How to Influence Powerful Social Media Users for Traffic and Attention
What’s one of the easiest ways to generate buzz and consistently get massive amounts of traffic from social media websites?
The answer is simple: Control distribution of your content by leveraging the clout of popular and powerful individuals within the social media community. In other words, influence the influencers.
When these prominent individuals talk, others will listen. They are respected or liked by others in the same community. They have the ability easily initiate and popularize discussions on a specific topic.
They are mavens and connectors; thought leaders and hubs with large networks of friends and sources. They connect people to ideas and each other by sharing relevant content/concepts and encouraging multi-lateral discussions.
A clear example of how influencers can capture mindshare and generate buzz can be seen in popular bloggers who have a wide audience reach. Their review or criticism of a specific product or phenomenon can and do often lead to diverging or similar chains of opinion/dialog within the social sphere.
Every social media website is the same. There are a few select individuals who stand out, not only because of their activeness within the community but because they have proven their loyalty or expertise, hence gaining the trust and support of like-minded social media users.
These powerful individuals are precisely the ones you want to influence.
Influencing Social Media Users: An Introduction
Social media encompasses a variety of websites, from bookmarking communities to social video channels and walled networking platforms like Facebook. Instead of trying cover each social media type, I’ve decided to make the main focus of this article on social news sites like Digg, Reddit or Propeller.
However, bear in mind that what is listed here will and do apply to other social media websites as well. This article will give you hints on how to develop your own strategy for targeting, connecting with and piggybacking off the influence of popular social media users. Take what is here and throw it on any social website. It’ll fit.
Social Media Marketing for Community News Websites
Social news/voting sites are community sites which allow the audience to determine the value of the content through the use of up or down votes. Within these communities, there are several active individuals which are well connected with other users and in tune with the preferences of the community in question.
Social media marketers have long pursued two main strategies for success on social news sites like Digg and they have worked without fail for a long time.
These two main strategies are as follows:
- Become the Influencer. This entails building up a legitimate social media power account and gradually developing clout within the community. It involves actively participating in the community with the goal of ultimately developing authority and influence. This time consuming process allows you to easily increase the potential for success across the board.
- Develop a Network. Gradually build a network of social media supporters; people who will vote up your content or share it with other friends. This is often practiced by bloggers in their bid to dominate social media attention via coordinated voting. This can backfire if the social media community or algorithm is sophisticated enough to detect artificial behavioral patterns.
In contrast, the third method (which is the topic of this article) is more simple and yet equally effective. It also requires less resources and time, thereby allowing you to target multiple social media websites at once.
How to Influence Popular Social Media Users
If you can pitch other bloggers or journalists for a link or mention, you can most certaintly pitch social media users. The aim of introducing yourself and your content to the social media user is simple: you want to leverage their brand or influence by getting him or her to promote your website or content within the community.
This is rather similar to the process of getting links from popular blogs and it can definitely be achieved with some initial effort of your own. I have done this several times and it is something anyone can do with some instruction.
In my opinion, there are three main phases for the entire process:
- Targeting. At this stage, you’ll have to pick several social media users you want to build a relationship with. Ideally, these selected individuals should have degree or clout while being possibly interested in your material. They should be reachable via various communication channels.
- Networking. This is the point where you’ll make first contact with the social media user and start to develop some sort of friendly relationship with him or her. The goal is here is to ultimately convert the user into a supporter of your content. This is a crucial stage and tact or people skills are needed for success.
- Pitching. This is the last stage and will begin when you start to pitch the social media user for the first time. You should be confident that the user will not reject your content because you’ve taken out most of the guesswork through the two earlier stages. This phase should be continued by the continual maintenance of the established relationship.
The three steps above are sequential are should be followed in the right order, unless you have a source that can introduce you directly to the perfect social media user for your site.
1. Targeting: Finding the Right Social Media User
Image Credit: Target Picture
The more your content fits with the social media influencer’s interests or profile, the more likely they will promote it. I cannot stress the importance of relevance, so do put some effort and spend some time to find the right social media user.
