Posts Tagged 'influencers'

Yes it’s true the secret to Social Media success for brands is here. Follow these easy steps and your brand will soon be the master of the social mediasphere….. How many times have you seen that before? There are countless articles from ‘Social Media’ experts (that will no doubt have picked up this post through their social media tracking) telling you how to make the most out of MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Bebo you Blog and more.

Well here are our thoughts. Not 10 steps to Social heaven, just one thing you need to do:

1. Find your influencers

Yes, that’s it, just find your influencers. Of course there’s the usual things you have to do, listen to what’s being said about your brand, your competitors brand, products or services related to your brand and find your way into the conversation from there.

But for Social Media marketing success, for your brand, influencers are the way forward. These are the Twitterers, the Facebookers, the Bloggers with real reach, real followings and real influence. If you can find the influencers in your industry, engage them, even converse with them. The result, your message will reach the broader audience more quickly, and with a lot more authority.

We are all just social voyeurs at heart, we watch, we read, we listen but we don’t contribute. With only 1% of registered social media users making nearly 90% of the noise, it’s important to find the noisy ones that everybody looks at.

You can spend hundreds of man hours trying to get a large following, readership or fan base, or you can spend that effort finding the influencers, whose reach is already 5 times yours will ever be. The choice is yours.

The, dare I say it, Credit Crunch (hate that phrase) has forced the general public to tighten their belts of late. No more visits to restaurants 4 times a week, no more shopping for clothes unless they offer an 85% discount on the purchase price.

Tough times call for tough measures and highest on most peoples list seems to be money saving tips. The explosion in e-vouchers, online discount codes, and “friends and family” discount emails has been phenomenal, but only yesterday when I stumbled upon a website by Martin Lewis did it highlight to me how the credit crunch has seen the emergence of a true ‘influencer’.

Martin Lewis the brains behind website Martins Money is a well respected web commentator, unconnected to any brand, service or organisation, influencing huge numbers of consumers with his opinions & tips. Surely the perfect examples of many a marketing gurus ‘influencer’.

Imagine the following scenario – You visit Martins website because you’re looking for a discount voucher for dinner that evening, which restaurant will you visit, you haven’t decided yet. But, you can bet it will be one of the restaurants he lists vouchers for! How’s that for influencing consumers decisions?