Building a brand, marketing your brand, and inciting conversations in media are all tactics leading up to one thing; web influence. Influence on the web is paramount to increasing brand awareness, brand recognition, and thus augmenting your customer base and ultimately sales. Whether your Scottsdale advertising firm is looking to launch a print campaign or online marketing, influence is everything.
The Power of Influence
Much like brand recognition, influence is increasingly crucial to your marketing campaigns. Without influence you are a ship lost at sea with no sails. You know where you want to go, you have the plan, but you have no way to harness the wind and make any progress. With influence, you have sails and the ability to catch the wind, increase momentum, and race along the sea of online users.
How to Become Influential Online
In order to become influential online, you must have a strong website, a strong brand message, and a strong Facebook and Twitter presence. Knowing what to say, when to say it and how to say it is crucial, maintaining interactions is crucial, but knowing the right people can make all the difference. For the purpose of this article, let’s talk about knowing the right people to build your own value online.
1. Popularity is Fruitless – It’s not about how many Friends or Followers someone has, it’s about how they interact with them. Someone with a strong social media presence might have less than 1,000 Friends, but each those Friends engage in conversations often, and generate conversations of their own in their own social networks.
2. Industry Relevance – Identifying the influencers in your industry is crucial. Though it can be tempting to look for other industry ‘top dogs’ to connect with, but to remain relevant to your brand you must connect with those influencers in your industry who have something to say and have an audience that is listening.
3. Expert Authority – Anyone can have a social media presence. May ordinary Jane’s and Joe’s have huge followings between friends and family, and have a lot to say about current events, perhaps even industry related topics, but these are not the influencers you should be connecting with. Remain steadfast to the idea that you must be connecting with an expert authority. Take your time when selecting these influencers to connect with. Take your time to monitor their online behavior, their ethics and morals, their knowledge of the industry. If this influencer is going to become integrated with your brand, even if they’re only going to mention it or blog about it once, they have to network well with your brand message.
How to Connect With Influencers
Finally, after you’ve spent some time monitoring the influencers that you want to connect with, you’ll contact them, join in their conversations, and generate an understanding of your brand. Email them directly if you’d like to explain what your brand stands for. Direct them to a recent article or blog that you’ve posted on your site regarding your products or brand. Do not contact them as a used car salesmen hoping to get their ‘blessing’ and ‘mention’ on social networks. This will turn them all the other way. You’ll want to connect them as a colleague, a friend, and build a relationship with them. If they truly are strong influencers, and the connection is mutual, sometimes all it takes is one mention on Facebook, Twitter, or a blog for your brand to be instantly skyrocketed to the next level of success.