It’s in your best interest to find social media influencers.
Why?
They can help you get the exposure you need to grow your business online.
And when you have influencers on your side, you can get your content in front of a larger audience. Those people may turn into longtime fans and customers.
The following are some of my favorite ways to find social media influencers, so you can start to network with them online.
Social Networks
The best place to find social media influencers is on social networks.
This may seem painfully obvious but the point is to be worrying about those influencers that exist on social networks. Specifically, those that carry a lot of credibility on social networks.
The favorite influencer you had in mind may not be active on any social networks. Or, they may not be as influential on social media as they are in the non-digital world.
Search
You need to first search for people in your niche, but not your competitors. This can be difficult at first.
The best way to approach it is to think of other business owners who have a similar target audience as you. What do your consumers like to do and what do they buy?
You can then look up people in businesses that provide services and products your consumers are most likely to invest in.
Once you find these businesses, look to see how many people are following them.
Influencers have a high number of followers, but a low number of people they follow. This often shows that they have a true online presence because they aren’t using the trick of following people just so people will follow them.
So once you find people with a high following with a similar target audience as you, move forward with reaching out to them. Share, like, and comment on some of their content first. Send a message when you believe they have noticed you. It’s just like meeting people offline.
You ease yourself in there, and then you introduce yourself.
Follow Your Followers
When you follow your followers, you will be able to see who they are following.
You can see the posts they are sharing, and be able to find influencers that way. This works because consumers with similar interests will connect online.
When you follow one of your consumers, you will be able to find other consumers who may not know about your business yet. You can then see who is targeting them and then connect with those business owners.
Blogs
You can usually tell who is a major influencer by the number of people who read, comment, and share their content.
Find out the types of influencers you need to seek with the instructions above and then search for blogs. When you find a blogger who has a lot of engagement with his or her posts, start participating in the community.
You do this by commenting on posts and sharing posts on social media. After you’ve done that a few times, reach out to the person. You can ask if it’s possible to contribute a blog post or simply connect on social media.
Use Social Media Influencer Tools
There are many tools that can help you find influencers on social media. Some of the tools you should consider using are:
These tools help you find people with a large number of followers, a lot of shared content, and reach. You can simply search in an industry and find a list of people to reach out to.
Some people prefer using a tool over finding influencers manually by searching through blogs and social networks.
I am one of those people. Any tool that can help me perform tasks more efficiently and save time is greatly appreciated.
It’s All About Building Relationships
Once you find a few influencers, you need to start building relationships with them.
You will not be able to benefit from them if you don’t. Influencers know they are desirable and they are busy. Keep this in mind if you don’t hear back from most of them. Don’t let it get you down.
Just keep reaching out and soon you’ll start to receive responses, so you can form connections that will help you increase your online visibility. Before you know it, you may become one of those influencers you’re trying to find.
