4 Ways to Get the Attention of Influencers | Digital Marketing Training

Social media marketing has changed substantially since becoming mainstream in 2011. A lot of what was done pre-2011 – such as copying and pasting the same message to your audience regardless of the platform – has become ineffective and “black hat”. Now the focus is on building relationships and brand authority and increasing steady traffic flow to your website.

Pre-2011, it was common to see social media marketers buying fans and followers and creating underground groups for people to beg others to tweet, like, or share their content for visibility. Over time this approach to content marketing/social media marketing has become less practical and less effective because platforms learned to employ algorithms to detect fake engagement.

In its place is influencer marketing, also known as “blogger outreach program”. The idea behind influencer marketing is that a brand seeks out real influencers with substantial followings to help them augment exposure for their product(s) or services. The requests may range from asking influencers to write about the products or services on their websites in exchange for free samples or to endorse a purchased product or service on a review website (e.g., Google, Yelp, and Facebook).

Finding influencers and getting their attention is not an easy task. You may find that you are reaching out to 100+ influencers through emails, direct messages, and phone calls and only getting 1 or 2 of them to listen to your proposal. That’s okay because the blogger outreach program is not meant to be easy. In this week’s feature blog, our online digital marketing corporate training specialists share with you 4 effective ways to get influencers’ attention in your niche. These strategies go beyond cold calling and sending generic emails/direct messages.

4 Ways to Get Attention of Influencers | Digital Marketing Corporate Training

1. Give Before You Take

Influencers are busy people. If you start your relationship by asking for a favour from them, you are almost certainly going to be turned down. Instead of starting with a request, lead with some contribution of value.

Whatever you are offering must be useful to influencers. Influencers will be more inclined to listen if the offer you make is exclusive to them. Perhaps give the influencer exclusive access to your new product or service so that they could review and share their experience on their website. Alternatively, you can help your influencer improve their own blog content by offering exclusive and time-sensitive information that would be relevant to their readers.

2. 10X Your Content

In the past, it was easy to write a simple 300-word blog post, publish it on your website, and get a decent stream of traffic. As long as it provided some semblance of value and had juicy keywords in it, it was good enough for search engines and readers. If you try this tactic today, your content will not reach page one of search results. In fact it may not reach the second or third page either. More than likely it will be buried on the 800th page of major search engine’s search results.

In today’s race to produce content that hits the front page of the Google, your content must be AT LEAST 10 times the value anyone’s looking for. “10x content” was a phrase that was coined by Rand Fishkin, the former CEO of Moz.com. According to him, 10x content is content that is “10 times better than the best results currently found in the search results for a given keyword phrase or topic.”

To really get influencers’ attention, you need to outsmart and outwit your competitors. This means creating material that:

• Offers a great UX experience on all devices and all platforms, including Facebook and Instagram
• Resembles trustworthy, authoritative, and high-quality content
• Takes a different approach to an existing topic
• Drives emotional connection with readers
• Solves problems

3. Link Back to Influencers

Still having trouble getting influencers in your niche’s attention? Another strategy you can try is to create a dialogue with them. One way to do this is to link back to their content in your own blogs. Linking back to their work gives you a very compelling reason to message the influencer on social media and tag them in your posts or emails. Our only piece of advice is not to link back to content unless it is high quality, applicable and adds value to your readers as well as theirs.

If you are discerning and creative enough, you will figure out other (and more innovative) ways to repurpose your influencers’ content. It can be as simple as creating a short YouTube video to summarize a long, wordy blog post. If you are tech savvy, you can also create an infographic that sums up the main points of the article in the fewest words possible. The ideas are endless.

4. Create a Roundup Post

A roundup post is easily one of the most effective ways to get the attention of influencers from your niche.

The idea is simple. You choose a topic to write about in your roundup post. To make it effective, it is important that you choose a topic that is unique and highly interesting. Then, once you have chosen the topic, create a list of influencers that you’d like to get the attention of. After that, send all of them an email or direct message on social media.

The email should start with a thank you to the influencer for sharing their wonderful tips & tricks. Then mention that you are creating an expert roundup post on a very unique topic. Tell them the name of the topic and request them to share their opinion, tips, tricks, or suggestions for that topic, so you can include it.

Most bloggers and influencers will be happy to help you out with a couple of hundred words. Create the roundup post by collaging all the answers you get. You can make the article even better by including photos of all the influencers who have contributed to it.

About yourDMAC | Online Social Media & Digital Marketing Courses & Training

yourDMAC is committed to your success in content marketing (e.g., blogging). Our online digital marketing course sets up all professionals, whether novice or experienced, for success and helps them develop winning strategies that transforms their business. Alternatively, we offer customized corporate training workshops to senior executives and their staff. We work collaboratively with all businesses, both big and small, to understand their corporate vision, goals and objectives and help develop winning strategies that will lead them to success in the least amount of time. Contact us today and see how we can put your digital marketing career on the right track.