Ideally, you should be able to discover their preferences through the type of content they usually share with the community (or in the case of other social media sites, the interests listed on the public user profile). Not every user is the same. For instance, some Digg users have different interests and will only submit certain content.
Let’s do some examples: Digg user cosmikdebris is dedicated to the general sciences, schestowitz submits programming/computer-related stories, noupsell focuses exclusively on politics and webtech focuses on web 2.0 or social media.
On the other hand, top users like msaleem and zaibatsu are interested in a wide variety of general topics and are likely to submit content from a variety of fields.
If you want your stuff to go viral, try to make it coherent with the influencer’s beliefs or interests. This makes it much easier for them to promote your stuff.
Ways to Find the Right Social Media Users
There are two ways to find the right social user that fits your content. One is to examine any public user ranking list (like this list of top Digg users) in order to determine who has influence. Visit each profile on the ranking list and check out their submissions in order to get a feel on what topic interests them.
An alternative would be to do a simple keyword search on the social media site to find which specific users frequently submit content of a certain nature. For example, let’s do a search on ‘blogs’ on Digg and limit the search to frontpage stories.
You’ll get a list of popular items with the keyword in the title. Check out each user to see if he or she normally submits content of this nature.
More often than not, if someone has promoted content for a specific nature, he or she will be more open to suggestions on similar content.
Alternatively, do a URL search for a popular site in your niche. This will also give you an indication of which users will possibly favor your site (if it covers the same content), although other factors like content quality or brand strength will still apply.
Here’s a URL search for Techcrunch, for example.
After you’ve spend some time researching the social site, you’ll develop a clear understanding about what works for which user. Using the social site yourself will also allow you to really appreciate how users perceive or use the community.
You’ll discover little quirks about each social media user and easily discover patterns in their behavior. For example, while top Digg user MrBabyMan submits a great amount of stories, most active Diggers are familiar with his avid interest in Cracked.com, a popular pop culture/men’s portal/magazine.
2. Networking: First Contact and Relationship Building
Image Credit: yes.
After you’ve decided who you want to target for the specific social website, you’ll need to get in touch with them and start developing a working relationship. The first important step is to touch base with the user and establish first contact.
If the user’s contact details are publicly shown, you can either send him or her an email or get in touch through an alternative channel like a microblogging platform or internet messengers. You can also register as a user within the specific social site, although some sites limit direct contact to mutual friends only.
If the contact details are not listed, you might want to do a quick google search for the username to see if it is listed elsewhere. Some information you should look for:
- The user’s personal blog or website
- Publicly declared contact details for the user
- Profiles that the user has for other social media websites
It is important to find this information because all of them are access channels which will allow you to not only get in touch with the specific influencer but to deepen your relationship with them as well.
Networking Guidelines and Suggestions
After finding the specific contact details, you should initiate a conversation of some sort with the specific user. There are many ways to do this and I highly recommend just sending them a note just to say hi and to thank them for their contributions.
Immediately asking them to promote your content is very poor form and may make you look like a spammer. Stand out from the rest of the self-interested crowd by simply introducing yourself and showing your appreciation for their contributions.
If they use internet messengers, hit them up for a chat in order to better understand what sort of interests they personally have. A good conversation piece would be the social website in question and how they use it. Have a genuine interest in them.
Feel free share your thoughts and engage them in dialog on common interests. You should do this continuously until you feel that you have a good grasp of what material the user is likely to support.
It is also important to do favors for the user by giving them publicity or links to free resources and interesting content (not your own). Do not offer monetary compensation at this stage as it will easily sour the relationship.
Mutually Beneficial Relationships are Key: One Golden Rule to Follow
It is important to network with the end of a mutually beneficial relationship in mind. True social media users are always interested in buzz-worthy news or ideas, particularly when it bolsters their own authority within the social media community.
This is essentially the golden rule to follow: Your content and whatever else you offer must not only meet the integrity of their personal brand, but it should improve it, along with the user’s popularity or position within the community.
Some top Digg users have a real interest in providing content that pleases the audience. They do spend time and effort in looking for new Digg-worthy material, another reason why they may at least be partially susceptible or open to your pitch, particularly if your content is fantastic and 100% relevant to their interests.
