Is ranking your site in the search engines proving to be too much of a hassle? Does link building seem fraught with problems that cost time, money and worry?
It doesn’t have to be. Relationships are now the organic way to gaining links and the best links are from related authority sites.
However relationships can’t be built with sites. You need to remember that behind each authority site is a person or persons. This person or persons is whom you need to build a relationship. They can potentially make a big difference to your link building, content marketing or social media campaigns. After all influencer marketing can lead to greater trust and conversions of 3x to 10x.
So how do you go about finding such people or influencers? How do you build relationships with such people?
In this article, we will learn the following from 58 experts in the industry:
- The tools they use
- Their tips for building relationships with influencers.
List of experts interviewed for influencer marketing strategies:
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This is a long post so feel free to read up on the experts you most want to or read through the summary of key findings below.
Preference of tools (by order of number of mentions):
26 – Old school techniques (includes observation, social media, search engines, forums, email, events etc)
25 – BuzzSumo
13 – Followerwonk
4 – Buzzstream
4 – Topsy
3 – Ninja Outreach
2 – Triberr
2 – Contentmarketer.io
2 – Google+
2 – GroupHigh
2 – InkyBee
2 – Twtrland
Other tools which got a mention:
Boomerang (with Gmail), Sidekick (with Gmail), Alltop. Klout/Kred, Postrank, Digital Matchbox Pro, LinkedIn Groups, GetLittleBird, Traackr, Nod3x, HootSuitePro, Authority Spy, Contactually, Linkdex, Commun.it, Outreach.io
Advice on building relationships for influencer marketing:
Each expert has a slightly different take on it but really it boils down to building genuine relationships just like in the offline world. In other words building relationships that are non-transactional. Consider giving before asking. Or as Immanuel Kant says –
Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.
You can read more on a process for forging relationships for influencer outreach in this post.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
There’s no doubt in my mind that influencer marketing is getting harder – as more people spam top names in any given sector and expect them to share or promote their content for nothing in return.
To that end, without a strategic approach to all this – and a willingness to build ‘real’ relationships like you would in the offline world – it doesn’t matter what tools you are using.
I am aware of and have used many of the influencer tools out there. If you want to build genuine long-term relationships, I don’t think there’s any substitute for taking the time to visit all the top blogs in your niche (as an ongoing commitment). Get a feel for what people are trying to achieve, who their audience is – and equally how they approach that audience.
In short, show them enough respect, that you’ve actually engaged with their work before you even contemplate contacting them.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Once you start to get to know the work of the influencers in your niche – your aim should not just be to hit them up for links. It just doesn’t work like this and can be quite irritating if you attempt this from the outset.
Your aim should be to start genuinely engaging with them. Leave meaningful comments on their blog, repeatedly sharing their work on social media (believe me, they’ll notice). Also, try linking out to them as authoritative sources from your blog posts. Over time, this action will get you on the influencer’s radar as someone who is genuinely interested in what they do. And as someone who has given something to them first before you ever go and ask for anything in return.
Although my online influence level could be described as ‘growing’ – I’m still emailed almost daily by people saying basically:
‘Hi Loz, I like your stuff – here’s some of my stuff – please share it!’.
Why on earth would I do that when I don’t know who you are – you’ve obviously never read anything on my blog, and you’ve never done anything for me?
I know the people who regularly share my stuff. When they ask me to do the same, I jump at the chance because the relationship that’s developed between us is based on mutual respect and benefit. This can’t be manufactured in one speculative email – it has to be nurtured over time.
Like content marketing – influencer marketing as part of that is a process you should commit to on a strategic basis over the long-term. It is also something you should not try to force, as I know from experience this can backfire.
There’s no need to be sycophantic – but just be genuine, respectful and give the process time – and for that read weeks and months, not days.
Then when you do come to contact your chosen influencer – they will be more receptive to your approach – and you can truthfully say something like:
Hi Influencer,
I genuinely love your blog and have been following your work for months now. My favourite posts are X, Y, Z and I enjoyed engaging with your audience in the comments on those posts.
I also share your work regularly across my social media channels and have linked to those articles I mentioned in pieces on my site.
As a quick heads up, I’ve just featured you in another post you may like on my site. Here/I’ve written a piece I’m sure your audience will like here (link to post).
Thanks for all your great work, I’m glad I found your blog’, etc.
You can obviously tailor this type of email to your requirements and judge the tone yourself. Given everything I’ve said above, don’t even expect an answer. Don’t ask them to share your stuff (they will if they like it), don’t hassle them if they don’t share it. Most importantly don’t send the email cold. I cringe at the mistakes I’ve made with this in the past, so build the relationship first and then be polite, genuine and respectful.
In this context, influencer marketing does work well – but you’ve got to be agile and strategic about it – and give first before asking for anything in return.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I’m using more and more Buzzsumo. Their influencer identification functionality has evolved so much and can be as granular as you want. It not only allows you to filter by topic, but by country, language, network, and identify who have shared any given piece of Web content out there.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
It’s important to connect while providing value. Understand what triggers the attention and the needs of your influencers and provide an answer to them.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Mostly, I find influencers in my social stream who are passionate about what I’m passionate about. I’m pretty organic about it. I also meet them at conferences or reach out after reading a book or other content they’ve written. I’ll engage by making a comment about something they’ve written, sharing their content or asking them a question.
Peer recommendations are also key. I’ll reach out to my network and ask “Who’s got the handle on X?” and then follow-up based on their recommendations. And I follow hashtags on Twitter or browse discussion groups on LinkedIn to see who’s talking about what that’s causing a reaction in the crowd.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
You need to give to get. It’s that simple. Asking for something when you’ve never made an attempt to build a relationship is not likely to sway the influencer in your favor. Additionally, you need to align your ask with what the influencer cares about.
For example, I’m passionate about B2B marketing. Asking me to promote or share something related to B2C probably isn’t going to happen – even if it is in the realm of content marketing.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Triberr and FollowerWonk were useful tools for me when I got started. A lot of people use Buzzsumo nowadays, but I still use old school techniques.
If I had to pick a general tool to identify influencers, then social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn (and their built in communities) helped me a ton. There are a lot of influencers everywhere (with their readerships) hanging out & using just a particular social network so you can interact with them pretty easily, especially if the timing is right.
To engage with them, besides direct messaging in social media, nothing beats the almighty email, and I use Buzzstream to keep track of everything, including their fav movies and unique quirks.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
First of all, templates go out the window. The better you understand and connect with them, the more personal your relationship becomes. Just like in the offline world. Treat people like people. Not just forced relationships that can net you a link.
Also, forcing something, even asking for a social share, will just make you look stupid, and I have made bad decisions in the past. Though I didn’t lie, it came out wrong on the other end, so you have to think about what you say and what you are asking for them to do. Sometimes, asking for something upfront is the best way to do things.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I might use free tools on occasion, but I rely mostly on social media and the power of observation. Real influencers create media, so I look to Amazon, blogs, and LinkedIn to see who’s creating substantial works and evaluate how they’re received.I’ll engage with them via social media, their blogs, email, Skype, on the phone, and in-person. The best investment you can make to befriend an influencer is to buy a ticket to the conferences they speak at and go meet them.Ask how you can help them. For me, that’s often guest blogging. It’s not until after you deliver something of value to an influencer that you should expect them to respond to your emails or return your calls.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
I’d say ask nothing other than “How can I help you?” If the answer should involve creating content, you’ll get their support in the form of links, shares, referrals and possibly co-creation opportunities. Never lead with a discussion about links unless you want to be perceived as self-serving SEO pond scum.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Naturally the tool I use is Ninja Outreach, my blogger outreach software. I find it is far superior to just doing a Google search and provides tons more prospects to connect with.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Online relationship building isn’t that different from offline to be honest. If you want to connect with people you have to add value to them consistently; help them out. To a small degree, you can do things like link to them in a post, promote their products and services, or just be friendly on social media.
