Page 287 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Expert influencers like to be in the know. Provide them with exclusive sneak
peeks, and they’ll be grateful for the opportunity to see and talk about your prod-
uct before anyone else does. You can use that access to information to deepen your
relationship with them.

Reaching the expert influencers may be easy depending upon your industry, the
size of your business, and the product you are selling. But for other marketers,
that may not be the case. For example, if you’re a marketer for a small business,
reaching expert influencers is going to be harder because these people may not be
high profile or visible. You’ll have to really seek them out. Here are some tips for
reaching expert influencers:

» Ask your customers who they seek out for advice.
Very little in marketing beats firsthand customer research, and the same
applies to social influence marketing. You can identify and reach the expert
influencers by asking your consumers who they are and where they spend
their time.

» Pay attention to the media.
Keep an eye out for the experts who are quoted frequently by the media
when your product or category is discussed. Also keep an eye out for who
appears on television. Make a list of these experts and use that list as a basis
to research their influence.
» Look at your competitive environment.
Your competitors, suppliers, and business partners probably seek out the
experts just as you do. In many cases, these experts sit on the advisory boards
of other companies that operate in your space. Understand who these people
are. A lot of that information is freely available online.

» Attend conferences and exhibitions.
The expert influencers are often called upon to give keynote addresses to
industry conferences, lead seminars, and pass judgment on new products
and services at exhibitions. Pay attention to these people at those events.
» Seek out the industry analysts.
The analysts often have an outsized influence on customers in your product
category. Their influence increases dramatically in the business-to-business
space, where customers depend upon them for advice when making large-
scale purchasing decisions. Pay attention to them and to what they have to say.
» Evaluate their online footprint.

Use professional tools for rankings, such as Buzzsumo as shown in Figure 18-1
(http://app.buzzsumo.com/influencers), which lets you find influencers

CHAPTER 18 Accounting for the Influencers 271