Offer them free invites to unrelated websites, give away exclusive information on certain topics. Share some links to excellent websites. Do little favors without asking for anything in return at all. Give them a reason to be interested in you.
Networking is really just about making friends. It’s that simple. This will gradually lead you into the third and final stage: Pitching the influencer.
3. Pitching: Getting the Influencer to Promote Your Content
Image Credit: Hit and Hope
After you’ve successfully completed the earlier two stages, it’s finally time to start pitching the user. Your end goal is to get the influencer to support your content by sharing it with the community.
Some suggestions on how to proceed:
- Ask Casually. Do your pitching in a light hearted and casual manner and do not aggressively push the user to promote your content. This is a huge turnoff and you should understand that the user has a perfect right to refuse you.
- Disclose Your affiliation. I would recommend letting the user know that you are affiliated with the specific website, particularly if you plan to have a long working relationship with the user. He or she will appreciate your honesty and it will also make it easier for you to ask the second time round.
- Space out your pitches. The biggest mistake you can make is to ask the influencer to promote every single piece of content that comes out on your site. This is a major irritant so only offer the user your best work, while pitching your material only once per week or every two weeks.
After you’ve successfully gotten the influencer to promote your website, you should continue close contact, whenever possible. If you’ve developed a very close and friendly relationship with the users, you might even want to consider co-opting them completely by eventually offering financial compensation.
This is a very tricky scenario and one you can only pursue when you are very confident that the offer will not be offensive and is something in line with the influencer’s goals or interests. You also want to make sure that the social community’s TOS does not forbid the user from making money through his or her contributions.
Step by Step Checklist to Follow
Here’s a quick checklist of steps to follow. Remember that these steps are sequential and should be completed one after the other.
- Pick several social media users who might be interested in your content. Make sure that they have some influence or clout in the community.
- Confirm that your content is relevant to their publicly declared or observable interests by studying their usage of the social site.
- Make first contact with the user by sending a ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’ email/message while introducing yourself.
- Gradually develop a relationship by talking about common interests or the social community.
- Do some small favors for the user, but do not ask for reciprocation of any sort. Avoid pitching the user at this point.
- After determining that your content is a perfect fit with the user and perfectly understanding the interests of the user, make your first pitch.
- If successful, continue to pitch the user but do it infrequently and only for excellent content. If unsuccessful, pull back a little and re-pitch after some time has passed.
- Deepen your relationship with the user till the point where he or she will automatically monitor and share your content with the community or when its legitimately possible to co-opt the user by offering compensation.
And there you have it, a complete guide on how to leverage the influence and popularity of social media users, in order to benefit your own website or business.
Relax. It’s Just Some Heavy Duty Networking
What is interesting about this method is that there is nothing sneaky or illicit about it. You’re not violating any Terms of Service nor are you lying or misrepresenting yourself or your business. This is simply traditional power networking.
Public relations agents do favors and offer exclusive news or benefits in order to set up journalists who may choose to write about their clients in the future.
Journalists network with their assets in order to get insider information for their stories. Salesmen or women (e.g. insurance agents) will acquire contacts and persistently build up relationships in order to get leads for possible sales.
If you don’t have the time or interest in developing a strong social media profile and you can’t seem to build up a network of like-minded supporters, try this powerful method of pitching influential people in social media communities.
It works tremendously well and is a great social media marketing strategy that will allow you to easily acquire traffic and attention for your content or business.
For more quality social media marketing tips, subscribe to Dosh Dosh.
This is an extremely valuable article chocked full of information. Thank you so much for compiling all of the ways to actually track down and create relationships with these mavins and connectors.
I have been searching for a similar method through trial and error but this will help me narrow it down significantly.
Phew that sounds like a lot of hard work! I’ve made relationships with a few bloggers and people in the social media networks now but I don’t think I’d make a point of asking for promotion unless I was running a *really* special campaign or something.
There’s a couple of people now who email me asking for plugs on stuff all the time and I’m only a newcomer to the field so I wonder just how many requests these top guys have. It must be annoying for them.