If you do those things enough times, and then maybe you partner on something like a guest post, etc., then you’ll soon solidify a relationship.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Over time, I’m becoming more and more dependent on search engine results to identify the influencers in the topics we’re trying to build authority on for ourselves and our clients. It’s my belief that search engine algorithms have evolved over the last couple years to incorporate names, companies, and product names. Once I identify an influencer we’re hoping to connect with, I simply connect with them on social media – typically Twitter. We trade contact information and get a call scheduled with one another.
One note on “influence”. The online marketing industry tends to call people influencers who are truly just popular people. Just because someone is popular doesn’t mean that they’re going to motivate one of their community or audience to take action. We often find that less popular, more relevant influencers drive much more engagement and conversions.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
In all honesty, the link isn’t the direct goal of our outreach efforts. Case in point… we work with an influencer to get a quote for an upcoming article or an interview on our podcast or theirs. Once the article or podcast is published, both of us promote it throughout our social networks. Those social networks lead to listens, links, follows, shares, etc. That creates a secondary echo, and some relevant, high-quality sites reference our site.
I believe the days of asking, looking for, or forcing the first-person backlink is behind us, and we need to be both wary of those requesting them and refrain from asking for them. On our podcast, we called this “link earning” instead of backlinking. By sharing amazing content through relevant influencers, you will earn links when it’s done right – and you won’t get into trouble!
I’d add that when we are working with influencers in a paid relationship – like sponsoring their publication – we prepare both a compelling story to share and a call to action. Influencers don’t often have a direct relationship with our clients’ product or service so sharing a story about a customer who did provides a compelling story for them to share sincerely. And having an expectation of conversions ensures we get measurable results.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
There are many tools that you can use for influencer outreach and relationship building; even social platforms could be part of them. But here are some web-based tools primarily used for engaging with industry influencers and bloggers.
- Gmail and Boomerang/Right Inbox Chrome Extension – this combination of tools could help you schedule your emails at preferred day and time (i.e. breaks and pre-working/post-working hours).
- Contentmarketer.io – a recently launched influencer outreach tool that can help you connect with mid-tier bloggers/webmasters who would likely become partners in branding. This could be via linking to relevant content of your brand, and in creating content targeted to a particular audience.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
A few considerations to take on when building relationships with influencers:
- Analyze what your influencers have already been sharing online (social profiles, email marketing, etc..). Serve their interests/needs with your content – this increases your chances of getting into their radars and starting conversations with them.
- Don’t explicitly ask them to link to your content assets. Since they are potential linkers (if they have blogs), they already know what to do.
- Give them value first before asking anything. You could include a link to their recent post in one of your articles or mention their content as an answer to a relevant question on forums or consistently share their new blog posts on Twitter/Facebook.
- With regards to getting influencers to link to your content/domain, always aim to build contextual or editorial links to your content pieces. Those are the types of links that are valuable and beneficial for your brand.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
My number one tool at the moment is BuzzSumo; it is the single greatest tool for finding the high-profile influencers in your industry. Just search for a keyword and look at the sharers of the popular articles. Followerwonk & Alltop are also amazing tools for finding popular social influencers.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
It’s key to always give before you receive, here are a few examples:
- Link out to the influencers blog (and tell you them you did it)
- Share the influencer’s latest article or guest post
- Sign up for the influencers email list and reply to an email telling them how great the article is
- Fix a broken link on the influencer’s blog
- If their local, invite them for a coffee / breakfast / brunch / lunch.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
To identify influencers, the first tool I’d use is… Google! Just search for hot topics and questions relating to your industry. The blog posts that show up on page one have probably been created by influencers. These are on page one because they’ve been read a lot, shared a lot and linked to a lot. Hence, the Google bots giving them love. As you search around like this, you’ll see the same big names crop up over and over again. And if you’re lucky, you’ll stumble upon a list post like this one, with a whole heap of influencers all lined up for you (ready to be charmed and seduced).
Other than that, Klout is a great tool for finding the top influencers in your industry. And you can also use Kred, Technorati, and PostRank.
As for engaging with relevant industry influencers – use as many social media platforms as you can. And comment on their blogs too. Regularly. I also use Liz Azyan’s Digital Matchbox Pro, which is a social media management super tool. It does everything!
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
‘Building relationships’ is the key here. If you want influencers to help you out, they need to like you first. You need to have some kind of real connection with them. Don’t just shove content under their nose and ask them to share it. I do that sometimes, but only with influencers that I would now actually consider my ‘friend’…And also because I’m a cheeky so and so.
So share your influencers’ content, retweet their tweets, write insightful comments on their blog posts. Give them shout outs on your blog and social platforms, plug their books, ask them in-depth questions (so that they can share their wisdom publicly) and so on. But also, try to catch them in conversations that aren’t just about your industry. Social media is supposed to be social, remember? Even flirt with them, if need be!
When you want an influencer to link to your content, you’ll get a much better hit rate if that content mentions/links out to them in some way. That’s a reason to shove it under their nose. Oh – and don’t forget to join your influencers’ tribes in Triberr.com!
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I believe strongly in the rule of 10 — make ten great connections and they will do 90 percent of your promotion for you.
So I don’t use any special tools — apart from my brain — to find relevant influencers. I use the tools available on each social media platform. For example – a keyword search on Twitter, and create a list of 25 or so people I believe will be important to a client and then research them pretty intensely. I look at all of their other profiles. Read articles and reviews about them, see how and with whom they engage in social media and draw up a list of 10 or more ways I believe I can turn them into a client’s raving fans. People who will go above and beyond to support them because they really, truly want to see my client succeed.
I’m a fan of tools, but they’re only as good as the thought and creativity you put into them. A hammer doesn’t drive a nail into a wall by itself — it takes drive and skill. I know a CEO, who owns EVERY social media tool on the market, many top-rate, and they get about as much use as the average stationary bike.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Be generous and be genuine.
Before you even think about asking an influencer to share your tweets or comment on your blog, prove yourself to be the most social person on any platform. And that means more than hitting the retweet button. Prove you’ve read a person’s content by quoting from it or making a salient comment about it.
And, when you make a direct approach, don’t fake your enthusiasm. Comments such as “cool dog” or “great idea” sound phony. Let a person know why your heart melts when you see her walking a dog or how you used someone’s great idea in your own business. I’ve never met a true influencer, including major celebrities, who wouldn’t connect with me in some way when they knew I cared.
