Do you feel overworked running your small business and keeping up with your social media marketing needs? Think you don’t have enough followers to make any impact with your messages? It might be time to learn about social media influencers. These are people who have already done the work to build an audience on Facebook and Twitter, or in their blogs. They have a sizeable group of people who follow their thoughts and participate in conversations with them.
Some of these people are undoubtedly in your target audience as well, so you need to think of ways to piggyback on what has already been done. Here are a few ways you can use social media influencers to help your small business grow:
• Do your research: Think about the types of people who are in your target demographic, and then jot down some ideas about things they might be interested in reading. If you own a clothing store, for example, your customers are probably also interested in fashion, handbags, shoes, jewelry and accessories. Then start researching those keywords to look for people who write about those topics. If you draw your clientele from a particular geographic zone, try to find people who write about events or interesting activities in your area.
• Get to know them: Start following a few of these people yourself to get a feel for how they like to approach their particular topic. From time to time, add a comment or a different point of view to get your name out there. Don’t be pushy about selling your product; show that you have information of value in your field.
• Have them do a review about you: If they frequently advise their audience about new products or local businesses, ask if they would like to do a review about you. This can be a little tricky as the review could be negative, but go for it if you think you have a really great product or service. You can’t control what they say, but try to let the influencer know why you are so proud of what you have to offer.
• Ask to repost their information: If you really like what you are reading, and feel it would be helpful to your customer base, ask if you can repost, retweet or share. This builds a positive impression for you with the influencer.
• Ask if you can submit something to them: If you have a point of view or a blog that you think would really be interesting to this influencer’s audience, ask if they would be interested in using it as well. Just make sure that you get proper attribution and have links back to your website or social media pages.
• Involve them in a contest or promotion: If you offer a contest with a prize that you think might have interest, ask if they will help promote the contest. If the contest needs a judge ask the influencer to serve.