How to Connect With Influencers on Social Media

Do you want to get the attention of influencers?

Looking for ways to connect with them on social media?

Building relationships with the right influencers can extend your reach and boost visibility with your target market.

In this article you'll discover how to find and connect with influencers on social media.

Identify Industry Influencers

Chances are you already know some of the influencers in your industry and they may even be in your personal network.

Suppose that you sell a natural supplement that helps with food allergies and your supplement is the best one on the market. Here are some areas where you'll want to find influencers:

• Organizations that support the food allergy cause
• People who have written books on counteracting food allergies
• Speakers at conferences on food allergies
• Bloggers who write about food allergies
• Magazines that publish articles on food allergies

Now use a tool like BuzzSumo to do a keyword search. Click on the Influencers tab and type in your keywords in the search box. In this case you'd use “food allergies.” Then click Search.

On the results page, you can see all of the writers, bloggers and publications that are talking and writing about your keywords. Click View Links Shared to see their latest articles and posts, the number of shares for each article and where each article was published.

Now that you've identified some influencers in your niche, the next step is to connect with them, and other influencers of note, on your social networks. Here's how to get them to notice you and start building relationships with them.

#1: Network on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most important social networks for getting noticed by influencers, especially if you're marketing B2B.

First, search for your chosen influencers using the search box. To find other important people in your industry on LinkedIn, enter your keyword or phrase in the LinkedIn search box. The search for “food allergies” produced over 24,000 results, including some who are second-degree connections.

After you've identified influencers to target on LinkedIn, here are some ways to get them to notice you:

• Send them a LinkedIn connection request. Tell them how you know or know of them. Most users want to grow their personal networks, so many will accept connection requests.
• Follow their LinkedIn company page and then like and share their posts.
• Join LinkedIn groups they belong to. You can reach out to people directly when you're members of the same group.

Once influencers accept your connection request, you can send them a message through the network, which goes directly to their email inbox. It's their choice to respond to your message or ignore it, so get straight to the point and make sure your message is meaningful.

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With LinkedIn Premium, you can send InMails to influencers even if you're not connected with them. The number of InMails you can send depends on your plan.

If you're sending a message to request a meeting, tell influencers you'd like a few minutes of their time. If you want to send them something, ask for an address. Acknowledge that their time is valuable and you only want to enhance their lives.

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#2: Engage on Facebook

Facebook is a great social network for both B2B and B2C companies to build a following. It allows you to get in front of a targeted audience for your business.

Search Facebook for your influencer and keyword or phrase to find out who is important in your industry.

After you've identified target influencers on Facebook, here are some ways to get noticed:

• Like their personal profile and/or company page. If they like you back from their personal profile, message them with a call to action.
• Like their content and then comment on and share their posts. Post a message to their page about how much you like what they have to say, but avoid being promotional. Also, consider giving them a positive review.
• Join a Facebook group they belong to and engage with them.
• Search for the pages they like and like those pages. Also, consider running a like advertising campaign where you target people who like them.

Another benefit of using these tactics is you'll get in front of people who like your influencers and hopefully they'll start engaging with you.

#3: Interact on Twitter

A tool like Topsy will help you identify influencers who are posting interesting things about your keywords on Twitter.

Here are some ways to get influencers to notice you on Twitter:

• Follow them on Twitter. Search for all of their accounts, because they may have both personal and business accounts. If they follow you back, publicly thank them with their @handle.
• Create a Twitter list for influencers and add all of their Twitter accounts to the list. When your influencers tweet, you can easily find them and retweet, like or reply to their tweets.
• Post your own content often so they see you're active. Also automate your evergreen content so your handle is in front of them.

#4: Connect on Instagram

Search for your keywords to find people who are using them on Instagram. Click on each post to find influencers with a large, engaged following.

After you've identified Instagram influencers, here's how to get their attention:

• Follow their accounts.
• Post your own content regularly with the hashtags people search for and use the hashtags they use.
• When an influencer comments on your post, comment back. Similarly, when an influencer likes your post, like them back.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing is hard work, but it can be one of the most important tools for succeeding in your business. If it makes sense for your business to use only a few social networks, save your time and focus on the ones that really work for you.

Remember to be authentic when you post on your social channels. You want people to know that there's a human being behind your posts.

What do you think? Have you used any of these tactics to connect with influencers? What tips can you share? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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