And, if you want more links to your content as well as relationships, make your content more interesting than anyone else’s. There’s a lot of clutter out there, but never enough really good stuff.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
One tool I use is “Simply Measured” and also “Buzzsumo” to provide me with some of the data on who is influencing and on what topics. I also use Twitter analytics to provide some other information. Then I use Twitter itself and email to engage with them.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
It comes down to producing the best content you can that adds value to an influencer’s audience through a guest post. Also offering to co-create a free e-book or infographic can be a great way to build those inbound links.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
In terms of tools we use a plethora but key ones include Buzzsumo, Followerwonk, Find People on Plus (currently being revamped), Keyhole.co. It is also possible to work with influencer aggregators such as speakr.com, who can help you reach those key people.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Identifying influencers is a huge topic area and one we naturally spend a lot of time on. Broadly we split the task into three distinct areas:
1. Social influencers
Here we look for key, credible people with good relative reach. They may not own a blog or write anything for any site but could have a huge YouTube or Instagram following, for instance. The point here is to engage with these critical opinion formers and leverage their standing to get the right eyeballs on your content so that it may be picked up by the category two and three influencers.
2. Blog influencers
This is all about targeting the ‘blogosphere’. To do this we use a couple of proprietary tools we have here but we often use tools like ahrefs to measure the potential value of those sites. We use this alongside Hitwise data to ensure they are right for the campaign. Our team does use Buzzstream and an internal CRM we have to track those conversations and ensure we have a history of communication with each of them. We have been placing content for six years so have a LOT of existing relationships already here!
3. PR influencers
At this level you are looking for professional sites, often with teams of journalists working on them (think national newspaper sites, etc.). To feature on these, the content must be brilliant. If you have that, then we use a combination of Linkedin, Gorkana and Cision to find the right people and then get on the phone to build the relationship and sell in an exclusive angle.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I am a bit of a traditionalist and don’t think you need to go crazy with tools in most cases. It’s quite easy to discover influencers with Google and generally reading around your niche, but Followerwonk is useful if you want to find out who has a big head count on Twitter. I usually research and read blog comments and look for the people that I believe have an unusual voice and a tuned in audience, and that requires some manual work.
When it comes to engaging there are two main approaches that tend to work well – firstly comment on the blogs of these influencers. This can be on their blogs or on third party platforms they guest on. Have something interesting to say. Start a dialogue. Then move to Twitter and LinkedIn and build that relationship.
Ultimately, it is all about building a relationship. If you can do that, then ideas for contributions or collaboration will naturally grow out of that.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
My main advice would be to build relationships as mentioned above. Once you have a relationship and are in regular dialogue with this person, you will find things they want help with, and ideas will grow out of this. For example, if one of your influencers mentions something in his post that he has not looked into then create a blog post about it. In your discussions and communication ask questions and again see if an idea grows out of that. Then, you can craft a piece of content that answers the question this person posed and getting a link is trivial. Beyond that the obvious ones still all apply: ask for a comment, ask for a contribution, mention these people in a flattering way. Do all of this and then make them aware of it and the shares should follow (if you have cultured a relationship first the hit rates will be better).
Alternatively, if you are looking to guest post on the influencer’s site then cover a topic you know that they are looking for. Most guest posts of any caliber will not allow for keyword links to your homepage but if you have a post on your site that builds on this then adding a link to that should not be a problem. As an example, we often talk about local SEO and one topic that comes up is NAP consistency. NAP consistency is a big topic on its own. You can’t cover in the context of something else so adding a link to a useful article that fleshes that out that concept will get past the link censors. I have linked it here as in this context it simply adds value and no one will argue with that.
The only caveat is that you have to have some content worth linking to! Content is still king, but you can’t write it and expect they will come – you write it and then use it as a strategic weapon in your link building arsenal.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I like to listen to the grapevine to find out where the watering hole for the “big game” is. Tools, etc. can tell you so much. But spending time on the different networks, reading people’s posts and seeing who they are continually at mentioning, etc. you can then determine who is in vogue or an influencer in the niche. Taking this approach as opposed to a tool driven approach also lets you see the context of the relationships that are existing between influencers and from that you can derive a pecking order of sorts. Also, finding influencers this way allows you to have a much better idea of what might push their right buttons so that you can properly get on their radar.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Never expect or ask for a link, just go to town to be useful and the links will come. I’ve done work in the past with some big influencers like Martin Shervington, Rebekah Radice & Wade Harman, and there was no great hidden agenda to get backlinks or anything like that from them. So, I’d say if we were to crystallize the steps required to get influencers to link to your content they would be:
1) Be human and be yourself. Don’t suck up or brown nose for a backlink, you’re better than that!
2) Be useful! The best way to build a relationship and get on someone’s radar is by helping them out somehow. That can start with liking/sharing/plussing their content. This may then lead to an e-mail of “oh, if you happen to need a graphic/design/XYZ for that project you’re working on I’d be able to help with….” and we slowly open that door.
3) Create Great Stuff! Like Eric Enge says you have to be an expert or go home when it comes to doing stuff online and that holds true here. If you don’t have the design chops to come up with a nifty infographic, then find someone who can help you. If you can’t write stuff that people like and want to read, then don’t be a blogger – try video or something. What it boils down to is that you have to be good. There is so much garbage and junk on the web that if you don’t put out something that rises above it (for whatever reason) then you’re wasting your time. The same holds true for building relationships with influencers.
4) Iterate! You won’t get a home run the first time round. I remember years ago when I finished up college. I somehow or other found myself as a door to door salesman selling alarm systems for like €1,500 for installation and then ongoing monthly fees – not the easiest thing to sell on a doorstep. But, you learn to appreciate the grind and trudge for relentlessly because “each no gets you closer to the yes” – and it’s true. I was able to sell about an alarm a day which given the price, and long-term commitment isn’t a bad sale on a doorstep. However, if I were put off by the first 50 no’s in a row (some of them not all that friendly/sane) then I’d have never sold any. The motto of the story, trudge on, if you want it, you have got to make it happen.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I primarily use Buzzsumo and Ninja outreach to identify influencers quickly and get a guesstimate of their reach. Both tools do an excellent job at matching people and their social profiles with keywords. They also allow you to quickly follow them and create lists on Twitter. Perfect to start building relationships.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Don’t ask for links in your first three emails. It works in some industries but in some others you need to build trust first. I like using my online marketing knowledge to give great, quick to implement tips to influencers that truly help their business. Once they’ve tried it and see great results I know I have their attention and can start asking for favours like links.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Identify your ideal customer first. Then the persona of who you’re trying to target through the influencers. For example – Startup CEOs will have different influencers than CEOs of Inc. 500 companies. And Inc. 500 will have different influencers than Fortune 1000 CEOs).
Then use one of these tools to identify the influencers.
Contentmarketer.io
Buzzsumo.com
Followerwonk
It’s not a tool, per se, but you can use Amazon to find the influencer that just published a book – publisher will be trying to promote their book, making interviews and interaction much easier.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
The best – and easiest – thing you can do is promote their content; do that without asking for anything in return.
Or you can help them in some bigger way. Quote them, add them to an “experts” list, do a “top 10 [topic] lessons learned from [Expert]” and link their stuff from your blog. Even better, do this if you contribute an article to Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, etc. High-value links are always appreciated!
Or if you’re good at taking content from one format and creating something different, do that for them. Maybe take a popular SlideShare presentation of theirs and build a long-form blog post from it, or take a few blog posts on a specific topic and package that up as a well-designed PDF for them. That might be super easy for you, but that will get their attention.
Once you’ve helped, you’ll trigger reciprocity in them, and they’ll want to help you.
Whatever you do – at least at first – don’t ask them if you can help; that creates overhead for them requiring the influencer to think about how you might be able to help. As crazy as that sounds, that’s extra pressure the influencer doesn’t need and could offset the reciprocity you “should” have created with the influencer. So don’t ask if you can help… just help.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I don’t actively try to identify industry leaders for backlink purposes, but I do if I’m looking for subject matter experts for an article.
