One of the best things you can do for your SEO efforts, as well as your traffic generation, is to get the social media influencers working for you. Getting the main influencers to like you and your company can mean untold amounts of traffic through their direct recommendations. These influencers can have many hundreds, even thousands, of followers. You need to befriend them but it isn’t that easy a proposition.
- When you are just starting out, try and avoid going for the major social media influencers in your industry. They are deluged with requests every day and, if you are a young company, you will likely, for now, be ignored. Try for the smaller ones. Do your research and find the ones who have a medium sized audience and approach them. It will be easier to approach them than the major players.
- When you narrow your search to one or two of these influencers, take a while to get to know them through their blogs. See how he or she operates and interacts with their audience. After you get a feel for them, start re-posting some of their content or making helpful comments that offer some true insight.
- Bring some added influence to them. If you jump right in with a Mr. or Ms. Me attitude, you will, most certainly, be ignored. Offer them as much visibility as you can out on your own social networks. Bring an even wider audience to them. Also, take a lesson from your veteran sales people: respect their time and learn how to live with rejection. You need to approach them like you would any other potential customer or client. Remember, people like doing business with people they like.
- Finally, remember that to get their attention, you need to be special. You need to have something, or need to offer something, that separates you from your rivals. If you are just like everyone else in your business, why would they consider going with number eight or nine when they can easily run with number one and number two?
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
