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If you were asked to name the top thought leaders in marketing today–the 10 marketers you’d definitely advise others to follow on social media–how would you proceed?
You’d probably start by looking at those you’re connected with on the major social networks, then do some additional research. Perhaps you’d look at existing “top” lists from other sites. You’d develop a “long list” of worthy experts, then gradually narrow it down based on followers, level of engagement, quality of posts, and other factors. You’d carefully develop your final list, possibly using a method like pairwise ranking.
But—what if you had to answer on the spot? What if you had to respond immediately, or within just a few minutes? You’d forget some important names, of course, but your answers would reveal those you keep top of mind.
Earlier this year, we decided to work on our next eBook for Scoop.it by doing things differently than in the past. We had done eBooks and white papers in the past and we were proud of the value they delivered: good data, survey results, analysis, etc… But we did them on our own. This time, on top of delivering great content, we did one thing differently: we asked influencers to participate to its content.
The results?
Close to 2x more downloads of our latest eBook and 3x more shares of the blog post introducing it vs our previous ones. Plus a lot more mentions on top industry blogs such as Lee Odden’s TopRank. Nice influencer amplification, wouldn’t you agree?
There are many reasons why influencer amplification works. As Traackr’s Pierre Assayag puts it: rising above the noise is hard – even for established brands – so you need the help of credible, trusted, influential people in your industry....
Consumers Trust Influencers More Than Brands
As I remarked in my last blog post, nobody likes being sold to. And branded content? It often comes across as sales-y or biased in the consumer’s mind. Naturally, wary customers are going to turn to independent reviews (which can actually make your brand look more authentic – even if the reviews are negative).
A new infographic from The Shelf reports on this interesting relationship between consumers, brands, and perceived authenticity on social media and the web...
Today, if you’re in marketing to any extent, you’ll know about influencers and, more importantly, about influence marketing.
What makes a great influencer? Influencers are humans, clearly, not automated content management systems. They are mega-connected on social media (aka they have earned the trust of many other humans to deliver on what they promise) and they have the unique ability to inspire action. The good influencers out there have great knowledge in a particular field, know how to curate that knowledge, add their unique vision and value, and they know how to communicate with their audiences.
If I am a brand, I totally love that potential, that opportunity, that has only been created in the last few years. How can my brand become part of an influencer’s curated content (and in a positive light, hopefully!)....
In this episode I interview Jason Miller, the senior manager of content and social at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. He’s the author of Welcome to the Funnel: Proven Tactics to Turn Your Social and Content Marketing Up to 11. Jason is also an excellent photographer specializing in rock bands.
Jason focuses on creating sharable content that also generates leads.
You’ll discover how content ties into influencer relationships and how to leverage it....
Consumers trust recommendations from other consumers far more than they do branded content. With that in mind, businesses are jumping in head first. Unfortunately, the process can get out of hand pretty quick, but here’s the good news: As businesses start to see the importance of working with bloggers, more tools are becoming available to empower marketers to run seriously smart campaigns.
From finding the right bloggers to managing outreach to tracking campaigns, here are some of the best tools to manage blogger campaigns from start to finish....
Key influencers on social media can highly increase your reach on those networks but they can also have a very positive effect on off-the-page SEO. Identifying your key influencers and making sure that they share your content is one of the most overlooked SEO techniques in marketing.
Building up an influencer marketing program inside your company can have very straightforward benefits such as lead generation or sales, but don’t overlook the “small” (but extremely important) benefits like the increase of social shares and the continuous improvement of your website’s SEO. Remember most website traffic is still generated via organic search in most industries....
In fact, in the age of social media, the definition is changing as how to identify influencers. Today, thanks to online applications, all social media users now have the opportunity to stand out and in turn become leaders in respect to their interests. As a result, marketers and public relation professionals are forced to reassess their approach to define the notion influence on social networks.
Influencers on social media are either passionate individuals who turn out to be specialists or professionals involved who use Web 2.0 tools as part of their work. They take advantage of their presence on social networks for personal gain or as representative (or ambassador) a brand, company or organization. They produce and sharing relevant content, appealing to the interests of a community. This can result in regularly prompting discussions and interactions that might have influence on behaviors.