Most of the time, you already know who the influencers are. They tend to rise above the noise of the internet. To find new names, I do keyword searches in LinkedIn and Twitter, and I use BuzzSumo to see who’s writing about the topic. To engage, I don’t use any templated approach. I just reach out through email or a DM in Twitter/LinkedIn.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
My advice is to respect your influencers. Understand that you’re asking them to stop their busy schedules to do something that only benefits you. And you need to be as accommodating as possible.
Also, realize that most backlink requests sound like spam to the recipient. I don’t recommend any sort of backlink campaign for that very reason. If you are hoping to build a relationship, you need to focus on what you can do for the influencer, not what they can do for you.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Earning links from influencers isn’t easy. Just getting them to pay attention to you is difficult enough, so it’s important that you arm yourself with the right tools.
The first tool that I use for influencer identification is Followerwonk. Using this tool, I can drill down on who has a lot of social authority within the sector that I’m focusing on. From there, I usually do a little analysis into what type of content they view/share online and how they prefer to consume it.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Using this information you can go personalise your approach to reaching out to them. Don’t just jump straight into your outreach by asking them for a favour – you need to build a mutually beneficial relationship. An excellent way to establish an initial relationship with journalists, in particular, is to respond to press requests that they issue. You can also keep track of their Twitter feeds to answer quick questions they have (you’d be surprised how powerful this can be).
Once you’ve had some level of intro, you’ll want to craft an email pitch that you can send through them. You should keep this concise (max 190 words), giving them a brief introduction to you and your content/idea and then add some level of emotional hook to ensure they respond.
More than anything though, you need to ensure that you’re maintaining the relationships that you build – you never know when they can come in handy!
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I use two tools to identify influencers and two tools to connect with influencers.To identify influencers I use BuzzSumo and Followerwonk I’ve tested dozens of tools and these tools consistently have had the best results.
For connecting with influencers, I built a tool to find Twitter handles and email addresses. It’s called Content Marketer. I used to have an Odesker find people’s contact information manually and eventually I got smart and built an algorithm. To reach out, I use Yesware. I connect with influencers to promote my content, offer help, and most importantly build a relationship.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
First and foremost, keep you emails short and to the point. Don’t ask for too much. Always give something before you ask for anything. The Give to ask ratio should be 3 to 1. I focus on building relationships over building links because a strong relationship with influencers open more doors and are much more valuable than a link.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
One of my favourite ways of identifying and connecting with industry influencers is through LinkedIn Groups. To improve your visibility in these groups choose a few smaller local groups relevant to your niche where the top dogs of your industry hang out. Often you will find private local groups specifically targeting established authorities within a niche. If you are already an established authority yourself just join up, and chances are, you will be accepted. Make sure you regularly participate within these groups to raise your profile and establish yourself as an expert. If there are no obvious groups already established within your niche why not create one? You can then invite all the influencers you would like to connect with and have full control over who can and can’t join.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Building relationships is a two-way street. First you need to earn their respect and trust before you can ever expect any reciprocation. Participating in LinkedIn groups where industry influencers hang out is a great way for them to get to know you in an indirect way. You can also share your best content with these groups and can often pick up some shares and a few quality backlinks from this. Leaving regular and valuable comments on their blog posts also gets you in front of them and showcases your expertise. Once you have established a relationship you can just share any content that might be of value to them, links out to them or ask them to contribute to a piece of content you are creating. This type of ego bait content marketing works extremely well, and they will likely link back to the content and share it with all their followers.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
We attend blogging and industry conferences with the goal of developing one on one relationships with influencers. There is no list as powerful as a face to face meeting.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Focus on the relationship and not on the link to your content. Any relevant influencer is looking for brands that align with what they naturally write about. Links to content sounds spammy. Developing a relational link between your brand and your product is where the magic happens.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I use GetLittleBird, Grouphigh or Traackr.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
If you want to build a relationship you need to take your time. Identify the right people and try to engage with them in a positive way. As you develop the relationship then you’ll get the links.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
We primarily use Buzzstream for influencer outreach since it lets our team collaborate easily across a number of projects and campaigns. For identification we use various methods, but FollowerWonk and good old fashioned search queries are the most productive ways, and reverse engineering backlink profiles on similar content are as valuable as ever.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
For influencer outreach, we’ve moved towards a value first outreach model. That can range from quoting them in a piece we’re working on, to getting pre-launch feedback on a piece of content, or proposing other cobranded projects that help them build their platform as well. The success rate is too high to ignore when compared to cold outreach to influencers we haven’t talked to already.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Buzzsumo– Is one of the most popular tools to locate influences in a specific industry via blogs and other social mediums.
Followerwonk – Is another tool to locate popular Twitter users who you can reach out too.
Twitter – Just use Twitter search on random keywords related to your niche. Look at who is getting a high amount of re-shares and traction on their content.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
My advice is always to try and reach out to people before you want something from them, follow the influencers on Twitter when they ask for something be the first to reply and help. It might mean planning in advance and letting them be aware that you are around. When the time comes to get a link they will be more inclined to do so as they will remember you.
Also, another tactic that has worked in the past is sending gifts in the mail to top industry players and getting links/ mentions in return. One case study of this method in play can be found here.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
To determine the industry influencers, I mainly use a manual process. Twitter advanced search can uncover so many great things. One thing I like to do right off the bat is eliminate the top 5-10 influencers in the industry I am targeting. So for SEO I would eliminate Rand Fishkin, Matt Cutts, Niel Patel (etc.) Those people already get so much attention, and everyone is hitting them up so hardcore all day every day. I prefer to go after the lesser known influencers. Still seek out those with large followings but not so huge they are immune to our tactics.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Read Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. For this tactic, focus on the principle of Authority, Liking, and Scarcity. Study your target. See what makes them respond to tweets or other messages. Are they easy to bait? Hard to budge? Many times influencers will stay quiet all day, every day until you mention your brand. I’ve gotten the biggest influencer in our niche to tweet my link just for mentioning them in a case study (email me for the example).
Remember influencers are people. They sit behind the same kind of desk you do. Try to get a feel for what type of person they are, and what makes them tick and before you know it they’ll be wearing a shirt with your brand’s name on it 🙂
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I use Buzzsumo, Followerwonk and some basic Google searches (e.g., “top NICHE experts”) to identify industry pre-curated lists of influencers.
I also run Google searches to see if there are any niche influencers publishing weekly or monthly roundups (e.g., ~KW + “weekly roundup”). These people typically link out from these roundups to other posts they were mentioned in. This helps get some easy link building wins.
Once I have identified a list of influencers in a web app like Buzzsumo, I’ll use BuzzStream’s buzzmarker Chrome extension to create an outreach prospecting list. I can then monitor the relationship status with each influencer over time.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Give before you take. And, by “give” I don’t mean just sharing and commenting on their content, although that’s good too 🙂
I mean give them a link.
1. Put together an expert roundup featuring as many (at least 40) different niche experts as possible. Make your expert roundup question super easy to respond to, to boost your response rates.
I use the prospecting lists I created in BuzzStream to scale the outreach process for these expert roundups.
2. Publish the roundup and aggressively promote the post on social media mentioning each of the influencers at least once in the week immediately after you publish it. It’s likely those influencers will re-share the content, getting it in front of a much larger audience. This is great for indirect link building. More exposure = more links (usually).
