11 Ways To Engage Influencers Before Asking For Something

You want to get noticed by influencers don’t you?

The trick is not to yell “me, me, me” over the rooftops.

Unfortunately, I see exactly this tactic nearly every day. Here’s a recent email I received:

I get this exact template ALL THE TIME. It reads like this:

1. Hey Dave – you wrote a great article (which I probably didn’t read)
2. But you forgot to link here, or linked to a poorer resource
3. How about linking to mine, instead?

From people I have never met, who offer me nothing in return.

Now to be honest, sometimes the resources they send are great, and from time to time I’ll even link to them.

But what would go SO much better would be if someone offered me something, anything related to what I’m working on.

So, in light of this movement towards depersonalization, I’m going to pitch you all on how you can engage with people BEFORE demanding something from them, as well as give you some ideas for what you can offer in that outreach email.

Here are 11 ways to build a relationship before asking for something in return.

1. Respond to their audiences’ questions in comments

What do influencers value most?

Their audience, of course!

What I love (love!) is when someone sparks a discussion on my blog. Afterall, the point of writing content, lest we forget, is to spark conversation.

For example, here’s a great discussion that took place on BareMetric’s blog not that long ago.

The question was originally to Josh, but the first person to answer was actually another member from the audience. Once the ice was broken, more comments flooded in.

Influencers love to see this! Do this just a few times on their blog, and they will remember you.

2. Invite them to a podcast or interview

My most successful outreach campaigns (by acceptance rate) are always requests to interview someone on our podcast.

And, not surprisingly, these are the outreach campaigns I respond to the most as well.

Does it surprise anyone that I have much better luck featuring someone on my podcast than asking a stranger for a link?

Probably not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever turned one down myself.

People like to be featured, influencers especially. It’s what got them there in the first place after all.

And afterward, you can capitalize off that new personal relationship to maybe get a link (possibly even to that very same podcast – see how it works?).

3. Send them a gift (ex. an amazon book)

Let’s stop thinking digitally, just for a moment. We tend to default there automatically since we all work online.

But it’s not all that hard to transition out of it, we just have to ask for someone’s phone number, or physical address.

Here’s an email I received from Sara at Socially Stacked, in which she offered me a free t-shirt in exchange for changing my link (which was already to them, she just wanted an update).

Everyone loves free t shirts – especially people who went to college and lament the fact that post college they are so hard to get!

P.S. – You know what I love most about this shirt – my girlfriend likes it. Yes, it’s actually a quality shirt, and it’s the first time someone ever sent me a physical gift for a digital action. #remembered.

4. Buy them lunch (or offer to meet in person)

Sticking with our recent theme of non digital acts of affection, let’s move onto buying launch, which I’ve seen recommended by not just one but two great entrepreneurs (Ramit Sethi and Neil Patel).

Now you might be wondering if they have so much money and you, potentially, don’t – why would you buy them lunch?

Remember, it’s not about the money, it’s about the gesture.

Offering to buy someone lunch is like saying, “I know your time is valuable. I’d like to treat you in exchange for spending it on me”.

This tactic will allow you to move levels above your traditional social / entrepreneurial class, and the cost of lunch (<$30) is well worth the advice (which usually costs hundreds per hour).

5. Leave them a review on Amazon or iTunes (or give them a testimonial)

Positive reviews are how many search engines work, such as iTunes, Amazon, and TripAdvisor.

Unfortunately they’re a pain in the butt to get, because they require the person to create an account, log in, and post something after they’ve already received all the value there is to get.

They have no incentive to leave a review, which is why so many great products and podcasts have relatively few reviews.

So if you want to stand out in the crowd, a relatively easy way (5 minutes, seriously), is to write someone a review.

A spin on that is to send someone an offer for a testimonial. I used this recently myself by offering Drip, the email marketing software I use, a testimonial solely because I like their product so much:

About a month after I provided them with the testimonial, they demonstrated our blogger outreach software and became a customer. An unintended but welcome consequence!

6. Offer them your product for free

Speaking of products, have you considered offering yours for free?

If your product is inexpensive, or digital, this is a super simple way to get a few folks on board.

People love free swag (remember the t-shirt example).