That is a brilliant post. Very very insightful. Thank you.
When I read this post’s headline, my first thought was: “Here comes something a shy person like me will never be able to do.” Well, maybe I was wrong. While I still find it difficult to approach someone on the internet, the details you provided in this article made me think that I can overcome this problem of mine if I use the right techniques. Many thanks for the tips.
Amazing post. Thanks
Great post Maki this info is quite helpful in what appears to be a tough process but can bring some great benefits to a site or blog.
Great information. I’ve wanted to do this several times, but always hesitated. You’re right though, the major users of these sites are always looking for content, so if yours is good they could be happy to hear about it.
This is an amazing resource. Thanks for the valuable info.
Thanks to copyblogger, i found your blog here. this is what I need for my parenting blog. thanks thanks.
Very insightful. Thanks for this wonderful post. I didn’t expect it would be that long. phew. But it was well worth the read. In the end, this can only work if you do have quality contents to promote. So we should all start making quality contents first before the promotion.
Maki, thanks for this, I enjoyed the read.
I’m not sure I agree entirely about “pitching” though my experience with Influencers is more in the real-world (offline) than on-line. Most Influencers are valued as influencers because of their independence. Pitching to them will just turn them off and make them run away and hide. The way to engage them is to understand their needs and provide them with useful insight that adds value to their agenda. In this way you create awareness and overtime can work on increasing their advocacy towards you.
At this point let me be upfront and say I am involved with a Marketing Consultancy that leads the practice of “Influencer Marketing”. There’s a white paper on http://www.influencer50.com called “The Insanity of Marketing” that sets the context for targeting Influencers, it’s a little provocative and might make you smile! Comments?
Cheers, Scott.
Another great in-depth article. Keep up the good work. I’m enjoying reading your recent articles.
Ok so befriend the influencers, do favors for them then ask nicely for votes in return. Sounds good.
Hmm. Sounds more efficient to become a useful member myself, though, in the long term.
@Scott,
Pitching doesn’t mean you don’t provide them with useful insight and as I’ve mentioned in my article, you ARE adding value to their agenda.. not only maintaining the integrity of their personal brand but improving their position within the community.
I’m not suggesting that one should try to push their ideas on the influencer.. but rather to build a long term relationship with them. Ideally, you eventually will not need to pitch your content because the influencer has decided to willingly become an advocate, based on their relationship with you or your company.
Thanks for letting me know about your whitepaper… I’ll check it out.
@Yuri
It’s definitely not more efficient to become a useful member in the long run. Have you tried maintaining influencer accounts in multiple social sites? I have. And I can tell you it is very time consuming (although fun). You can’t play CEO and marketer all the time.
But you can target as many websites you want as long as you have a list of people you have personal relationships with. This is basically how it goes with PR companies. Got a big piece of news? Ring up some journalists you did favors for, have met in person or worked with in the past.
For example, instead of sending a wild shot to feedback@newsweek.com, you send it to sandra.lee@newsweek.com. Pitching to influencers you know is efficient, targeted marketing with big results.
Infiltrating certain communities is also something that is not easily done by anyone. Can you as a man become known as a influencer within a site dedicated to the lifestyle of teenage girls? Or can you establish yourself within a Halo gaming community if you don’t know much about it?
I could go on and on.
@Karen
It’s not hard to approach someone after you do it for a few times. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.. ^_^
Very well written article. I enjoy reading. I like to read more of this.
I can’t help echoing what Caroline said. I’d have a hard time soliciting and asking for promotion. Still, it does sound like great advice.
Like Caroline, I’ve had a few people ask for a bit of promotion with a few posts. I read the material — if I like it, I give a thumbs up. Since the people who ask for promotions know what I like, I generally do like it.
So, I can definitely see what Maki suggests would work, and can be done in a friendly, not-obnoxious way! The tips given here read about right to me too.
Maki I am impressed how you wrote this article definitevely 10/10! Great article!
Wow, amazing post. Thank you Maki.