3. Outreach to all participants and ask them to share the post with their social media audience.
4. Outreach to any influencers who publish weekly/monthly roundup posts and ASK for a link.
5. Filter the list of influencers in BuzzStream by Domain Authority. Outreach to the influencers who have site’s with 40+ DA and ask for a guest post. Include a couple relevant contextual links.
Follow through with these steps and you’ll form powerful connections, get your content amplified to a wider audience and build some easy links along the way.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Coming to find and engage with influencers, the tool I’d suggest are Topsy and Buzzsumo. Topsy allow you to see who tweeted a particular URL, and it tags as Influential or Highly Influential people with a significant Twitter reach. Buzzsumo, instead, allows you to discover the most shared content of a site or for a particular topic and it also has a feature to view the sharers and sort them by a number of criteria. Also, Followerwonk might come in handy: with it you can look at the followers of any account and segment people by their authority on Twitter.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Influencers usually have little time and receive lots of emails, mentions, and contact requests. To get your content shared to a wider public, get more social traction (and links), you need to find a reason as to why these people would be interested in paying attention to your stuff. I suggest trying to start a conversation some time before you have something to share. Commenting and sharing their posts, mentioning them in tweets that cite some of their personal interests (I mean, pets, preferred brand of beer, football team, whatever…). People are more inclined to talk with those who share the same hobbies and care about the same things, so doing a bit of research before would help. If you can’t manage to become their “buddy”, then find an angle to appeal their interest regarding the content. For example “this post cites what you already stated here”, “this post cites your strategy/theory/results”, and so on.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
One of the best tools that I have discovered recently is BuzzSumo. I love BuzzSumo as it tells me a lot about who is sharing what and what the best pieces of content are to share. We look for the ones with the most shareability and then we plus that post…make it a little longer, more info and then publish it. We then use Buzzsumo to find out who shared that previous post, and we contact them to see if they will share it again
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Always make it about the other person..what’s in it for them.? If you offer great value and nothing about yourself, people will be drawn towards you and want to help you out..works every time. Also, don’t be cheesy and pour on the fake adoration…people can see through that..be yourself and natural and let them know why you are contacting them. We find most influencers are pretty willing to share content, but it has to be GREAT…don’t expect people to share average content….thats everywhere!
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Twitter’s where I start. I don’t use many ‘social mining’ tools anymore. I count on referrals and conversations at conferences – but if I were I’d go for BuzzSumo and FollowerWonk to find content and people I want to talk to.
I also use Quora. You’d be surprised how many times I’ve connected with a rockstar on there.
Finally, I use my own content. Nothing works better than demonstrating you have value. People will say you have to have 20,000 followers first. But if that’s the case, how did I get 27k followers? Uh-huh. It’s not a chicken-and-egg thing. Content is the chicken, and it lays an egg stuffed with cool followers.
That’s a terrible analogy. But hopefully, it’s helpful.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Don’t peddle your content. I get 30-50 e-mails a day asking me to read something because “I might find it interesting.” That’s the kiss of death. And I’m not even an ‘influencer.’ Imagine what someone with 100,000 aggregate followers across all networks gets?
Don’t just follow them, either. Again, 100,000 followers…
Instead, find the most influential people that follow the influencers. Follow them. On the social network of their choice, thank them for the cool content or, even better, say something specific about something you just read/saw/heard that they created. Send them a question. Do anything but spam them with content submissions.
Also: Make sure you’re present. You can’t build relationships by focusing on a particular person. That sounds totally counter-intuitive, I know. But influencers are moving through a world defined by all of the people they talk to, and conversations with people. You need to be in the latter as well as the former. So answer questions on Twitter, Quora or wherever your audience lives. Write the good stuff. Keep doing it.
It’s frustrating as hell. Understand: It took me 10-15 years just to get where I’m at, and I’m pretty far down the celebrity list. There aren’t enough letters in the alphabet. But it has helped me build a pretty successful business. Sexy stuff didn’t do it. Straight-up persistence and consistency did it.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I’ve used a few different tools for finding influencers, and one of my favorites was Group High. It lets you search for influencers focused on specific social channels; it’s kind of like Buzzsumo, except focused on finding people instead of posts. There are a few tools similar to Group High. However, I liked that it was constantly updated in real time through Compete data. It made it easier to start a conversation with influencers I found through the tool because I knew the last post listed in the tool was the last post they wrote.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Be genuine. I think the biggest flaw I see in people reaching out to influencers is being overly enthusiastic and praising. It looks and feels fake. Influencers with clout would typically prefer to have a discussion on a topic than just hear random compliments. Also, if you’re pitching them for something like a guest post, make sure there’s some benefit to them. It doesn’t have to be monetary compensation. For example, I often mention that I’ll promote their piece through paid media channels. The advertising dollars help boost our awareness and the authors awareness. To them, it’s free advertising dollars and something that helps get their name out there.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I don’t use a lot of tools or resources for connecting with influencers. My approach is to follow relevant sites and blogs to get familiar with their content and the types of content that they publish. I use Feedly to subscribe to a lot of different RSS feeds, and I have them categorized within Feedly to keep everything organized. Then when it comes time to reach out to someone I typically just use a contact form on their site or email to reach out. I have very little experience with tools that help you to find influencers. Because I actively follow a lot of blogs, and I’m active on social media within my niche I come across a lot of influential people that way. So I haven’t found other tools to be any more effective than simply being active.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
My influencer outreach is more about selling products than building links to content. My goal is to make strong connections with a few key people that can help me to sell more through affiliate partnerships, guest posting opportunities, or promotions of limited time promos. When it comes to selling products I’ve had much better success focusing on building a small number of strong connections rather than reaching out to tons of people but not getting to know any of them. My best affiliates are bloggers that I have been able to get to know over a period of time. I tend to work with them pretty closely to try to find ways to make money for both of us by increasing their referrals. This could involve me providing them with guest posts that give them an opportunity to include affiliate links in their post content. Setting up custom coupon codes for their audience, getting banners designed in the dimensions they need. Or just brainstorming with them about possibilities to increase their earnings through the affiliate program.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I don’t use any tools to specifically seek out influencers unless you count simple Google searches. I use Google to find content in markets and niches that are relevant to me and through that, I find the experts. I’m more concerned with someone’s actual expertise and experience rather than their social clout.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Relationship building and link building are two very different things. The potential benefit you can get from relationship building is scale in a very non-linear way. In other words, the payoff you can get from building a real relationship, friendship or partnership with the right person is infinitely higher than the payoff you can get from simple outreach. If you’re just reaching out to someone because you want a link, that’s fine. You can do that kind of outreach as a numbers game, and it will yield some results. But it’s a mistake to think that spending 10 hours contacting as many people as possible to get links from is equivalent to spending 10 hours building a relationship with just one person.
For my own business, I’m not one to count links or social shares or anything like that. I keep my focus on delivering excellent things to real people. I don’t have a big network of people I can contact. However in the past five years of doing business, I’ve created a few relationships that have been largely responsible for the success of my companies. Do I want a few more links to my site or do I want to meet the next person who will be instrumental to building a multi-million dollar business? For me, the answer has always been very clear.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
It depends on the niche/industry you’re working on. It is important first to understand which social networks are effective in the particular space your client is in. For instance, Pinterest campaigns do well in some industries and aren’t all that effective for others.