This works great in tandem with a product review if you’re marketing an eCommerce website or SaaS!

7. Endorse them on LinkedIn

The other day my partner met with a potential client. He didn’t close the deal.

The reason, the client said, was because his LinkedIn profile was lacking connections.

Now, this might seem like a very arbitrary reason to ding someone (to us it did), but the point is that your online profiles matter.

They’re your reputation.

And when it comes to LinkedIn, one of the ways to make it sparkle is through Skills & Endorsements.

So, spend some time and hand out a few recommendations. It’s free, and the person gets a notification when you do it!

8. Join their newsletter and respond to their questions

A tip that Brian from VideoFruit recommends is to join someone’s newsletter and answer their first email.

As someone who has a newsletter and in whose first email is a question, I can say that people rarely take the time to answer this question and engage with me.

But I always respond when someone does.

Sign up for the newsletters of your favorite influencers and actually let them know you’re following along.

9. Introduce them to someone (a potential customer, or a connection)

This is by and large the most valuable thing you can do for someone.

A valuable introduction, is, well, invaluable.

Here’s an example of this happening to me just the other day:

In addition to helping two people at the same time, you’ll also be helping yourself by tightening your own network.

And trust me, if the two people get major value out of meeting each other they will NEVER forget who made that introduction.

10. Become a case study for them

Another thing I’m looking for is successful case studies that prove the points I try to make elsewhere.

For example, if I write and publish this article about building relationships, I’d love for someone to put it into action and use one of the techniques and then let me know.

Another example is with my software – we’re constantly on the lookout for success stories, and when one comes my way, you’re guaranteed to get featured with a link.

I did this recently as well with Drip in an article I wrote about how we achieved nearly 1000% ROI on Black Friday with Drip. In turn, they featured us on their blog and on Medium (note how in this example we’ve used multiple techniques including the testimonial and the case study to build a relationship with another software tool in our niche).

11. Send them birthday wishes on G+ or Facebook

This last one is a fun one, but why not wish someone a happy birthday, which you can do on FB and G+.

It will make you feel good, try it!

Wrap

We’ve been way more successful at getting links (and many more things much more valuable than links), when we thought first about what we could give and thought last about what we could take.

I’ve also been much more generous giving out links and other things when the tables were turned.

How do you like to build relationships with influencers?

Guest Author: Dave Schneider is the co-founder of NinjaOutreach an all in one Prospecting and Outreach tool which was created to streamline the process of connecting with influencers. He can also be found @ninjaoutreachand his business blog SelfMadeBusinessman.

The post 11 Ways To Engage Influencers Before Asking For Something appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

http://ift.tt/245QBdV

4 Ways To Improve Your Social Media Marketing By Making Friends

Friendships are important. Some are long-term and some are just beginning, but they are what make us connect as human beings.

Positioning your business on social media is no different than having these type of friendships.

You need to advance your social media marketing to continue to nurture and court the following “friends”;

• Current customers with whom you already have a good relationship
• New customers, or those who have “converted” in some way
• Audience members who have just discovered you
• Future audience members you don’t know exist and who have not “discovered” you yet.

While your content marketing goals should include nurturing the first three “friend” groups, your long-term business growth must focus on the fourth group – the future “friendships” you have not yet made.

You can’t just cast out a wide net, hoping to catch a few new prospects. That is wasteful in terms of time and money.

So here are 4 rules of friendship that can guide your content marketing and help you find future customers.

1. Choose your friends wisely

Image Source: Pixabay

Part of choosing friends wisely is hanging out in the right places, so you meet the kind of people you will be compatible with. And so it is on social media.

You must understand each social channel, so that you can choose only those that will bring results. Jumping onto every new platform that may come along is a big mistake. You will be wide but not deep, and your message will be diluted on all of them.

Time and lots of it

It takes time to nurture a marketing campaign and an audience.

1. You have to make introductions, slowly get to know one another, have time for lots of interactions, and then the trust comes.
2. When it does, you have to continue to nurture that relationship so that your audience does not forget about you – they should see value in your “friendship,” they should see you often, and they should enjoy your “company” so much that they share your value with other friends.
3. And along the way, important others will begin to see you as a “leader”, and want to associate with you too.