This is a very interesting post – very impressive. If we also try to think about what we could provide for that person in return, the thought of ‘pitching’ may become less daunting. It could be something like a link or banner to their site, a testimonial (if you’ve used their service or bought something from them or you just get a lot out of their blog) could be thanks enough. I’m a big believer in paying it forward now and back when you are in a position to – I think there are a lot of people out there who think this way and are really willing to help out smaller sites when they can.
Sarah
RatRaceEscapeArtist.com
Maki,
Hey Maki I’m flattered! BTW, I haven’t talked to you in a while.
The key for me is content, is it Diggable?
Give me a good top 10 list, insightful commentary and a catchy Web 2.0 interface.
Feel free to contact Msaleem or me anytime. Better yet, Digg all my stories!
Shameless aren’t I. Great article Maki, keep up the good work.
Peace
Z
What a thoroughly researched article. I don’t mind people approaching me with great content. The main reason I submit stories to digg is to share great content I’ve found with others, and hope they find it as interesting as I have. To me that seems to be the driving force behind social news, and the two most important factors are great content, and the ability to put it before as many eyeballs as possible.
Well done, Maki!
Andy
Oooh I’m still confuse as ever on how to increase traffic for my blog. Traffic for my blog is just pathetic! hahahaha
It’s all about making the reader feel like you’re providing value. I mean, this is an excellent and insightful post Maki, but I’d be interested as to how many of your readers will actually take heed to your advice.
The thing is, even though many won’t impliment your advice, because you made them feel like you provided something of value, they will Digg and Stumble this post. Nice work!
I guess my hidden house camera idea is out of the question. These are good tips for generating buzz.
Maki you wrote a super article!! Great.
Excellent work Maki; really once you’ve got yourself a network of trusted readers you can skyrocket your traffic. Endless possibilities:D
Really good post!
I think, as you have alluded to, the authentic relationship is the key. Realizing it is a two-way street, just like any offline or non-business relationship, is important.
Hello Maki,
Thanks for all the information. As a Newbie with Internet Marketing I continue to learn every day.
This is something that will definitely be off help and get me away from PPC advertising.
While it is beneficial to get links and attention from popular sites, popular blogs and prominent people in social networks, I purposefully NEVER do that.
This is what’s wrong with the blogosphere. Why should I work an angle to befriend someone popular? They are no different from me or the guy who picks up my garbage.
You have a great understanding of how the web works.
I say an equally powerful strategy is to never pay any attention to those on top. I only pay attention to those who aren’t.
Wherever one powerful marketing strategy exists, and opposite of equal power also exists!
I become friends with all people the same way whether they started their blog yesterday or 5 years ago. Becoming friends with an A-list blogger is different and it is the masses who herd like brainless sheep to chase after them.
Having said that, this article provides some good insight into how things really are. It’s up to individuals to choose how they will use information like this.
Great post Maki!
Hey, great post. It sound slike “good manner” on Social Media. How do you think this would apply to Latin way to do social media?
Fantastic post!! Thank you for the effort you put into this article, its been a big help.
This post is like a book. And has a permanent link now on my toolbar. Very informative.
Great post. I’m first time visiting and must say I love it.
“Influence the influencers.” Good advice. Will have to follow.
Maki,
Great work, I can imagine the amount of homework you must have done for writing such a post.
It would have been really good if you could break this article in to two or three, each comprising of a a particular step and offer this as a small cource or something.
Thanks again for this splendid post.
This post is A++++ material. Thanks for sharing!
I don’t know man… I’m a subsriber to this blog because I like the things it makes me think about… but doesn’t this all seem a little creepy an underhand to you?
It’s like being friends with someone purely out of self interest… like “how to pick up women” scripts etc.
I think the value of having friends is having friends. Making friends with someone via a series of well-crafted overtures – like a sort of spider’s delicate mating dance – purely out of self-interest seems to me like it will poison the chief benefit of being friends with someone in the first place.
But then again, I’m more of a Z-list kindof guy than A-list, so what do I know.
In the context of Influencers and Marketing check out http://www.influencerMarketingBook.com it hit #1 in Amazon’s best sellers yesterday.
This is exactly why i ma on this website…to make some new friends