As for tools, I use FollowerWonk and BuzzSumo to identify influencers and topic areas that do well in targeting/engaging other industry influencers/experts.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Include and mention their works/ideas/opinions (to support your own ideas) on your writings. Make sure that you’re writing superior stuff – it’ll boost your chances of getting them to share and link to your content. It’s the best way to get their attention and the best way to start a good conversation.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
The main one I use and recommend is Nod3x.com – it is a super smart tool for finding influencers across all platforms.
I tend to favor G+ and Twitter, but it covers loads more platforms. If you don’t already know it then you are in for a treat.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
I wouldn’t suggest trying to get more links to your content at all!
Build relationships with people you respect and appreciate. Then look to ‘do something together’ e.g. an interview.
Put some effort into the relationship you are seeking to have. I mean, turn up with flowers!
Then, you may well find the engage with you naturally, linking and all.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
When I am looking for influencers in an industry, there are a few really helpful tools I turn to.
The first is BuzzSumo, which is a great tool for measuring and finding the most shared content on the web. All you need to do is head over to their website, type in the topic/keywords you are targeting and take a look at the top content in their results. Within each result, you can further drill down to see who has shared the content (view sharers button), and sort by this list by the biggest audience, most engagement and so on. It’s great way to find top influencers in an industry. For more information on using BuzzSumo, you can read a detailed review here.
The next port of call for me is Twitter, but first I find out what are the most relevant and used hashtags within an industry. I do this using Hashtagify.me, which allows you to see visually which are the most used hashtags. It also clearly shows the most related ones too. I then use these in TweetDeck to monitor and follow the most influential people who are using those hashtags. This is the first step to finding influencers and establishing a relationship with them on Twitter.
Another tool I use to find the biggest blogs in a niche is InkyBee. It allows you to find blogs for a given topic very quickly and sort by a range of criteria. It is a great addition to the previous tools because it does not rely solely on social media for its metrics. This means that it gives you alternative ideas of which are the most powerful influencers in a given industry.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Getting on an influencers radar is a long-term process, and this should be kept in mind from the outset. Don’t expect to just follow them on Twitter then the very next day, ask for a retweet.
Instead, the best philosophy is to slowly approach them. Perhaps via social media (sharing, commenting, retweeting, etc.) and/or their blog (again: commenting, sharing, interacting) and see what kind of response you get. Depending on the level of the influencer, and how busy they are, eventually you will get their attention. But remember, it is a relationship so treat it like one. Get to know them. Ask them questions. Respect them, and they will respond accordingly I am sure.
Then, once you have their attention, you need to start creating the kinds of content that they want to share and link to in their content. Knowing them, and getting retweets is one thing. But keep in mind that they have worked hard on their own content, and their reputation, so they are unlikely to link to low-quality content just because they know you. So if you want a link from an influencer, at least from time to time, create amazing content (unique, useful, long, filled with visuals, etc.) at least occasionally. It is well worth the effort.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I’ve used a number of tools that include the likes of BuzzSumo, Authority Spy, Inkybee, Twtrland (and a few more).
Out of all of the tools that I’ve used, I love the ease of use that comes from using BuzzSumo and the data pulled in by Inkybee. Ninja Outreach is a newer tool that I’ve been trying recently which has yielded some very positive results.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Forget about short term results if you care about your brand.
Far too many people try to push people to link to them and share their content, but that can sometimes be the worst thing to do.
Building relationships requires a delicate touch and a focus on forging a long-term relationship.
Another thing that is key here is ensuring that it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Your aim should be to create good will in the market place – you can do that easily by helping the people you’re looking to connect with.
So connect with influencers, help them out and make a positive first impression. Then keep developing the relationship over time.
You’ll notice your results improve over time, and you won’t burn any bridges like a lot of people do when they get started.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
The best way I know to connect with industry influencers isn’t with a tool. It’s to go to events. Face-to-face is the highest-quality connection, far more powerful than any digital form of communication. It’s real time. It’s body language. It’s focused, dedicated, one-on-one interaction.
I’ve used a lot of techniques for engaging with influencers, but nothing has come close to attending events. I’ve met bloggers, podcasters, and editors. Those introductions have led to relationships and friendships that have lasted for years and led to huge marketing opportunities.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Now we go back to digital. To get the most value out of event networking, you need to research speakers and attendees and reach out to them in advance of the event. This is where social media comes in.
The research will tell you what they’re they’ve been working on and thinking about (pay attention to their social streams, where ever they are most active). The outreach will let them know that you’re hoping to connect with them at the end (a short, friendly hello message will go a long way!)
If you really want to warm up the relationship before the big day, there are at least 35 ways to connect with influencers using digital media. Make sure to use at least ten before you introduce yourself in person. Finally, don’t forget to follow up using social media after the event!
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I look for people who I find a genuine connection with. So they first have to engage me and interest me in their ideas & concepts. For example, I may be interested by an article written or a video of a speaker from a conference or guests/hosts on a podcast show. The next step would be to reach out via Twitter and follow-up with an email. But the best is when you meet them in person, say, at a conference.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Be genuine & authentic – establish honest rapport and make good shit of your own – if they like it, they will share it and don’t be shy to ask from time to time!
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
We’re big fans of Buzzsumo in our team. This has been a very useful tool to find;
a) top content within an industry, which you can trace back to the top authors who wrote the content and find out who’s sharing socially by searching for that URL in Twitter, and
b) using their influencers tool, along with Followerwonk to identify the top social profiles of those who can help to share your content further.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Be authentic – no-one likes the pushy sales approach, whatever the situation and even more so if you’re an influencer who receives lots of similar requests. So my advice is don’t look for the link straight away, build relationships, share their content, engage with them. Once you’ve done all of this, try to get them involved in your content. Perhaps run an online interview. The more you can make them a part of what you’re attempting to achieve, the more likely they are to try and help you out.
Also, try to find out what popular offline events are within your industry and location – people are much more likely to engage online, once you’ve met someone face-to-face.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I don’t use any tools to engage with anyone actually, other than just Twitter. I know the general people who will promote something when I need help, so I just keep them in mind and approach them directly.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
I’d advise that you do more than ask for favors. It’s very annoying when the only communication you have with someone is when he’s asking you to tweet his post or like it on Facebook.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Before you resort to using tools, it’s important to leverage your knowledge, experience, and relationships.
If you’re familiar with the industry in question, you’re probably already aware of a few influencers, and you might even be connected to them through mutual acquaintances.
Once you’ve exhausted your unique resources, here are a few tools to help continue the process:
1. BuzzSumo
This is a powerful tool that allows you to discover the most popular content for a broad range of topics and domains. It also helps you identify influencers in various industries.
For an excellent guide about using BuzzSumo to uncover influencers (and profile content opportunities), check out this post.
2. Topsy
This is a social search engine that allows you to identify quickly the most popular content for various industries and time periods (along with the influencers driving that popularity).
3. Followerwonk
This is a Twitter analytics tool that helps you find Twitter influencers based on specific topics and relationships. To learn how to use Followerwonk (and a few other tools) for very targeted outreach, read this post.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
When you’re building a relationship, forget about the links. Instead, focus all of your energy on providing real value to the relationship.
Influencers are being bombarded with requests on a regular basis so if you approach them with a generic link request; it’ll only get lost in the noise.