Because of the time involved, it is better to have a few close friends (channels) than numerous acquaintances.

How to choose

1. Who is your customer? What do you know about them? They are not just an age-group or a gender. You have to dig much deeper than that and develop that persona of your typical customer. To do this, give your customer a name (Sally or Joe), and answer many questions about him/her. If you are not certain if you have developed a detailed enough persona, there are plenty of templates out there you can use.
2. Where does Sally or Joe hang out online? Use the research that has already been done for you and save yourself a lot of time and false starts.
3. What type of content do you need to generate for Sally or Joe? And where is the best place for that content from among those places they hang out?
4. What do you want him/her to do after being exposed to your content? Getting a “like” is meaningless. You want some type of a conversion, and you want that content shared. Figure this out before you produce a piece of content for any platform you have chosen.

If you only select two platforms and do them well, you will see far better ROI than if you pick 5-6.

2. Engaging and leading your new friends

Image Source: Flickr

You want to be of value to your Sally or Joe. To do that, you cannot just produce an amazing piece of content. You have to dig in with it.

Here is how you do that:

1. No matter how busy you are during a day, you have to check in on that piece of content often. This is how you discover what questions people have and what conversations they are having, and you have to join in – always. See why 1-2 platforms done well takes time?
2. Develop your own style. Are you “punchy?” Can you use humor? Can you be casual? Can you say things simply? Really expert marketers can do all of these things. You need to find a good balance between being the expert all the time (can make you a bit “stiff”) and recognizing others for their contributions (nice to feature your customers). You also need to be diplomatic and at times “referee” heated discussions without offending anyone. This is all a tall order but well worth the results.
3. Write well. This doesn’t mean that you publish a piece of content that your college English professor would love. It means that you use good grammar and spelling and adapt your style and vocabulary to Sally or Joe. If you have any concerns about this, get a couple of tools to help you.

Hemingway editor and Grammarly are both good. And for readability, get a tool like Read-able.com. And if you have any concerns about getting too sophisticated, pull out a copy of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and read it. Follow his lead – no adverbs, no frills, and no three-line long sentences.

4. Keep up to date on new features of the social media platforms you are using. They are really evolving pretty quickly, in an effort to stay relevant. As an example, here are some new features that you can expect from Twitter in 2016:

• Even more characters allowed
• Conversational ads that will show up as surveys or polls
• Twitter camera available to the public, not just celebrities
• Q & A sessions

All of these updates have consequences for your content.

3. Promoting your friendships

Image Source: Pixabay

How you package your content is pretty important – not just for Sally and Joe but for the platform you are using. You can take the same content, and package it differently for each platform you use – in fact, you must do it.

Here are some basics that you may have forgotten:

1. First, create that amazing piece of content – it has to be wonderfully educational, entertaining or inspiring if you want Sally or Joe to read it, like it, and share it or take some action as a result of reading it.
2. Change out that content for each platform. Here are just a few ideas:

• For Twitter you may only place a teaser with a link. But get a bit creative here. How many different titles can you think of for the same piece of content? You can market it under several different very catchy titles on Twitter several times a day. And to make it easy on yourself, automate that publishing through Buffer or some other automated tool.
• Create a slide show of that content and publish on SlideShare
• Use Instagram to post an image and some great teaser or quote and place the link in your caption.
• Start a Quora conversation with a question and then participate in answering that question
• Feature customers whenever possible in your content
• Create a video (they are really simple to do and can be informal and a bit rough – viewers like informal)
• Turn it into an infographic for Pinterest
• Have a great article on your blog with plenty of visuals

