Enchant Influencers through O-U-T-R-E-A-C-H
If you can engage the influencer’s passions, and work with them to craft a compelling logical appeal, then you can leverage the credibility of the influencer to actually sway hearts and minds.
—Tom Webster, Edison Research
Well-established brands and startups obviously face major challenges today in attempting to expose their content and engage their social communities. As the channels of content delivery get increasingly congested, few can break from the pack without the help of partners that can sway the sentiments of relevant audiences. This is where influencers come in. Finding, romancing, and collaborating with influencers are especially essential for entrepreneurs to jump-start their visibility.
Prior to the arrival of social media, influence marketing was done by courting a select few pundits or journalists that were rewarded for sponsoring a brand’s message. But when the incentives disappeared, so did the loud speaker and the favorable brand attention. These folks are not the same as brand ambassadors or employee advocates. Influencers are motivated by their own objectives and not necessarily by a passion for our stories or a penchant for loyalty.
Where influencers go beyond advocates, however, is in their reach across a relevant audience. They have huge audiences that trust their opinions and let them shape conversations. And now with social media, companies need not focus on just a few influencers who may grow weary of a brand’s messaging. Hundreds of them can be engaged online. Moreover, brands can now scale their outreach efforts to include influencers that focus on specific targeted audiences. With influence identifying tools described further, we can easily discover niche-oriented bloggers and podcasters that have an established relationship with a multitude of targeted personas.
To capitalize on the role that social-media channels have in permitting collaborations with influencers, an entire body of research and practitioner advice has been devoted to “influencing the influencer.” Assumed in this courtship, however, is an entrepreneur with a reasonable amount of thought leadership themselves to qualify for the influencer’s attention. Chapter 7 discusses this in more detail. But for now, let’s focus on this booming field of influence marketing defined by Jay Baer as “engaging the people who have an audience, shape conversations, set trends, and impact how your brand is perceived.”1 For the sake of this discussion, influencers include bloggers, podcasters, industry analysts, business leaders, and other known authorities who command a large audience that is especially beneficial to entrepreneurs seeking to borrow their social capital. Not included are the influencers among consumers themselves that well-established brands often court in their promotion of new offerings.
Why Influencers Are So Critical
Shy of reaching influencers, entrepreneurs will likely find their content promotion efforts stall out. Even the best of compelling stories, hashtags, syndications, and search engine optimization described earlier will only go so far in organically growing audiences. With the help of influencers, however, firms can benefit from a quantum leap in both brand awareness and credibility. To demonstrate this, I conducted my own controlled experiment as a class exercise to show how a massive jump in my own thought leadership and followers required an influence outreach campaign. As described further, this campaign was necessary to inject new energy into my community that was not well motivated to share content and enlist new followers.
What makes influence marketing a hot topic in social-media circles is the combined effect of snowballing reach and trust. Often referred to as having significant reach, relevance, and resonance, influencers have social capital that lend extensive O-U-T-R-E-A-C-H to those that effectively court them. Consider the following eight ways they extend credibility to your brand while jump-starting your brand awareness among the consumers that count.
Organic Reach of Influencers
Influencers enjoy the unique position of having clout. This shows up in their ability to gain high search results as well as getting others to recognize their authority in certain circles. As described further, scoring from Klout, PeerIndex, and Kred earns them attention like the four stars of a general. Having Klout scores over 80 displayed on Twitter, for example, tells audiences that these folks command the attention of huge audiences that value their opinions.
If the content earns their attention to the point of their inviting you to guest blog, the blog post will likely have a far greater impact on your search engine results page (SERPs) than you can expect on your own. In some cases, it may even lead to a first-page entry. If not directly, exposure to your content could register high in SERPs from the Google+ posts of high influencers. Consider how this was done in Figure 6.1 following a piece I posted that caught the attention of some social-media influencers.
The post boosted the stature of these influencers to the point of their posting on Google+. Because of the many thousand members in their circles, their post earned top placement in SERPs for, at minimum, the tens of thousands in their Google+ circles. The reference to my blog post on a rising keyword phrase “social media influencers” contributed greatly to the over 5,000 page impressions from new visitors in just two weeks.