On the other hand, if you approach influencers with something that solves one of their problems or aligns with one of their interests, you’ll give them an incentive to help you (now and/or in the future).
If you focus on building genuine, long-term relationships with influencers, the short-term rewards (e.g., social shares, links, etc.) will surely follow.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
BuzzSumo is really the only tool I use. It allows you to identify influencers, but also the most popular content being produced anywhere around the web. I wrote a review of BuzzSumo at Search Engine Watch with a pretty comprehensive overview of how to use it for maximum benefit.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
I think the very first thing — and the one people most often fall down on — is to take an interest in other people’s content first. How much outreach tweets, emails, LinkedIn messages, etc. do you get on a regular basis that just ask you to have a look at the sender’s content? It’s annoying, and I’m not very likely to go read your article and share it because you contacted me once out of the blue. If you have a real, honest interest in your industry, you should be more interested in what others are creating, anyway. When you read something that resonates, tweet the author and tell them. Send a LinkedIn message to let a person know when you really appreciate their point of view. Often, these content creators will be your influencers — maybe not right now, they could be rising stars. You never know. So that’s the first aspect: get involved and show genuine interest in others.
Next, focus on creating thought leadership content that specifically appeals to thought leaders. We do quite a bit of research and analysis at WordStream, including a recent CRO study and a Google+ study. However, we also did a gender bias study because we had some data we could use to do that. Is it going to sell our product? Probably not, but it’s important, original content and thought leaders love it as well as our audience members. A few of these actually found their way into a few of Rand Fishkin’s decks this past year, which is pretty awesome.
Finally, you have to promote your content!
It’s not enough to just make awesome things — you have to get it in front of the right people, on the right networks, at the right time. I’ve mastered the art of using PPC to help content go viral and can tell you; it’s worth every penny in ad spend. Your readers are so overwhelmed and their attention spans so fragmented; even if your content is bang on, top quality, must-read… you have to get people to it first.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
We like Buzzsumo and Twtrland for that. Or good old Google searches – the better Google gets at showing expert content, the easier it is to find good writers. Buzzstream (which I strongly recommend to everyone) is a fantastic tool for managing the conversations.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
The copy/paste form email is always see through. You don’t build relationships by mail merge. If you want the bigger links, you need to spend the time impressing those influencers. A lot has changed in SEO, but that remains constant.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I use Hootsuite Pro to connect with influencers. I also use Triberr to find power brokers in my niche. Each tool helps with connecting but how you use ’em counts most. I enjoy RTing others frequently. I also engage people on the regular. Because sharing, chatty folks pop up on influencer radars.
2 What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Give more than you get. Promote people aggressively, comment on their blogs and in time, all the giving you did will result in you getting more links to your content. Think outward to make the greatest impact because all power brokers had to think outward to work their way up the totem poll, and they appreciate folks who do the same.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Similar tools to other participants I’m sure. Google for basic research. Buzzsumo and Topsy for identifying social influencers and popular posts.
We use email for basic outreach, but we’ve also used BuzzStream in the past to manage larger campaigns.
We also keep an eye on who’s writing on relevant topics on popular blogs in our space – offering a guest post on our blog can be a useful conversation starter with influencers.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
If outreach ever feels like you’re asking a stranger for a favor you’ve missed a step.
If you don’t know an influencer well, then you need to make sure that your request is engineered in a way that it’s actually in their interest to say yes. So if you’re asking for a backlink, don’t reach out unless your link is genuinely relevant and will add value to their content. Put yourself in their shoes – would you add the link if it were your blog? Be prepared to explain why your link will add value – often that will require gaining a solid understanding of their content and audience.
And make it super easy for them to do what you want. I get frustrated when people ask me for a link but don’t bother to suggest where to put it in a post. Because if you say “I think you should link from your post X to my post Y”. You’re essentially asking me to re-read the post on our blog (which could be months or even years old) and spend time working out how to integrate the link into the content.
So suggest specific text within the post where your link might be added. Or even provide some extra content, like a new paragraph written in the style of the original post, and say where it could be inserted.
If you don’t do that extra thinking and make that extra effort, it sends the message that all you care about is your link, not the influencer’s content. Instead, you need to act like the quality of their content is more important than whether or not you get your backlink.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
My tools are pretty simplistic.
Sometimes I might use a tool called Authority Spy to find influencers through Twitter. I might also stay in touch with them through Facebook.
At some point of this relationship process, I move to one-on-one communication, by contacting the person directly through e-mail.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Get to know this person before asking for anything. This could be done by commenting on their blog, asking for a guest post spot, or interviewing them in your podcast. You can even have a joint-project, which has the potential of making your relationship stronger.
The better you know the person, the easier it becomes to ask something, like for links to your content.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I use BuzzSumo and sometimes Twtrland sometimes to identify industry influencers. For some industries (where the real influencers aren’t very active on Twitter), they aren’t much of a help. In those cases, I’m usually piquing the client’s brain about who the influencers are in their industry and where they spend their time interacting with their followers (and fellow influencers). Regarding engagement, it depends on where these influencers are. Sometimes you can interact with their social posts on Twitter, etc. Sometimes you need to email them, and sometimes you may even need to call them.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Give. The more you give, the more you will receive. I mention this tip in my article on Unconventional Ways to Be a Better Marketer. Relationships are all about providing value to each other. Unless you take this approach, it will be very hard for an influencer to care about you and your endeavors. Always give first. Receive later.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Follower Wonk has been my go-to tool for a while now, it’s great for searching for followers using relevant keywords. You can also see the number of followers an influencer has, how old the account is and what kind of engagement the account is getting.
Buzzsumo is also a useful tool. I don’t find Klout to be particularly useful or accurate, however.
I also spend a lot of time reading, so I’m always learning who is well respected within my industry through my everyday research. Once I’ve identified an influencer in this way, I’ll then go on and connect on the relevant platforms. Commenting shouldn’t be discounted on blogs either. Most influencers will engage with you directly on their blogs and as such, you should be looking to leave insightful comments that allow you to speak to the influencer directly.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Engage personally. My Twitter following has engaged followers because I take the time to reply to them personally where I can – thanking for tweets/RTs and enquiring about a person’s day. Automation is great for some jobs, especially as your following grows, but it doesn’t build relationships – only you can do this.
Take the time to comment on posts, ask questions and do feature influencers in your blogs, as they will notice and leave a comment of their own (and link back to it). Don’t be afraid to ask for interviews or snippets of information for a post either. Yes, lots of influencers are busy people, but you’re offering to give them more exposure, and they can only say no.
If you do get an interview, make sure that you give set dates and times for discussions and do stick to them. Respect the influencer’s time and they will be willing to give it again. Don’t forget to follow up with links to the relevant post/podcast/webinar.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I don’t use anything fancy – mostly Twitter, Facebook, and email, depending on which social media platforms the influencer is active on. My secret weapon for managing and keeping up with these contacts is Contactually. (Here’s a blog post on how I use it.)
