In the corporate world, millions of dollars are being spent every day with the purpose of building a recognizable and successful brand users can identify with. However, thanks to the Internet and social media, you don’t need to run a billion-dollar empire in order to promote and build your brand from scratch. In fact, an individual can become just as powerful online as any multi-national corporation.
Studies Show the Growing Influence of Social Media
This is hardly new, because newspaper agencies were first to experience the winds of change. At first they were reluctant to join the Internet bandwagon, but eventually they had to, because their revenue has become diminished.
Even though the majority of the people consumed the news by reading printed publications, the newspapers themselves were earning less money from printed ads than before. This meant that digital ads had become a relevant source of revenue, and that social media and the Internet had become a valuable news source.
On the other hand, according to a 2015 study conducted among college students, it was discovered that they had a hard time trusting online news sourced, unless they were directly recommended by an influencer or a social media thought leader they followed. A separate study also showed that most influencers were using their influence to persuade their followers to adopt a similar way of thinking to their, especially when it came to politics.
This goes to show how social media influencers and prosumers can be powerful. It also means that you can turn your brand into a smash hit by getting on the radar of those same influencers.
How to Develop a Relationship with an Influencer in Your Niche
First of all, you need to identify them. Assuming that you have done your homework in that aspect, we recommend that you rely on the following tips.
Become Their Follower on Social Media
Find out which social media platform they use, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, or LinkedIn. After that, you can share, like, retweet, or pin some of their posts. You can also be more active and leave comments and feedback. In time, they will start to notice you, and the same goes for their followers, who might even follow you back.
Take Part in Online and Offline Get-Togethers
If there are any webinars, conferences, or meeting happening, especially those taking place in the real world, try and attend them as often as possible, because it is getting more and more important to leave a good impression, and it’s easier to do that if you are meeting with an influencer in person.
Organize Your Own Conference or Forum
An even better option would be for you to host a conference or start a forum and have some of the influencers in your niche take part or give an interview. Rest assured they won’t miss an opportunity to take part, because it’s just another channel for them to spread their influence, and a chance for you to strike up a collaboration with them.
A Simple Thank You Goes a Long Way
Whenever you manage to get an opinion, advice, or feedback from them, be sure to thank them for their effort. It can be through a comment, via email, or by sending them a personalized note. It won’t go unnoticed by them, and they will probably be willing to work with you again in the future.
How to Come up With Irresistible and Engaging Social Media Pages
Getting the influencers in your niche to take notice of you is great, but you will only be able to do that if you are able to create impressive social media pages. Otherwise, they might not be willing to collaborate with you if they don’t like what you are doing on social networks. Here is how you can improve your efforts and your chances.
Find Your Target Audience
It is incredibly easy to make connections on social media, and growing your audience is not that hard either. All you have to do is follow an influencer to become a part of their group of followers. Once you are inside, you can follow some of those which might fit the profile of your buyer.
Create Superior Content
Having great content is a must, and you can check out what’s currently trending by using a tool like Buzzsumo. Also, if writing is not one of your strong suits, you can get in touch with a professional writing service, such as AssignmentMasters and have their professional writers write or improve content for you.
Use Posts to Create New Content
Gather some of your best posts and use them as a source for your social media activity, especially if those posts feature comments and quotes by an important influencer, which you will mention.
Focus on the Visuals
Featuring images, infographics and/or video is always a plus, but you should make sure to feature shorter content on social media, and link to some of the longer one on your blog, because not everyone will have the patience to view a full-length video, especially on Twitter.
Create Videos from Your Articles
Repurposing content is another way to breathe new life into it, and a good example of it would be to take a detailed how-to article or an instruction you might have on your blog, and turn it into a concise and informative how-to video that you will post on your YouTube channel.
Make Use of Hashtags
It is impossible to expect people to remember the link to your page, but if you provide them with a hashtag, they will surely take notice of it, and they will be able to use it on just about any platform, especially Facebook and Twitter.
Makes Your Images Easy to Pin
Images are not always interesting on their own, as they often need a proper context, so make sure to use them along with a title or a headline, because they will be easier to pin then and will make a lot more sense.
Conclusion
Developing a collaboration with an influencer is not as impossible as it looks, just as long as your remember that they are still regular human beings, just like you, who just happen to have a knack for engaging other people. In fact, they might not even be experts on a particular topic, but they make up for it by being passionate.
Either way, approach them just as you would anyone in real life, and develop an acquaintance, that will develop into something more over time. You can’t rush these things, just like you can’t rush any sort of relationship in your life. Once you do manage to grow your collaboration, you will be able to enjoy dozens of different benefits, and in turn, grow and promote your brand in the best way possible.
Author’s Bio
Mary Kleim is a digital marketing specialist from UK. She is working on several projects dedicated to online marketing and student help. In the future she is going to launch her blog dedicated to online promotion.