Figure 6.1 Organic Reach of Google+ Postings
User–Community Relationships Enjoyed by Influencers
Besides their ability to extend your organic reach, influencers have relationships with their followers where trust has been earned over years of engagement. This typically follows their history of interacting on videos, podcasts, and blogs where opinions and stories carry a lot of weight. Moreover, they lead conversations that are approved and encouraged by their audiences. This is where going it alone can be very frustrating. The gestation period required by audiences to vet your content can take years. And if you expect to register a story message through multiple iterations of content pieces, piggybacking off the social capital of influencers becomes imperative.
Influencers in your industry can share stories of your brand to those who may never otherwise see your content. By collaborating with them, you can accelerate the delivery and sanctioning of your content with someone who is qualified to explain your story. And in the process, you have an opportunity to build your own thought leadership.
Topical Relevance of Influencer to a Focused Community
Many of the routes to grow your audience and expose your content organically further suffer from exposure to wasted eyeballs that could distract your lead generation efforts. Too often, entrepreneurs stake their efforts on SEO. As a result, marketing and sales can get flooded with unqualified leads. Search campaigns around keyword strategies could invite many readers whose background profiles are unknown or irrelevant to your targeted interests.
Influencers, on the other hand, can get your message across to people in their network that should have interest in your benefits given the influencer already addresses your niche. Just like moms like to talk to other moms and marathon runners like to talk to other runners, influencer audiences have already identified themselves as someone fascinated with specific topics of interest. The key to identifying the right influences is knowing what topics resonate the most with their niche audience. At minimum, traffic earned from the influencers podcast episodes or blog posts that are extendable to your brand should at least be more qualified as a potential lead. At best, the traffic includes those whose recommendations came from an influencer capable of swaying brand sentiment. In this case, the lead can be registered as a potential prospect.
Resonance
Perhaps even more important than reach and relevance is resonance. Brain Solis, a well-known authority on the subject, describes the three as the pillars of influence.2 Reach is more a function of popularity and the goodwill earned across audiences. Relevance in this context implies the authority influencers have on a subject that is acknowledged by audiences who trust their expertise and have an affinity toward them on this subject matter. Resonance, on the other hand, relates to the ability influencers have on furthering discussions and sustaining engagement with these audiences. In effect, influencers with high resonance are able to echo your brand story to a relevant marketplace where the word of mouth can lead to audience actions.
Imagine, for example, that your content is compelling enough to gain the attention of targeted audiences. This may lead to their following you on Twitter or in Google+ circles. By itself, their following you only means you are potentially visible on their radar. But if your content registers well with the interests of your influencer’s audiences, they may post or retweet your content. Now you have reached their audience feeds with a stamp of approval from someone they know, like, and trust.
Endorsement Credibility
Another important factor that contributes to the large following of influencers is their credibility in recommending brands to follow. An extensive survey conducted by Brian Solis and Vocus found that 51 percent of the respondents claimed they follow an influencer because of their opinion leadership. The same survey found that 40 percent follow the influencer because of their relationship with them.3
In many cases, the opinion expressed by these influencers can make or break your brand. Their expertise, coupled with the strong relationships they maintain with their audiences, makes them an especially reliable source for endorsements. Just like the impact NASCAR has on getting their audiences to buy their sponsored brands, the opinion of leading influences on social media can well become the consensus opinion of their audiences that ultimately sway sentiment toward a brand.
Influence Authority within a Concentrated Community
Besides their ability to provide visibility while shaping the perceptions audiences have of your brand, influencers can offer you insights into the way an industry can benefit from your brand. Given their regular interaction with widespread audiences, they are likely to be more aware of and capable of setting trends. Those that regularly host podcasts and collect numerous comments from their fans can especially provide insights into what your audience expects from your brand.
Since most successful influencers tend to hypertarget their audiences, they tend to have deep insights down to a psychographic niche. Overtime, they become authorities on what makes certain persona’s tick. And when backed by trails of commentaries on their content, these influencers can crowdsource audience opinions that are very candid and insightful. This free research bodes well for brands otherwise faced with costly focus group research or constrained to profile data.
Quality Content with an Emotional Twist
The same survey conducted by Vocus and Brian Solis also found that 62 percent of the respondents follow an influencer because of the content they create. Because of their experience in crafting content useful and relevant to their audience, the writing skills of influencers are usually exceptional. Add to this the relational bond they have garnered from their unique perspective or likeable personality, and you can see why their content can be more compelling than what is published by brands.
