As a blogger I’m sure there’s nothing you’d love more than to get in front of the audience of an influencer. I know from my own experience it’s exciting to get in their circles and it also helps build an audience. Here’s a few ways I've been able to do it.
Ask, Implement, Report
This is a super simple strategy that works almost every time. It involves asking for advice, implementing the advice and reporting back. I did this recently with a very well known entrepreneur, who has been responsible for marketing more than a few a few brands that are household names in our circles (let’s call him Noah cause that’s his name).
All you have to do is ask for advice, implement the advice and report back.
Influencers have one thing in common, they get thousands of people emailing them asking for advice. And out of those people who they give advice to, as Noah said to me ‘Hardly anyone follows through”.
So I attended a lunch with Noah a few months ago got a bunch of advice about how to market my WordPress startup WP Curve.
I took Noah’s advice, and implemented everything that worked for me. Then I sent him this:
“Hey Noah
I wanted to update you on the action I've taken on advice you gave me. I saw your Creative Live session with Tim Ferriss and realized a lot of people probably don't follow through.
We've signed up 8 more customers since the lunch in Brissie which is cool. We've also refined our customer profile. We've decided to target female solo founders who are part of paid entrepreneur communities. A good chunk of our clients are already in this crowd. They know enough about WordPress to be dangerous, they have proven they will pay recurring fees, they are easy enough for us to get to and they need help when things break. On top of that we are finding they love WP Curve and are proactively raving about us on Facebook etc. They also make good customers.
We are making a list of people who run these communities or have this audience and we are starting to target them by offering them content for their audience etc. We've also got 24 affiliates now and quite a few of them are in this sort of crowd.
Thanks mate just thought I'd follow up on the lunch, have fun in NZ.
Speak soon
Dan”
Noah has been an amazing support, helping introduce us to more of these influencers.
Look for opportunities to relate with online influencers
If you are going to get the attention of an influencer, they will have to have a reason to speak with you. They just simply don’t have the time to help everyone, so you have to stand out. One way is to find opportunities to relate to them and for them to relate to you.
Here’s an email I sent to a very well known entrepreneur called Erica.
“Hi Erica,
I just read your Sh*t hits the fan article – wow amazing story, I had no idea all of that was going on.
Brennan Dunn introduced us a few months ago, you might remember my start up inform.ly – I actually wrote a post titled ‘Is startup validation bullshit?' about it's failure over the last 11 months. Something about sh*t in a headline just works!
That biz is still ticking over but unfortunately, it's not going to change the world (yet). My latest venture, WP Curve is having a lot of success however. We offer 24/7 support for maintenance and small WP fixes from $69 per month. We were ramen profitable in 23 days, which is a welcome change.
MarketVibe sounds very interesting! If you think there’s any way we can help each other there I’d love to chat on Skype. If you are recommending site changes for people it sounds like there might be something. We have a white label and affiliate offering which could be suitable.
Thanks Erica, all the best with MarketVibe.
Dan”
Erica replied and I chatted to her for 2 hours and she changed the course of our business.
Jump on opportunities to help
One of the main challenges with connecting with influencers is how you can help them. If you can figure out a way to help them, then you are in. But how on earth do you help a seasoned entrepreneur with an audience 100x the size of yours?
It may not be clear at first but the trick is to jump on any opportunity that you see. Here are a few ways that I’ve done it:
- In the example above, Erica was very interested in learning more about my failed product so I made sure I sent her a long and detailed analysis of it.
- Influencers often tweet out when they need something. They will get spammed with replies but take the opportunity to email them directly with something that stands out, something that they can relate to and make them a compelling offer.
- When Noah was coming to Brisbane I sent him an analysis of the Taco scene in Australia (he loves tacos). I don’t know if he needed it, but I’m sure no one else at the lunch made the effort to do it. I’d be surprised if anyone has even followed up with him.
- We’ve had other people who wanted some help with WordPress that we’ve provided for free. If you can offer your service for free, then this could help (money is rarely a big motivator for influencers, but it does remove some friction).