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
The main thing you should be doing is looking for ways to be helpful to them. If you are helpful and you try to promote them and their products and services, then you are more likely to build a good relationship, and they may reciprocate one day. But if you are just trying to get them to link back to your content, you probably aren’t going to be successful.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I like to start with Buzzsumo to find people who like to share content similar to what I write. If I’m looking specifically for links, I look for people who publish the link roundups in my industry, such as SearchCap and Marketing Day.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
I don’t just engage with the publication, but the person who crafts those roundups. The easiest way to do it is to follow the people on Twitter. Add them to a particular Twitter list, and make sure that you go in and look at the tweets from that list on a daily basis, so you can engage with those people. Also, comment on the roundup posts. Both will help you get on the person’s radar so you when you do suggest some of your content for the roundup, they will be more likely to notice.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
We use several tools: Spider, Followerwonk, and Inkybee are probably the most used.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Always, always, always offer more than you ask for…in fact, the more you give, the more you’ll get back. Create content, co-produce multi-media, provide answers to questions, and promote the content of influencers. Karma is good and it will always come back to you in spades.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
I use Buzzsumo. With it I can see which sites and authors are producing the most popular content within my industry. This allows me to identify who I should target.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
When you are trying to build a relationship with an individual, you shouldn’t ask them for any advice or help. Instead, you should try to do whatever is in your power to help them out.
Continually give without asking… eventually, they will return the favor. But the key is to give before asking.
1.What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
First, before we get into tools, I think it’s important that we redefine who an “influencer” is. Traditionally, we consider these people as business famous when an influencer is anyone who can move the needle with a relevant group of people.
With this definition in place, we could be looking at big name business celebrities, but also admins of Facebook groups with a few thousand people.
That being said, here are some of the tools I like to use:
Facebook Search:
Type in any keyword into Facebook’s search, but instead of looking at the first few recommended results, click the spy glass, and then narrow the results to search only for “groups”.
Doing this, you’ll see all of the groups on Facebook that have the key phrase you’ve entered. If you look closely at these groups, you’re sure to see people who influence the conversation more than others. My wife, for example, is the administrator in several kinds of mother’s groups and can direct the flow of conversation. These are regular people who you want to have on your side. They are the digital equivalent of a Townie; they know all the right people and will be completely willing to help out as long as you treat them nicely.
Topsy:
What I love about Topsy is that if you enter the URL of any article from any site, you will get a list of people who have shared that article. Topsy also allows you to see the “Influential Only” group of individuals who have shared this content.
What I love about this is, depending on the article, that you can see a wide variety of non-obvious influencers. This means you don’t have to put all of your bets on a small handful of people who probably get pitched far too much anyways.
Start a spreadsheet and keep track of your working relationships with these folks, it can become very valuable in time.
Sidekick by Hubspot:
Sidekick is a very simple, but extremely useful tool – it allows you to see if someone opened your email. This adds a whole extra layer of context to your outreach and follow-up that, once you have it, you can’t live without it.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Start early.
Identify the relationships you’d like to build well before you ever need to call them into play. As an influencer, you can smell it from a mile away when someone is doing outreach just because they need something.
Relationship building in a business context is the same as in real life. You wouldn’t ask someone you just met to spot you a $20, would you? Influencers know the value they bring to the table, and we know how valuable our help can be. How do you think we got to where we are?
But we’re people first, and a simple gesture such as buying someone a drink, or even doing your homework before you do your outreach can go a very long way in standing out.
Don’t ask, “how can I help?” Bring something to the table and offer it up after you’ve properly identified that a real need exists.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
The top tool I use to identify influencers is Linkdex. Linkdex is a powerful SEO platform that allows you to identify quickly top influencers in a niche given a set of keywords. Once I’ve identified a set of contacts, the primary ways in which I engage with them is through e-mail and Twitter.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
When possible, provide value to people before asking for anything in return, and always give more value than you receive.
For example, I might start building a relationship with an influencer by following them on Twitter. Over the next few weeks, I will favorite or retweet some of their tweets, and tweet out some of the content they produce. If this in the B2C niche, I might also share their content on other social networks like Facebook & Pinterest. I will go on their blog and leave thoughtful comments and start a dialog. I might include them in a weekly industry round-up on my blog or send them free products if I’m in the e-commerce space.
Every step of the way, I am providing them with value, sharing their content, linking to their content, and bringing them more traffic. Then, once I’ve built up that relationship, then I can make an ask like sharing an infographic or writing a guest post. Reciprocity is a powerful motivator, so you are much more likely to receive a positive response than if you’d made the request out of the blue.
People ultimately create links, so investing in building relationships with people in your niche and related niches is an excellent longterm link building strategy.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Buzzsumo, Commun.it and the native Twitter tool.
I like Buzzsumo because it helps me quickly identify key influencers by any topic phrase. It also shows me how many social shares their content has received across the top social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+).
Commun.it lets me know when an Influencer or Engager has shared (Re-tweeted) my content on Twitter and the number of engagements so I can reciprocate the gesture.
I find using the native Twitter tool a nice way to identify the top accounts using a hashtag query. I enter into the Twitter advanced search bar a phrase or hashtag (e.g.) #ContentMarketing and make note of what accounts Twitter says are the top accounts for the phrase or hashtag. I do a similar query for long-tails as well and will typically follow the top 2-3 rows of listed accounts.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
I’m a big fan of LinkedIn for my B2B marketing efforts. I get an alert when someone I am following on LI posts a new Pulse article. While a re-tweet might get you on someone’s radar, I find leaving a comment and sharing someone’s LinkedIn article is much more effective and tends to enhance the social connection versus a simple re-tweet. The same thing goes for leaving comments on their blog. If you take the time to visit their blog, read their article and add a comment of consequence. The influencer is much more likely to take notice of you and your brand and start to follow (and share) your content on the social web. Sharing an influencer’s Google+ posts and adding your commentary is another useful tactic for letting them know, you’re following their social musings and you have the SME to add value to their social conversation.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
Primarily Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the social media tools I am most active on. I also email and Skype my closer contacts of course.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
The best advice is to focus entirely on what the other person wants and help them to get it. People love other people who help them get what they want, which in turn will eventually help you get what you want – a door open to a relationship.
Give before asking to receive.
1. What tools do you use to identify and engage with relevant industry influencers?
BuzzSumo and the native Twitter tool provide insights into who is producing popular content in an industry and therefore who I should engage with. BuzzSumo allows you to view the popularity of authors as Neil Ferree has talked about above.
Tools like Buzzstream and Outreach.io can be useful in scaling your outreach efforts.
2. What advice would you give when building relationships with influencers to get more links to your content?
Outreach to influencers is about getting on their radar and developing relationships over time. In other words building trust and credibility with them over time. So take the time to get to know influencers you would like to build a relationship with, visit their content regularly and add value whenever you can.
The process I use is quite similar to one that Andrew Gale uses. The outreach to influencers infographic in this post provides an outline of the process.
But how does this work in practical terms?
Let’s take my efforts to connect with the folk at Copyblogger for example. As a regular reader I felt I could contribute to the discussion around the topic of content curation and did so via Google+ which gained a response from Jerod Morris as you can see below.
In fact in the next podcast in the series Jerod took the time to refer to my comment as you can see in the transcript below.
It was this sort of initial effort that gained the attention of a few influencers before I engaged in a wider outreach campaign for this post. My emails earned responses like the ones below even from people that I hadn’t had much contact with before.
To get an overall idea of how my outreach efforts went consider this –
Out of the 101 people I reached out to, 57 came back to me in time with their responses. The process involved sending an initial email and then a reminder to those that hadn’t responded as yet after three days.
Now over to you…
Boosting your link building efforts is not just about connecting with influencers or the quality of posts, it’s also about investing in adding value to people.
How do you go about acquiring links to your site or content? Has anything you have tried worked particularly well? (Or not worked at all?). Let me know here