousands.

If you want their attention, you’ll have to make yourself noticeable.

Act like a fairy when surrounded by thugs. The rose among a field of thorns. The precious stone in a rough landscape.

How?

To do this, you must ensure that each of your social media profiles is individually branded, spectacularly memorable, and oozing with value.
In other words, try to make them laugh. And, don’t pretend.

Irrelevant of how illustrious they may be. You and I are examples of influencers.

People are generally happy and enjoy a good chuckle.

Be like a genuine human being on social media if you want to connect with influential users.

Attempt to make friends. Treat them with friendliness. Strive for hilarity. With all candour, Find a way to connect with your audience. And be as nice to them as you would to your closest friends.

Always be on the lookout for influencers who share content that is more introspective and less business-like. Sayings like “I’m drinking the best cup of coffee of my life right now,” “I can’t believe my daughter just graduated from high school,” and so on are examples of this.

Assist Those Who Have Influenced You. A lot

If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours; that’s basically how influencer marketing works.

More favours you do for influential people increase their likelihood that you will receive favours in return (at some point or other).

You should share their insightful tweets. Insightful Facebook status posts should be shared again.
If you flatter someone, they will likely return the favour.

They are as easily swayed by flattery and wit as the rest of us. Especially those who we recognise as influential figures in their field but who haven’t quite hit the “Brangelina” level of recognition just yet. (This is why it’s important to go after both major and little influencers).

So make sure to offer them some public “shout outs” on your various social media channels.

Prompt them with inquiries. Right up there.

The primary objective is to start debates among influential people. Also, this will add significant juice to your influencer marketing machine. The secondary objective is for you to receive first-rate solutions to your genuine concerns about the business.

If you ask a major influencer a question and then tag a few other influential people in the post, you’re more likely to get audience response than if you just asked one person. Unless you’ve established a strong enough rapport with them beforehand.

Encourage them to keep sharing

Obviously, increase in your profile, credibility, and traffic might all benefit from having influential people contribute to it (as in this expert list post or this awesome interview piece). But why would they do this?

In any field, it helps to be recognised as an authority figure or expert.