Throw an influencer lovefest – a guide to influencer outreach and content creation

Industry Insiders

Industry Insiders have an expert, yet biased point of view because they have an agenda: to promote a story that will shed a positive light on their company (or mission).

I create tags in my Traackr projects to pinpoint Industry Insiders I want to focus on. When I monitor these influencers for content marketing specifically, I look for opportunities to add to their content efforts as well as include them in ours. The main goal here is to build alliances that are mutually beneficial.

Media

The media I focus my efforts on tend to freelance for many publications, and they maybe have their own. I monitor journalists who are strong fact-checkers, produce refreshing stories, and do due-diligence by talking to people before they publish a story. For me, this media category also often crosses many influencer boundaries, since Traackr’s influencers are often marketers themselves, and end up creating a lot of content.

I look for opportunities to add value to their research, and I make sure to engage often so we’re top of mind in their work. If they publish an article where Traackr could have been a resource, I reach out to them to follow up with any relevant information. This is all about helping them write good stories!

Customer Heros

Don’t forget that your customers are influencers, too! One of the strongest lead generators is referrals. Your customers are well connected within their industries, and they’re likely having conversations around your product often, whether you know it or not.

I watch what our customers are doing on a daily basis. The goal is to shine light on all the cool things they do, and turn them into industry heros (if they aren’t already!) I feature their stories in blog posts and other content. Not only is this best practice for customer happiness and success, but it also allows you to highlight how your product is helping them do an awesome job. This strong relationship you build with customers will always works both ways. When your customers love you, they want to show it!

Influential Detractors

And because at Traackr we love a good challenge, let’s talk about detractors.

It feels good to generate a love fest with most of our evangelist influencers, but the fact of the matter is, not everyone starts out as an influential super fan. Detractors deserve some love, too – and actually turning detractors into effective evangelists is much more realistic than turning fans into influencers. To help put the impact/relationship balance in visual perspective:

Savvy influencer marketing programs will take this S-strategy to advocacy engagement. Talking to those who don’t already love us can be a little uncomfortable, so here are some tips to engage with your detractors.

From getting on the radar of your influencers to creating content with them, the influencer engagement journey is a process but not a difficult practice. The key to engaging with your influencers (and throwing a love fest) is to understand that there are different stages of engagement.

A4 Another #FAIL is asking influencers to participate publicly with no pre-existing relationship. Hi, let’s get married! #c2c15chat

— Lee Odden (@leeodden) February 9, 2015

To learn more about 10 common influencer personas and tips on engaging with them, download our guide.

Update: If you want to create highly-personalized emails automatically and boost your influencer outreach game, check out OutreachPlus.