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Influencer Monitoring: The Power of Knowing Who They Are and What They Do

Date published: December 09, 2014
Last updated: December 9, 2014

As a marketing or PR practitioner, you already know that there are many valid strategies, but no magic tricks, related to content promotion. The winning formula is to write quality content for the right audience with the right timing.

But now that Facebook’s organic reach has dropped below two percent and SEO is getting harder and harder to crack, how can you guarantee that the great content you are generating will get the reach it actually deserves? If your pockets aren’t full enough to buy hundreds of social ads, communication through influencers is the best way to catch the attention of your focus target group.

According to Jay Baer, influencers can either provide audience (reach) or advocacy (the ability to shape the behavior of the people that pay attention to that influencer). Sometimes it’s both, but it’s usually one or the other. Such influencers also have the capability to build credibility and trust around your brand's message and content.

Once you have identified the specific relevant influencers for your brand, you might be tempted to engage them immediately by sending out a standard pitch of your latest “great content” that “you think could interest her or him”. This is quite possibly the worst mistake you could make that could jeopardize all your chances to build a valuable, long-lasting relationship with the influencer in the future. Before you engage, take the time to listen to them first. Get to know their public persona and you will discover a lot of secrets that will help you to take your content strategy to the next level later down the road.

Influencers can help you understand both your market and your audience

What actually makes an influencer an influencer? For one, they understand the needs and expectations of their audience (which is probably your target audience as well). Secondly, they have the capacity to create content that fulfills those needs. As a brand, then, being able to monitor influencers is a fantastic opportunity to understand the latest trends and what is really motivating the target audience in your market.

By listening to your industry opinion leaders you can:

  • Find the best content to read or share with your audience
  • Detect webinars or events where your ecosystem will meet
  • Spot great content ideas
  • Benchmark your competitors’ content strategy
  • Analyze the best channels and formats for your content promotion

I was recently told by a luxury brand’s Chief of Communication that traditional monitoring methods had become useless for him as a means to collect proper insights from his market. Instead, he now prefers to receive a daily newsletter digesting all the information (media, blogs, social networks) published by a carefully selected list of his top 10 influencers. His prime reasoning for this shift in strategy? Simply put, influencers are the best way to cut through the noise.

Content overload, or “content shock”, is a reality in a wide range of industries. Influencers are the best filters and curators to elevate the most relevant information and content in the pool. When using traditional monitoring methods, only the news and posts that are related to the established keywords (e.g. your brand name, product mentions, industry competitors) are watched. But what if a new competitor pops up or a new key topic arises? It’s easy to miss new information, which could result in a reaction that’s too late or other missed opportunities. By monitoring influencers instead of keywords, you can be confident that you’re keeping track of all the relevant discussions taking place within your ecosystem, even though it may be constantly changing and evolving.

Personalized Interactions Are Key

Less than a month ago, my colleague Gina Gulberti hosted a webinar with Danielle Look, Content Coordinator at Relevance.com, in which they shared some of the best tactics to successfully engage influencers and leverage their contribution in a content creation and amplification process.

First, they advised to always bear in mind that influencers aren’t media; they are people and should be treated as individuals. Influencers have varying objectives, expectations and are moved by any number of different passions. As Joe Pulizzi explained in a recent interview, “We need to find out what the pain points are for the influencers, solve them, so that they will want to work with us.”

A personalized approach is required to build a long-term, win-win relationship with influencers. The key is to never think about how influencers will be able to help you, but how you can actually help them. This is the reason why listening to them first is so critical.


What Can You Learn from Influencers?

Here are a few examples of great insights you can pick up by successfully monitoring your influencers individually:

  • Is he already talking about your brands and if so, how? Does he seem to have any affinity with one of your competitors?
  • What is his position regarding your key industry topics?
  • What are his favorite channels of interaction and where do you want to catch his attention? His blog, Twitter, Instagram?
  • What kind of content does he create and curate?
  • What are his social connections? Discovering who is influencing your influencers is actually the best way to spot new contacts.
  • Where may I have the opportunity to meet him offline? (upcoming speaking opportunities, meet-ups…)
  • What are his latest articles and posts? Asking questions about a post or adding your point of view is, on many occasions, the best way to start up a worthwhile conversation.
  • How does he actually build his influence? Is it by curating great content, demonstrating a strong expertise in a given field, spotting new tendencies or in some other way?

If you are able to answer all of these questions regarding your target influencers, you have all you need to raise their awareness and start building a sustainable relationship, even though they may even be worldwide recognized opinion leaders. A huge task? Yes. But, technology is here to help you.

In the beginning, target and monitor just a handful of influencers, then scale it upwards once you’ve established a process. It’s much more powerful to talk to a few of the right people with a personalized approach than sending out undifferentiated messages (e.g. press releases) to thousands of your targets.

If you want the endorsement or engagement of an influencer, understand and accept it as a long-term strategy. Make the foundation of the relationship about how you can help them, not the other way around. By thoroughly getting to know them before you’ve even introduced yourself, your interest in their network of influence will be perceived as authentic and, thus, trustworthy.

Jason Falls sums it up nicely: If brands did a better job of working a list of highly relevant influencers and got to know them so well they could cater each pitch to ensure the right message is getting in front of the right audience at the right time and in the right location (the influencer/blogger’s site in question), then relevance will rule the day and you’ll be successful.”

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