3. Have fun with your audience. Remember, social media is all about friendship and relationships. If you are a person who can have some fun, show it with your posts. A great way to do this is through memes or a joke of the day with an image on Instagram. If Sally or Joe see you as a real human who like fun, they’ll come back.
4. Humanize yourself. Give viewers a tour of your place of business, featuring your office pet and your team members. Tell stories about yourself and your team.
5. Support a cause and promote it on all of your platforms. Millennials want to do business with companies that have a social conscience. Check out toms Shoes or Headbands of Hope to see how a business can grow through support of a cause.
6. Choose a couple of hashtags that are popular. You can use any number of search tools for hashtags, such as hashtagify.me, and Instagram has its own search tool now, called Mulpix. Check out how Pottery Barn finds its followers through hashtags and then features their posts.
7. Locate groups that are already “into” your niche, join them and promote your content through them. Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn all have groups or fan pages. Get involved in conversations and promote your content – carefully and diplomatically, of course. Become a listener too. And don’t promote your content too early. Get trust first.
8. Keep promotion more about nurturing long-term relationships with Joe and Sally – that’s really what social media is all about. It’s good to do the analytics, of course, but don’t obsess about them. Focus on the relationships and trust first.

4. Using visuals to appeal to your friends

Image Source: Pixabay

This part of social media marketing deserves its own place among the 4 most important rules for friendship, because it has become such a “force”. The statistics are pretty clear – just on Facebook alone, photos will get 53% more “likes” and “shares.” And of course many platforms are almost entirely visual.

All of your content must include visuals. Here are a few examples.

• Photos can provide amazement, inspiration, entertainment – use them often and the more personal the better. Feature yourself, your team, and your customers. Pottery Barn does this well on Instagram; ModCloth does this well in Facebook.
• Surveys, polls, quizzes, and videos that involve interaction are popular and effective. Use tools like Snapapp and Canva to create some stunning ones quite simply
• SlideShare is a growing medium for searches
• Infographics are perfect when you want to get a lot of information into visual form and they are great for LinkedIn and your blog posts
• The more recent addition of carousels to Instagram lets you tell great visual stories

The more visuals you can use in creative ways, the more your followers will return for more and the more they will share.

A final thought

Friendships, whether in real life, or as a part of a social media marketing campaign don’t just happen by throwing yourself out there for others to find. They require careful consideration, introductions, first dates, and gradual building of trust and common interests.

Look at Sally and Joe as friends, as people whose friendships you want to nurture and sustain for a long time. When you approach social media marketing with this principle in mind, you will be successful.

Guest Author: Kerry Creaswood is a young and ambitious writer from Savannah, GA. She is fond of various forms of art and thinks that everything we can imagine is real. To find more about Kerry – check her out on Twitter.

The post 4 Ways To Improve Your Social Media Marketing By Making Friends appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

http://ift.tt/1NzZCUN

How To Guarantee Your First Impression In Search Results Is A Winner

How long ago did you Google yourself?

Did you think your name search results were making a good first impression?

Many people won’t even scroll, the first thing they see when searching for you (or your business or your product) in Google is what they go away with.

Did you know that 7 out of 10 of your perspective clients would Google you before even considering your product or your service? Did you know that most people would type your site name into Google instead of your browser address bar?

In the era of Google becoming a common verb, is it a smart idea to neglect your branded search results?

Probably, not…

What if you begin to be associated with a negative search phrase? What if a fake negative review ranks on top of your search engine results? What if people searching for you are driven away to your competitors?

Think of your search engine results page (SERP) as the first impression via search that a potential visitor to your website is going to have. It is important that it is a positive one, otherwise it could become a huge hurdle to your business success.

So, what creates a negative impression?

Common Reasons For a Bad First Impression

1. Auto-suggest provides a less than flattering option

A cringe inducing scenario for you – someone is disgruntled with your brand and they decide to trash talk you. A lot.

Before long, your name starts to be associated with those insults and auto-suggest immediately offers up “[Your Name] sucks!” as a possibility when you start putting in your name.

It could be better. Instead of suggesting that you or your business might be a bad choice, Google may simply recommend checking out for alternatives;

How many potential customers who were actually heading your direction will be driven away by this?

Plenty of companies have faced this very headache, especially giant corporations.

2. The image results look weird

When you put your name into Google, does it show “blended” image results as one of the first results? In many cases, those images could be embarrassing!

You want better control over how your brand is portrayed, both personally and professionally. You don’t want any confusion. Or anything offensive, which can happen from time to time.

The tricky thing about these onebox search results is that they are attention grabbers! According to the most recent Google SERPs eye-tracking studies, when a a visual is located on a page, natural human behavior will make your eyes go to that image first.