Hub of Important Conversations
Finally, influencers have a better grasp of curating content around engaging conversations. What brands may attempt as a singular piece of content can often blend better in a topic hosted by an influencer that is framed better for discussion. Consider the many webinars hosted by brands that try to justify the worthiness of their topics. Influencers, on the other hand, start with trended topics that fascinate their audiences. They then use these conversations as a potential opportunity to sway sentiment toward your brand only if it lends credibility to the discussion. And because they have such a vested interest in audience engagement, they have earned a reputation for driving meaningful conversations.
How to Discover, Engage, and Romance Influencers
Courting the well-known authorities in your field requires a strategy beyond just brand exposure. Since the goal of influence marketing is to have others help you in sustainable engagement, as well as audience growth, entrepreneurs have to incentivize influencers to sway the brand sentiments of their audiences. These incentives could include exclusive information, new visibility, or compensation.
Key to a successful outreach campaign is the identification of the right influencers based on reach, resonance, and relevance. Once discovered, strategies are required to engage with the selected influencers to the point that they become advocates. This, in turn, requires a deep understanding of their own agendas so as to earn their accolades and harness their audiences.
Let’s first start by dissecting what the pros do in finding, engaging, and collaborating with the right influencers. We will then continue with establishing goals and metrics required to measure and tweak outreach campaigns. Finally, steps will be examined for sustaining engagement with these influencers.
Identifying the Right Influencers
Influencers can be easily identified with the help of free tools like BuzzSumo, Traackr, Keyhole, and Little Bird. These tools provide a starting list of those who can exert influence on your topic through their wide and loyal audience. More importantly, they provide insights into the content that registers well with their audiences. From there, an evaluation of their popularity and a willingness to engage on your behalf can be made with free tools like Klout, PeerIndex, and Kred.
Notice how this was done in Table 6.1 for the case of social-media influencers. This list ranks the social capital of key individuals as indicative of their capacity to influence. The number of followers and fans can be used to determine their reach. Their relevance in the field of marketing is determined by their Kred scores for both influence and outreach. The latter has a maximum scale of 12 that measures the degree to which an influencer is generous in their engagements on a particular topic. Finally, resonance, an outcome of both relevance and reach, is measured by their Klout and PeerIndex scores. Collectively, these measures account for the social capital of certain individuals defined by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) as having a “greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace.”
Table 6.1 Rating of Top Influencers in Social-Media Arenas
These complex algorithms for measuring various aspects of influence tap into an influencer’s engagement on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, and even their blogging platforms. Although faulted for their machine-oriented approach to evaluating the many intangible effects an influencer has on its communities, these scoring tools have become the bastion of influence standards.
Developing Influence O-U-T-R-E-A-C-H
Enchanting influencers works much like the courtship process traditional marketers have with the media. Getting on their radar requires an understanding of their own agendas. And given their own risk in exposing someone unknown to their community, it helps to start with a reasonable amount of your own influence. This is where Klout scores surface again. Yes, we are being defined by a number. Just like explaining to a bank that a low credit score doesn’t reflect your community giving and high grades as a parent, you have a lot more proving to do with a low Klout score.
Once you are on the radar of an influencer, it helps to let them know immediately how you can further their goodwill, grow their visibility, or boost their credentials. In effect, you want to enlist their efforts through O-U-T-R-E-A-C-H as demonstrated later.
Opportunities for Influencer Bonding
In conducting research on this subject, I am intrigued with the degree to which leaders in this field often publish posts to draw out other influencers. Knowing you belong to a club of elite members appeals to our innate desires to belong. Considering that a goal of many influencers is to book tours, get meaningful book endorsements, or share panels with prestigious club members, one way to get their attention is to host events featuring their peers. Finding these venues could be as simple as hosting Google+ Hangouts on Air or podcasts. In these cases, it may not be as important to field a large audience as it is to allow influencers an opportunity to mingle.
Unique or Unannounced Content
Especially important to influencers is contributions of breaking or otherwise unannounced news. Giving influencers an exclusive look into recently discovered trends or hot topics gives them a venue for shaping conversations. The mere fact that many influencers are on the hook for regularly publishing blogs posts or podcast episodes makes your timely contributions all the more important.
