Tricks to Get Influencers to See and Share Your Content

On the Internet, messages are meant to be heard. From high-powered advertising agencies to in-house marketing departments to individuals with a few hundred Twitter followers, everyone yearns for their message to be conveyed and shared. social media marketing manager Finding a high-powered industry influencer can help jump start a sharing craze and kick your message into viral overdrive. A single retweet, blog link or public compliment can do more than you think. When these students started my course, they were not sure what they could do as consultants. By the last class, they were confidently presenting McTighe recommendations, even offering to follow up with him after the course concluded. Two groups researched distributors for McTighe. They interviewed professionals involved in the supply chain, analyzed their offerings and provided suggestions for him to move ahead.One student with significant knowledge of North Carolina offered to introduce McTighe to many contacts. He insisted on going to meetings with McTighe to be sure that he would make the time to forge new connections. The result was a win-win on all sides. McTighe received valuable consulting work at no cost and the students obtained course credit and gained considerable practical experience. Big companies have access to advertising opportunities that small businesses may not. But even small businesses have powerful advertising tools available to them through self-serve features on Facebook, Twitter, Google and others. Take a look at the ads you get on each platform -- you can bet many of those are from small businesses. social media marketing strategies Do they work? Well, some of them are priced on a cost per click, so if you are willing to pay the bid price for each click you get then they are very efficient. But the onus is on you to give them a reason to buy both before and after they click. Your notions when you will arrive on the social media scene about the voice you should project likely will require reevaluation as you interact with the communities you are reaching out to. You’re on their turf. Respect their values and listen to their style of expression. Speak their language but retain your personality.

Don’t expect a social media miracle

Let’s start with an unfortunate truth for those on the hunt for influencers’ attention. Trying to reach out via social media likely won’t cut it. With anywhere from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand Twitter mentions and/or Facebook comments per day, using social media for marketing influencers simply won’t have the time or opportunity to see your message. You can go ahead and try, but the chance of an influencer hearing you might be slimmer than winning the lottery. As for an in-person encounter -- forget it. You’d have to be in a situation as bizarre as that in season two of The Newsroom, when associate producer Maggie Jordan enlists the help of on-air talent Sloan Sabbith (along with her 450,000k+ twitter followers) to help take down an embarrassing viral video.If you are trying to establish awareness or interest in your brand, the calculation is a little harder. What you care about here is how you can best deliver your message to the perfect audience. How much are you willing to pay to speak to the right audience, how can you be sure the audience you want is the one you buy and how do you measure the effect the message has on them? (Hint: Clicks don’t measure brand impact.) This also requires not just buying access to the audience but experimenting with what to say to them when you’re in front of them. The placement doesn’t make the impact, the creative does -- the placement gives your creative the eyeballs it needs to succeed.Thought leadership on social media comes when your voice and input are helpful, real, verifiable and meaningful, which are all the elements of authenticity. benefits of social media marketing Every brand that succeeds on social media achieves authenticity and a consistent voice. Their audiences recognize the brand’s voice as authentic and influential, shaping the opinions of people and driving action. Your brand’s voice is its identity online. Align your voice with your brand’s values, morals and mission statement. You are at liberty to modify your voice, depending upon the social media forums and audience types. You can engage however you like, in a way that is fun or sober, scholarly or anecdotal, just so long as you do not compromise on what is essential to your brand’s identity and reputation.

Instead, get creative to get an influencer’s ear

Since simple social media outreach likely won’t do the trick, you’ll need to find ways to get creative. Getting in touch with an influencer’s official PR agency or management team is a decent step, as is mining closer connections for an introduction. marketing social media But for most influencers, making contact in a unique or innovative way can be key to the introduction. Consider a self-promoting website with plenty of personality similar to Matthew Epstein‘s brilliant Google Please Hire Me.But the buck doesn't stop at social, you should also use email (think newsletters), and you should also think about paid search and SEO. I can’t speak to your specific company and your strategy, but I can give you this: Try everything and measure your returns so you can balance your mix.If you are trying to sell product through an ad, you should measure everything in terms of ROI. That’s easy math. How much did you spend to get the returns you can track through those efforts? Eliminate the costly and double down on the efficient. A few years ago, you could say, “I’m on Facebook, that’s my social strategy.” Not any more. The majority of the online audience in the U.S. (52 percent to be exact, according to comScore) is using two or more social platforms about an eighth of the audience is using seven or more. Should you be on Facebook? Yes, absolutely if you have content that’s appropriate for Facebook. But don't focus on all of your resources on Facebook. Instead, be everywhere. If you have photos, be on Instagram and Pinterest. If you have wisdom, be on Twitter. There are a lot of social platforms. social media marketing tools (Have you heard of Secret or Whisper yet?) You should use them each if you’ve got something appropriate to offer. Your approach depends on your objectives. If you wish to engage widely, then in all likelihood you should avoid complex language. If you wish to educate, you may have to adopt a more scientific tone and explain some jargon. That’s fine. Adopt personas according to the situation but without compromising the authentic voice at the core of brand identity.