We’re naturally programmed to look at images: Your photos within your name search results will draw attention and influence to people’s opinion. There’s no way around that.

In some cases, that box may include some images misrepresenting your personal brand and creating a negative first impression:

3. Your business reviews aren’t favorable

Negative reviews high up in search results can become a sure-fire way to lose interest before you have even gained it.

What’s more, Google will highlight those reviews with stars making them stand out in search results.

Easy Fixes For These Common Pitfalls

Now that we know what issues may be creeping up on you and your SERP, it is time to look at how to fix them. The good news? They are all pretty simple, even if a few may take some time to work on.

1. Auto-suggest provides a less than flattering option

Unfortunately, this problem is not easy to deal with. Google Auto-Suggest results are fast to appear and slow to go away.

Google Suggest is powered by what people type into search results and thus can:

• Manifest a real problem that needs to be fixed
• Signal a competitor’s negative campaign
• Show you more phrases you need to be ranking for
• It could be all of the above.

So your steps to address the issue will be:

• Fixing the problem your customers are telling you about by searching it in Google
• Using Mechanical Turk to push other suggestions into the box (This should be your last resort!)
• Creating and optimizing landing pages to rank for those suggested queries (Both organic and PPC)

A preventative measure is to keep an eye on your competitors, because it’s always easier to handle before it becomes a search suggestion. Monitor comparison sites in your niche to make sure your product is always ahead. Most popular examples of those comparison sites are SimilarWeb, SiteGeek, G2Crowd, etc. Establishing your presence on those sites will help you more easily handle the problem when it’s in search results.

2. The image results look weird

You can’t actually choose the pics that show up in an image result one-box. But you can provide multiple images that differ from one another. Make sure you match the metadata to your name, so Google will immediately recognize it upon searching.

Publish varied images to varied platforms. The more images it can pull for your name, the better. Google seeks variety in image search results. Unless they find diverse images of you, your brand or your product, the more they’ll have to “make up”.

Variety is one the key Google image search rankings factors.

To get better control over your image search results;

• Use more visual sharing platforms (Instagram, Pinterest, Flickr, Facebook, Google Plus, etc) and upload different photos of yourself there. Here are more ideas to diversify your visual marketing channels.
• Use folders, tags, and albums… as well as solid original descriptions to give Google more context and surround your photos with original text about you.
• When you are invited to do an expert interview on someone else’s blog, consider providing a unique photo of yourself to go with that interview.
• Use Cyfe to monitor all these multiple visual channels you set up:

The more visual context you provide for yourself and your brand, the better!

3. Your business reviews aren’t favorable

In many cases, you’ll need to track down the original source, so follow the unflattering suggestions to their results pages. Sometimes it will be reviews on official sites like Yelp, and you can comment to tell your side and to offer a solution to the poster.

Other times it may be a blog, and that is when you have to contact them directly. Ask them to take down the review in exchange for offering up a solution to whatever is bothering them. Ask them to try working with you, your service or your brand again, then writing a second review mentioning the first and how things may have been different this time.

If it is a reasonable person they should have no trouble doing this. Occasionally you may come across a troll, in which case legal action may be required.

In the meantime, or if this isn’t possible, you can bury those results with plenty of varied and high quality content and mentions across the web. Include a lot of social posting mentioning your name in that campaign.

Tip! Use Facebook pages to move negative reviews down and replace them with positive ones!

Facebook pages have become a great way to improve your business standing. They rank high fast and if you request friends and happy customers to review your business on Facebook, you’ll have plenty of 5-star reviews to show off in search results.

Tip! Use Schema.org on your site to optimize your site for rich snippets (starred ratings in Google search results). Here is how;

• Use this review Schema.org generator to generate code to add to your product pages (It will do for any products – eBooks, courses, services, etc)
• Install org plugin on your blog to be able to use rich markup for your blog reviews. Here’s how to easily install and test WordPress plugins.

Have any SERP tips for a good first impression? Let us know in the comments!

Author Bio: Ann Smarty is a marketing blogger and community manager for Internet Marketing Ninjas. She is author of reputation management course.

The post How To Guarantee Your First Impression In Search Results Is A Winner appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

http://ift.tt/1NwEeQm