Almost famous…a guide to influencer marketing for small businesses and mumpreneurs

I live near a celebrity. Ana Saccone-Joly lives in the next town from me, and a few of my friends have been lucky enough to meet her. Never heard of her? Have a look at her video ‘Lives changed forever’ with 4.5m hits on youtube. How does that compare to your last content video? OK, so a video of somebody giving birth is quite different from video of someone talking about their nail business, but still the views and follower stats are something to aspire to.

If you’re a millennial or know some teenagers, you may have heard of the Saconne-Jolys, Zoella and Alfie. Social media stars have become more important than traditional celebrities to the younger generation, because they are real people.

Influencer Marketing in for small businesses

Fashion, beauty and travel B2Cs have embraced influencer marketing, many have established influencer programmes with different levels Gold, Silver, Bronze, depending on the influencer’s following. Your own influencer programme could involve a two pronged approach. You can target established influencers as the large firms do, but you can also turn yourself into an influencer, by building up your own digital presence. The more influential you are, the more likely potential clients are to find them and to want to meet them.

So, what can we learn from the youtube and Instagram stars help your own business? Follow my guide if you want to raise your online profile.

The Fame Academy for business owners

• Decide on 2 or 3 things you want to be famous for. What are the key issues in the market? What are the key trends for this year? Think about the problems on the client’s mind and what they will be googling and put these keywords on your linkedin profile and twitter profile, so potential clients can find you and link you to solving these problems. Then, share and comment on relevant content related to these areas.

• Target influencers in your chosen area. Learn from the best. Have a look at what your competitors, journalists and industry experts are doing on social media, (look for people with a large number of followers) and join the conversation. Look for the social media accounts of real people – you’re probably not going to get a response from the FT twitter account! Make sure you are aligning with influencers with the right audience from your chosen area. A retweet from Kim Kardashian would be great for raising your profile, but her followers might not be your buyer group. Again, think of your customer and think about what blogs they are likely to read and who they are likely to follow online. Then engage with those influencers: like, share and comment on their content, ask them questions. Sometimes, there aren’t any influencers in your chosen field, particularly in niche topics, so there is open space for you to become the big name in the market.

• Let your personality shine through. When I asked 3 of PwC’s most successful influencers on twitter how they got there – they said by being themselves. Be a human being, and tell your story. Include your interests outside of work, include a good clear photo, and think about filming an introduction of yourself.

• Attend industry events, in person and online. Make a list of the big industry events for the year and decide on which to attend. Before the event, arrange meetings over social media and once at the event, share pictures and insights from there and network with the influencers in person and online. As you leave – tweet the 3 things you learnt there, or 3 things that surprised you, or mention 3 people you met. If you can’t actually attend all the events, look to join the conversations online. Your target market will gather in person and online for these industry events, look for the event hashtag on twitter, it’s the perfect time to raise your profile.

• Release your own content. You don’t need a publisher any more, everyone has the ability to write content or produce videos or podcasts that could reach millions all over the world. Have a look at Don Carr’s article ‘Why good employees quit’ on linkedin, it was liked by nearly 200k people and has over 10,000 comments. Have a go at linkedin blogging yourself it could go viral! Imagine what that has done for Don Carr’s career. But make sure your content passes the three s’s test – snackable, shareable and searchable. Snackable – your content needs to be short and to the point, people don’t have the time or inclination to read long pieces of writing anymore. Shareable – is your content interesting, thought provoking or different enough for people to want to share? Searchable – keywords are key! Really think about what your customer will be searching for online and answer that question.

• Be a thought leader. Following on from the last point, do you have something different to say? Have a look at what your competitors and clients are saying and then join the conversation. An influencer needs to be a thought leader. Be clear about your point of view. Back up your views with research to make it credible.

• Embrace live video. ‘Marketing Week’ says it’s going to be big this year. Could you get someone to film you while you’re speaking at a conference, with permission from the organisers of course? Use Periscope and Vine. There are endless possibilities.

• Look for offline opportunities too. Put yourself forward for conference speaking slots, tv, radio, and press. You’ll be exposed to a much wider audience and create a greater online following. Many publications accept guest writers. You can also comment on online newspaper articles and engage with journalists online.

• Engage with your followers. If someone comments on your content, get back to them as quickly as you can. People will be quick to disengage if the person behind the social media isn’t genuine.

• Measure your success. Finally, it is important to check out your return on investment. Use tools like Klout to measure and compare your influence online, and check out Onalytica and Leadtail too, they release influencer lists – so where do you sit? Twitter and linkedin both have simple analytics tools now, so you can check how far your post travelled.    

Don’t forget to carefully target your influencer programme to the right market and never stop thinking about the end customer, the buyer (fingers crossed). What are their issues, what linkedin groups are they in, what blogs do they read and who do they follow? Your influencer programme should work alongside your content and social media plans, all three elements need to complement each other. If you get it right, you will help to open doors with clients and might make some people famous!

Challenges

When I’m running social media training, the challenge I hear most often is ‘My customers aren’t on social media’. I say, that it’s more about what a client sees they look you up online, clients will be able to read your twitter feed whether they are on twitter or not. If you are due to meet a potential client for the first time, you can be certain that they will type your name into google before they meet or even agree to meet you. Now imagine that the potential client can’t find you online and your equivalent at the competitor has 5,000 followers.

Key takeaways

Don’t forget to carefully target your influencer programme to the right market and never stop thinking about the end customer, the buyer (fingers crossed). What are their issues, what linkedin groups are they in, what blogs do they read and who do they follow? Your influencer programme should work alongside your content and social media plans, all three elements need to complement each other. If you get it right, you will help to open doors with clients and might make some people famous!