Do a lot of little things
Replying to one tweet is unlikely to get the attention of an influencer.
In all likelihood you will have to do a bunch of little things. As always, look for opportunities to stand out and help. Here are some examples:
- If they have a podcast, they’d love an iTunes review.
- Comment on their blog with the best, most researched, most informed comment for that post. Don’t stress if they don’t reply. They’ll read it. Disagree with them if you want, that can work too.
- Even better than this, comment on someone else’s blog and mention them. If you can send them a backlink they might see it (if they have pingbacks or google alerts on). But you can always just email them and tell them.
- If you see something that helps them, let them know. This could be another company in their space, an article that they might like etc.
- If they have a business, become a customer and send them an unsolicited review. They will love it. A few years ago I got James Schramko’s attention by doing this unsolicited review of his product Traffic Grab. Not only did James appreciate the unsolicited review but it stood out because I’m sure I was the only non-affiliate to take the time to promote his product.
- If you can send them traffic then do so. If they are a blogger they will regularly look at their referrers. You can send them traffic by writing a post about them or better still emailing your list with a link to their site or their recent article.
- Find out where they hang out and hang out there as well. Forums can be great, social media, Facebook groups, local meetups etc. Obviously if you have something legitimately in common with them then this helps. Be prepared to ‘pay to play’ – it’s an investment and it’s a business expense – so why not?
- Send them customers. Sending people traffic is one thing but if you can prove that you can influence purchasing decisions then you are at a totally different level. If you can send customers to them make sure they know about it and ideally don’t ask for any affiliate commissions (it will help you stand out).
- If they have a blog write a guest post for them, and make sure it’s your best work.
How did you connect with an online influencer?
Let me know if you’ve had success connecting with an influencer and how you went about it. Also if you have any questions about this please reply and I’ll answer them.
That Twitter convo you posted didn’t sound like the influencer found the remark very funny, unless the country they are in doesn’t have a Ministry of Moral Affairs, some countries actually do!
I have found a lot of success by submitting reviews to podcasts of comedians and generally pimping their work to my friends and followers on social media sites. 🙂
He was joking!!
This is a great post on how to get influencer’s attention. I recently wrote a blog highlighting 6 bloggers I follow/respect/drop what I am doing to read their emails. I tweeted a few of them, and one got back to me and left a comment on my blog. I guess I should try and email them, too.
Speaking of taking advice, implementing it and letting them know…I need to email Derek Halpern of Social Triggers letting him know blog promotion does in fact work.
Nice! Yeah I don’t see an issue with emailing. Don’t add them to any list or anything of course.
Nice re Derek. He hasn’t replied to my emails lol.
Dan, I agree with you that a great way to connect with influencers is to write awesome comments on their blog.
This is why Harleena has been able to drive huge traffic to her site. She goes indepth when composing her comment hence forcing the blog owner to take notice.
This is one strategy I have began to apply, and which I know will produce similar result.
Your suggestion about writing an opposing comment is so true. That’s how I caught the eyes of Dukeo when I wrote a comment opposing his view that blogging is dead. While this method is good, it’s important that it’s done with caution-because it’s like a two edged sword that can connect as well as alienate you. So in using this tactics we must understand when are skating towards the hate line.
It is at this point we need to step back, so that next time we can disagree to agree.
Dan thanks once again for this awesome article and Ileane thanks for providing a platform for awesome bloggers to share their content.
Thanks Peter, yeah you can get in trouble disagreeing with people all the time, it may have happened to me once or twice 😉
These are really helpful tips that can help anyone to get ahead in their online business. Especially, I like the one “Jump on Opportunities to Help”. Helping others without expecting much in return will get you noticed and will build trust with others. Thanks for a great article!
Thanks Elena, I’m glad you liked it.