Thought Leadership Platforms
Despite their already large followings, influencers are always seeking more visibility. As they develop new perspectives to lay the groundwork for book releases or a lecture circuit, they need platforms for boosting their thought leadership. By inviting their participation on panels or as expert commentary in playbooks, these influencers are given an opportunity to distinguish themselves.
Oftentimes, this visibility may be for test trialing new material. For example, some of the leaders I Skype into my classes will ask me to host new topics they are interested in spearheading. Before going live with large audiences, these smaller venues provide them an opportunity to practice their material while also gaining early audience reactions.
Recognition for Distinction
Every year, NSU hosts its Hall of Fame for Entrepreneurship. One year, a nominee publicly admitted that what he originally thought not to be a big deal was in fact a big deal. Influencers are influencers because they feed off crowd reaction. Even the most humble philanthropist treasures the opportunity to be recognized. But the recognition has to be genuine and from a source with high credibility in judging worthy candidates.
This is where entrepreneurs may feel challenged. Getting influencers to accept awards to the point of spending time on your brand may not be feasible. And simply handpicking awarded influencers from a good old boy network may not seem genuine. Lee Odden, an influencer expert, suggests that companies focus on new and upcoming influencers. They are not likely to be as sensitive to the prestige of award selection committees and will certainly appreciate the new limelight.
Easy Engagement to Start the Process
Oftentimes, the best way to earn influencer attention is through engagement on their turf. Influencers benefit from your commenting on their blogs or sharing their updates. And if you can interview them or capture the highlights of their presentations at events, they will likely notice your thoughtful contributions that go beyond pure fandom.
If asking them to cocreate content, it helps if you take the lead or make the process as painless as possible. For example, have them contribute microcontent that you later aggregate into a broader story or an opinion piece. In the other direction, by abstracting key points from their podcasts, blogs, or even books, you save them time creating shorter snippets to be later hosted in social-media posts or newsletters.
Authentication through Research
With so much competition among influencers to affirm their relative stature, you have an opportunity to potentially boost the perceived rankings of influencers with evidence supporting their unique claims. In particular, influencers often starve for empirical research of which they have little time or skill to conduct themselves. Especially if the study comes from a respected and objective source, research can often validate a position they take with their audiences. In addition, the study itself often provides a welcoming change of pace from the more editorial style of influencer conversations.
Common Interest Pursuits
As brand storytelling and social-media education went mainstream, I found many podcasters looking for fresh perspectives on the topic. This became a great opportunity for me to reach out to some influencers where we shared the same interests. Knowing they could share the podium with someone passionate about the subject, it made for an excellent tag team. By seeking those with common interests, the influencer is also relieved of having to find too many guests. Especially at times where a gap in scheduled content could lead to a bailed segment, a partner with common interests could be called upon on a regular basis.
Helping Influencer Causes
Ideally, your courtship process with an influencer should consider contributions to their causes. Giving them avenues to express their goodwill contributions could go a long way in posturing them as good corporate citizens. It could also complement their audience conversations or event promotions surrounding the cause. If connections could be made between your brand and a cause that resonates with the influencer’s audience, you could help the influencer build off a recurring theme of social responsibility or community generosity.
Influencer Outreach Example for Entrepreneurs
As a class exercise in influencer outreach, I conducted my own campaign to boost visibility and credibility with the top social-media influencers. The intent of the outreach campaign was to
1. provide influencer value in the form of recognition and useful content for influencer followers;
2. get influencers to collaborate around a talk-worthy study; and
3. raise exposure to a future blog series.
Outreach Strategy
The strategy included the publishing of research related to the top influencers. Specifically, a study of social-media behaviors observed for the top social-media influencers concluded that these leaders are represented by four archetypes: educators, entertainers, charismatics, and coaches. The conclusions were posted on my blog (http://bit.ly/1q9B72F) and promoted on Twitter and LinkedIn.
The intent of the piece was to capture the attention of influencers as a way to reinvigorate my series on the top 25 social-media books. The series had stalled out as readers were either unaware of or disinterested in the choices from No. 20 to No. 25. As the book reviews approached the top 10, I wanted it to be noticed by all social-media influencers so as to raise my visibility and credibility as an academic influence. The blog featuring social-media archetypes was intended to raise these eyebrows through the chart shown in Figure 6.2.
SWOT Analysis
The following Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis was first conducted to see where I could best engage with influencers:
• Strengths: Academic credibility as a full-time professor teaching MBA courses in social-media marketing.
