Create Buzz with Influencer Marketing
Despite there being so many different types of marketing, we can all agree on the fact that the content you produce is still the most important thing you have to offer to your audience. Every successful marketing campaign is built around some cracking content. However, coming up with great articles, blog posts, videos, or infographics is not enough, if you don’t do a good enough job at promoting it. Of course, it’s easier for your content to receive plenty of shares if you are a content creator with an established following, but even if you're just starting out, you can still create shareable content by relying on influencer marketing. I used this tactic when I was offered to write several guest posts for EduGeeksClub, an online writing service. I was able to convince several experts in the field to contribute to my article, and the article received an insane number of shares. Here's how you can do the same.
Keep an Eye on Trends
The process of coming up with a great topic should also involve doing some research on trending topics and using them to your advantage. You can research the Web manually, and lose countless hours, or you can rely on tools such as BuzzSumo or Ahrefs Content Explorer which were designed for that purpose. BuzzSumo calculates the popularity by tracking the total number of shares a post has on major social media outlets. You can enter your topic or selected keywords in order to discover what sort of similar content has been trending the most over the course of one week. Ahrefs Content Explorer works in pretty much the same way, yet it comes up with different results, so you might want to check out both tools for best results. Once you have figured out what’s trending, you can use some of the ideas and infuse them with your own original and unique content.
Know Your Influencers
Your next step should be to narrow down your niche and identify top influencers. Grab this free 5 page workbook to help shape and define your niche. In all likelihood, you are already following the work of some, but you will need to reach out to more influencers, because the most successful guest posts I have written have features contributions from over 20 influencers in my niche. That requires a lot of research. I recommend using tools like Buzzstream Discovery Tool and/or Followerwonk Bio Search to locate key influencers that are relevant to your industry. With Buzzstream, all you have to do is enter your niche and it will provide you with a large number of experts in your field. You can sort them based on the number of followers on Twitter, or how often they post new content. Followerwonk, as well as Buzzstream, will provide you with your influencer’s Twitter profiles, which you can then use to contact them or tag them. However, while you should certainly give it a shot, this approach is probably the least effective, just because there will be so many other followers doing the same. I always opt to send them an outreach email. You can find their contact information by looking for it online, or going to their website or blog and reach out to them via their website’s contact form. Given that you won’t get an answer each and every time, you should always reach out to at least twice as many influencers as you are planning on including in your posts.
Sending an Outreach Email
Your outreach email should be short and to the point. Briefly introduce yourself, and then proceed to ask them whether or not they would be willing to contribute to the post. This is where you should provide them with a headline in order to spark their interest. Don’t pressure them into answering. If you do receive a response from them, ask your question. However, keep in mind to keep it short, and that it'll take them less than 5-10 minutes to answer it. Influencers are very busy, and they won’t be able to spare more of their time. Respect their time, and they will respond positively.
Create the Your Best Post
With all the influencer comments and quotes in one place, you should give it your best to create an awesome post. Apart from featuring your best writing, include images, videos, or infographics to make it stand out. There are plenty of apps and tools online that can help you enhance your texts, even if you are not a designer or videographer.
Promote the Heck Out of It
Immediately after publishing your post, you should do your best to promote it. I recommend sharing it on several social media platforms for at least a month, using different hooks, images, and text. You can even pull out a quote from an influencer and share it, along with a link to your post. This way, you're boosting your own credibility, but also the authority of your influencers, not to mention driving traffic to you website, because they will share it with their readers, exposing you to an entirely new audience. You can do all of this at once, by using Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule all of your social media posts. This is why it’s important to create the best content you can, because an influencer might not able to get behind subpar posts featuring their contribution and share it with their readers.
Summary
Having a strong online presence and good reputation in your niche is often directly connected to the number of shares your content will receive on social networks. However, that sort of thing takes time, and one thing you can do to speed up the process is to get somebody more influential and an authority in the field to help you out and contribute. Such an approach takes work, but a lot less work than going it alone, right from the start.