Driving traffic to them i think best way. If we use their tricks in our post with their name and blog link then due to this they can take good traffic with the help of us. Following them twitter or any other social site is also good because due to this not only we can come to know about their upcoming products, also we can share their products with our friend to share the heart. It seems like a selfish thing but in actuality it’s selfish thing. ” The more we help others, The More others feel like helping us ”
Thanks! It was so nice to read.
Thanks Bilal glad you liked it. Twitter is great for connecting with influencers.
Hi Dan,
Clever 🙂
I like your style. Influncers are people. People like to be helped, or to be noticed. Just like anybody. The main difference between people who have massive followings is this; the helped people for a more sustained period of time than the rest, or they learned how to connect with a series of influencers early on in their career by making a serious impact.
I post in depth comments on influential blogs. I want my name to be associated with making an impact but I also want to help influential people. 2 pronged approach here. I also try to help when I can and detach from outcomes. A few years back I noticed personal development guru Randy Gage missed the @Randy_Gage handle from his tweets. I let him know this.
He asked if I was sure, I tweeted back “yes”….well after receiving a few retweets from him of my positive quotes my twitter following surged. Heck, him engaging me created a nice little follower count boost. See where you can help. Offer your help. NEVER assume that these people do not listen because they became influencers by listening and helping, and if you can impact their lives, you too will receive their help.
Thanks for the awesome share Dan!
Ryan
I get the attention of online influencers in my field by joining events, such as blogging events. I believe that they have something that they are weak of, and if you have some strength to share to them, they may find you helpful.
Hey Victorino events are great. My co-founder is at Ontrapalooza right now. There’s no substitute for meeting people in person.
Another tip that I’ve used successfully, Google a tool called FollowerWonk. You can search for people with lots of Twitter followers for a particular niche. Find some good ones, then see if they have a website – they are probably an influencer – you can then try to build a relationship with them in order to get some kind of link eventually.
Thanks James I’ll check it out. I’m recording a podcast in the next 20 minutes with the founder or relate.ly on the topic. There’s also Little Bird which does something similar. There are some interesting tools in this space.
Great article Dan! I just did 2 items on the list while reading the article.
Podcast review and
Send feedback
Thanks!
Nice Nikki! Glad you liked it.
Great share Dan! I love the tip about offering to send Traffic and Customers without asking for money. And that is great, since we each have a different field of Expertise, and sending someone to an Influencer and that Guru makes money is a great way to get noticed. Thanks, James.
No worries James, thanks for stopping by.
Hi Dan,
Awesome and inspiring post! I just recently started blogging on website development and blogging in general! Anyway I once made an awesome facebook app for free for a famous uk based voiceover artist called Rachael which was highly appreciated because she gave me an awesome testimonial.
Anyway I introduced Rachael to Redd Pepper on Twitter today so I am just waiting on the outcome of that seeing as Redd has no website or facebook page like my friend Rachael has.
Good luck on WP Curve. perhaps I could help out one day being a geek that I am.
– Phillip
Good stuff Phillip, stay in touch mate.
Thanks for the tips Dan! 🙂
Sharing influencers’ content on your social media accounts is a great way to build relationships with influencers. If you’re doing this frequently or on a daily basis you will get their attention for sure. It’s always nice to get a reply from an infuencer. That is a sign of building a relationship and it also increases your social reach because they mentioned you in their SM posts.
Commenting on blogs is another great addition to get attention from influencers.
Hi; I was surprised to find I was doing many of these things already. I have a list of blogs that I read whenever their author has a new post, and i leave good comments and share their posts on social media. One of them recently did a post on comment love premium. I bought the plug in from them and loved it. I wrote a post on my site mentioning them and giving them credit along with including their affiliate link for the product. Her name is adrienne smith and not to long after that she included me in a post about the five bloggers she admires. I often ask questions and either implement their suggestions or explain why they didn’t work for me. And something I just realized. I often get remembered by bloggers because I am open about being a blogger and entrepreneur who happens t be blind. And my niche is rather unique. I help people sell amusement equipment. So I have two things people usually remember. I look forward to your future posts. Thanks and take care, Max
Nice that’s how it works!