Bloggers and social media influencers can be very efficient and bring huge value to your business. They can provide a better reputation, a bigger audience, and helpful exchanges of content, information, and other online value as your business grows.
You may not realize it, but influencers are a fast way to scale and boost your SEO strategy. Working with these influencers can improve your rankings in search engines for the following reasons:
- Content visibility & inbound links: The more quality link building you do, the better your domain authority and organic search results. When an influencer shares your content, it can reach hundreds of thousands of new potential customers, each of whom could help share it even further.
- Reputation boosts & connections: Building a relationship with an influencer can build your reputation in the eyes of followers and external publishers. This improved reputation will allow you to connect with even bigger influencers, to help build better links.
- Collaboration & mutual value creation: Collaborating with an influencer on shared content helps both of you create something better than you could on your own, and drive mutual growth by reaching the others’ audience.
How to find the right influencers
The ideal influencer has three qualities:
- A large following. To be considered in influencer, they should have an audience of thousands at least, preferably tens of thousands or more. Without a solid audience, the exchange wont be as beneficial to you.
- Regular activity. They need to not only have a large following, but also post frequently. They need to be involved in conversation regularly and enjoys engaging with their audience.
- Industry relevance. Find someone in the same industry as you, or at least a relevant one.
Now that you know what you’re looking for, you have to begin your search! Here’s a few places to search for your perfect influencer:
- Searches! Search on Google and individual social media platforms to find these people. Search hashtags related to your industry or brand to create a list of strong influencers in that area.
- Social listening. You can also use social listening software, such as Buzzsumo, to flag certain topics you want to pay attention to, and chase down the people involved in those conversations. Some software can even recommend influencers on your behalf.
- Industry perusal. Follow industry publications and events to find speakers and industry leaders who you can contact.
Create a list of potential influencers and begin contacting them! Don’t be discouraged if some never respond to you – they are busy, and might get many requests a day. Make your pitch unique, and be sure you offer them something of value in exchange. You may go through a few before you find one willing to work with you.
Once you begin creating content with the influencer you should notice results immediately. Pay attention to how your follower counts, engagement, and link profile grow after your first interaction. As long as you’re seeing positive results, try to maintain your relationship with the influencer, then gradually work your way up.