As marketers, we create content in order to persuade and engage with customers. But modern consumers are skeptical and savvy. The moment something hints of “ad,” they lose interest and move on.
Whether you sell fitness and health products, tour packages, or home services, a single positive recommendation from a trusted source can trump even your most beautifully written copy or most engaging video demonstration. And while brand-crafted content is useful and can help build trust with customers, sometimes the most influential content comes from like-minded people that your customers know and trust...
Why does social media influence matter now?
Social media influence matters on multiple levels. For businesses, online influence signals better engagement with customers and a smarter social media strategy. On an individual level, social media influence can be a sign of advanced digital skills and an ability to create interesting social media content.
To break this down further: for business owners, a better social media influence of the company social accounts can improve their brand’s visibility in the online community and increase the reach of their social messaging. This is an implicit purpose behind investing valuable resources into a social media team or a social media manager....
Do you LOVE social media but you're bored with your Twitter feed? No problem. Here are 125 of the best people to follow on Twitter for social media geeks.
To show them all how much I appreciate them, I listed 125 of my favorite people to follow on Twitter.
These are the people who taught me how to market on Twitter.And I hope you enjoy following them as much as I enjoyed making this list!...
How do people become truly influential in the social age?
If you, like me have been raised with the notion that celebrities, sports stars and politicians were influential because of what they do and not who they are – we’re on the same page. But when you actually examine today’s influential people and how they became influential – the picture has changed dramatically.
Influence is both a natural and learned quality that is developed over time. It can still be inherited, received by winning an election, or conveyed by a new job title – but that’s becoming less prevalent now. I’ve seen influencers in the social age drive tremendous awareness for social causes, leads for companies and votes for presidential elections.
Many of these influencers have mastered the art of communicating what everyone else is thinking or what they should be thinking. They are curious and always ask, “What’s important here?”
"I mean, influencers are a nice idea. But actually, they’re not needed. They’re no better than a couple of normal people endorsing your brand and will have no long-term impact. They’re overrated and make no difference to your business as people trust them no more than anyone else on the internet…”
Imagine if someone said this to you, straight-faced. We’ve seen it happen and it’s stuck with us. Not only do we respectfully disagree, but we’d like to take this chance to refute the above notion and actually point out the benefits of getting ‘influencers’ on your side.
Increasing customer advocacy is now a top priority for 67% of CMOs, and with 74% of customers relying on social media to guide their purchasing decisions you can begin to see why it’s such a high priority.
Here’s 8 reasons why getting widely trusted people from your field to sing your praises can only be a good thing for your business....
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In my first post, I summarized the shift currently taking place in corporate communications. We’re now ready to delve more deeply into the digital communications landscape, starting with the rise of the influencer. In today’s world, setting a solid influencer strategy means that we need to understand….
In the past week, I’ve felt the power of the influence shifting in the social business marketplace. It seems that most brands have figured out that it’s more authentic, genuine, and real to partner with an influencer than to run more social media advertising. I’ve literally had 4 different brands reach out to partner on Twitter & Instagram with content, and they want me to feel rewarded for sharing their awesome content.
It’s a new strategy to really deliver to the social media audiences based on the niche of the influencer. Also a term you might start to hear more is “micro-celebrity”, these are folks that have a following that is smaller than 100K on any platform. We all want to partner with Taylor Swift but to keep it real, not many brands can afford the endorsement with such a superstar. So the alternative is to work with 5-10 micro-celebrities that are all focused in a niche that serve your CUSTOMERS!..
One way to keep your content moving is to share relevant posts from influencers in your line of business. Any piece of content coming from an authority on your subject will surely be taken seriously by your followers. The cherry on the cake is when one of your own articles or Social Media posts gets shared by an influencer, as it gets in front of many more eyes immediately.
Once this happens, do you know what’s the best way to take it from there? Your response to the influencer’s attention can make it or break it....
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, it’s no big surprise that Twitter is one of the hottest platforms for sharing and absorbing information, specifically when it comes to content marketing and all of its related fields. However, finding the right people to follow in this roiling sea of tweets isn’t always the easiest of prospects, especially if you’re new to this portion of the “Twitterverse.”źz
With this in mind, here’s the 33 content marketing influencers you absolutely need to be following right now if you want to stay connected to the cutting edge of this industry....