Figure 6.2 Study Chart Highlighted in Influencer Blog
• Weaknesses: Fairly recent start on social channels like Twitter and Google+ giving me limited reach, relevance, and resonance.
• Opportunities: Research backed by a solid methodology not likely to be conducted by leading practitioners in this field.
• Threats: Backlash from excluded influencers in the study as was the case after Forbes released their top 50 list of influencers (http://bit.ly/1uEfSHb).
Campaign Goals
Keeping all other blog activities constant, the traffic, shares, and engagement with the research were examined over the ensuing two weeks. Goals were established to ensure the campaign produced the following:
1. influencer boost in my social capital as measured by reach, relevance, and resonance;
2. positive brand sentiment expressed by these influencers;
3. engagement with these influencers on new content;
4. boost of personal Klout score to entice future followers; and
5. blog traffic growth to spur interest and further sharing.
Items 4 and 5 were included to ensure that opportunities for future influencer discussions were not thwarted by paltry traffic statistics and influence.
Boosting Social Capital
In order to measure the effectiveness of the first campaign goals, the following metrics were used to benchmark performance.
• Reach: Measured by the number of new influencer followers on Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.
• Relevance: Content relevant posts on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn updates, and blog comments.
• Resonance: The number of tweets, retweets, multitweet conversations, and twitter list placements by influencers.
Listed in Table 6.2 is a summary of results. From the response, it is clear that the content was compelling enough to attract many new influencers as well as share a favorable sentiment with their followers. What was not clear was their incentive to do both. For example, many followed but did not tweet or post the content to their followers. Others shared the content but did not follow. And of those that followed, only one placed me in a list of social-media experts. Without a placement in a Twitter list, any new tweets potentially get lost in the clutter of the influencer’s feeds as many influencers follow thousands of others. Earning a listing or repeat connection with these folks would obviously require more quality content and meaningful engagement.
Table 6.2 Results of Influencer Outreach Campaign
Figure 6.3 Eample of Positive Brand Sentiment on Social Channels
Where the outreach piece scored well was in response to the goal to boost engagement on new content as well as brand sentiment expressed by these influencers. Some examples of commentary that bodes well for my personal brand are shown in Figure 6.3.
Site Traffic, Personal Influence, and Social Proof
To measure the impact the outreach had on site traffic, social proof, and influence, all blogging and social engagement was held constant during the week following the influencer research posting. As seen in the results shown in Figure 6.4, the influence outreach clearly had an impact on accelerating visibility and attracting new followers. Klout scores improved 20 percent while the number of total shares reached over 2,500. Finally blog traffic boosted the overall Alexa traffic ranking from 2.1M to 635K from over 5,000 new visitor impressions (Figure 6.4).
Outreach Tactics
What made this outreach strategy work was relevant content that provided value to these influencers. Using the O-U-T-R-E-A-C-H tactics described earlier, consider how the campaign was able to borrow from the social capital possessed by these influencers to the point where seven influencers could be courted for future engagement (see far right column of Table 6.2).
The attraction of the blog post by several influencers was seeing their name validated in the context of an academic study on archetypes. But rather than overtly touting their initiation into an elite club, the study provided a legitimate way for them to engage their audiences while boosting their credentials in the process.
Figure 6.4 Results of Site Traffic, Personal Influence, and Social Proof
Figure 6.5 Engaging Google+ Post
Figure 6.6 Summary Model of Influence Impact on Outcomes
Consider how this was done by Lee Odden who asked his audience what quadrant they fit in Figure 6.5. In the process of engaging them on a new topic, Lee validated his placement among the top thought leaders without drawing attention to himself ().
In summary, influence contributes to brand lift, reach and ultimately improved search engine results. Key to its success is your ability to romance the influencer as well as the influencer’s social capital measured in reach, relevance and resonance. Shown in Figure 6.6 is a model of influence determinants and outcomes.
Notes
1. “Influencer Marketing, Rick Springfield, and a Bottle Opener that Opened Doors” by Convince& Convert’s contribution from Barry Feldman (http://bit.ly/1BByACu).
2. “The Rise of Digital Influence and How to Measure It” by Brian Solis (http://bit.ly/1uyS7kE).
3. “What Makes an Influencer: a A Survey by Vocus and Brian Solis” Vocus White Paper (http://bit.ly/1AOU8t1).