In this episode I interview conversion expert Doug Karr, the author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies and founder of the Marketing Technology blog. Doug also co-hosts the Edge of the Web podcast.
Doug will explore influencer marketing and how to work with prominent people.
You’ll discover how to identify and reach out to influencers, as well as develop relationships and campaigns that lead to sales....
...But here’s the thing: With the right tools, time and a hint of talent, creating the perception of being an influencer is possible by just about anyone. Focusing on the signals that commonly lead to the perception of authority, individuals can work on developing their personal brand and popularity far above their expertise and ability to affect action.
Perception vs. reality. Now I’m not saying that everyone who has cultivated a strong personal brand is superficially popular or influential. I’m saying that it’s easy to create the perception of influence through personal brand and companies should take that into account when creating their influencer programs....
This marks the third year that StatSocial and Haydn Shaughnessy publish a list of Twitter users most influential in the realm of social media—that is, social media experts with a great following among people also interested in social media. Excluded from this list of the top-hundred influencers are journalists and actual employees of social media companies.
We’ve published this annual list on Forbes.com for two years. Take a look below for this year’s list of movers and shakers. As you go through it, you will notice many similarities to the lists of previous years, but also some striking differences. Thanks to some remarkable recent advances in StatSocial’s technology, this year’s list features a very granular analysis of follower communities cultivated by these social-media leaders....
Today we’re celebrating the 5th and final version of the 25 Women Who Rock Social Media – 2014 edition from TopRank Online Marketing.
Nearly 100 women have been recognized over the past 4 years and the feedback I’ve received has been amazing – just like the women featured on the lists. Publishing these posts has also introduced me to some incredible individuals that are accomplishing amazing things – creating impact and making a difference – through social networking and social media content....
It may seem tempting to seek out people in your industry who have millions of followers on social media, but don’t get ahead of yourself. While there’s nothing wrong with including them in your strategy, pay attention to the little guys too. Many people in your industry are well-known among a niche crowd, and they may be much more accessible than a CEO with 10 million Twitter followers.
So how do you go about finding these influencers? Here are five different tools you can use.
Have you ever wondered why webmasters constantly bombard your inbox asking you to review their companies?
It’s because it works. Although blogger outreach is very time intensive, it can dramatically increase your sales.
Just think of it this way: 81% of the people online trust the information they read on blogs, and 61% of those people have made a purchase based on a blogger’s recommendation. It gets even better: 63% of people are more likely to be influenced by a blog than a magazine to make a purchase.
So, how do you get bloggers to cover your website without being spammy? To help you out, I’ve created an infographic that breaks down the steps you need to take to achieve this goal....
I like Gary Vaynerchuck – I love his new video podcast Ask Gary. But Gary put up an important blog post yesterday titled “Are experts the only people who should put out content?” and he argues that expertise is subjective, that it doesn’t objectively exist. I disagree and think it’s important enough to write a blog post.
Just because he’s seen several ways that people have been wrong about their assessments of expertise does not mean that the concept of expertise is invalid. TL;DR: I believe you can build expertise through consistent participation in global discourse on the social web. And I think that’s pretty awesome.
I am a social media expert (Gary is too), despite people saying “there’s no such thing as a social media expert.” I’ve written thousands of blog posts and I’ve gotten progressively better results from them. I know a lot and can do a lot more than I was able to do 10 years ago when I started all this. Now I run a company that finds influential experts on any topics....
“How do people become truly influential in the social age?”
Clearly, Mark and I admire many of the same people. His article is full of examples where he showcases leaders in new media marketing and speaks to their qualities.
Monsters of Influence
The Forbes article inspired me to create my take on the qualities of a person of influence. It became a slide deck with a fun Halloween-themed twist and earned a spot as SlideShare of the Day.
I hope you enjoy it, share it, and comment below with your feedback and any ideas you have about the qualities of influential people.
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![Why Influencer Marketing Matters [Worksheet] - Pardot | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/7WlvyZ3QFdYue3RVNYY_Gjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Valuable list of best 10 marketers to follow from Tom Pick at Webbiquity. And check out his next 10!