Over the past decade, the world of public relations has changed dramatically. It’s no longer just about pitching publications or websites; now, the focus is on leveraging the power of influencers. Getting noticed and working with influencers starts with knowing how to find and influence top influencers.
Where you may have gone to the media with a story or a product launch, now you need to engage with influencers so they’re sharing you and recommending your product to their followers.
Influencer marketing isn’t new, as brands have partnered with athletes, celebrities, or industry leaders for many years. The difference between now and then is that social media offers access to new audiences, and just about anyone with a keyboard and talent can become an influencer.
Most of all, as influencers are seen as neutral third parties, they have greater sway over their audience. People will trust their recommendations much more than anything your company could ever say or claim, as influencers are viewed as not having a stake in the outcome.
Influencing The Brand Influencers
When you work with influencers, the goal is for your brand to access their massive following, as consumers take action based on what influencers share and endorse. A study by Collective Bias found that 60% of the respondents had taken blog and social media posts into consideration when shopping.
When your goal is to influence the influencers, you’re one of countless PR people or companies that want to get their attention. That’s why you need to be positively obsessed with researching and learning about them long before you even consider reaching out.
You want to stand out and be seen as helpful and incredibly valuable to them—not just another person asking for something in their inbox or DMs.
Ensuring you’re of the highest value to influencers starts with influencer monitoring and taking the time to understand everything you possibly can about how you can best work with them.
Here are three ways PR pros can get noticed and influence the influencers:
#1: Becoming An Expert On Each Influencer
When it comes to influencer marketing, the focus should be on quality over quantity. You need to take the time to learn everything you can about the influencers you are targeting.
It’s important to become the expert on each influencer instead of just acquiring a list of influencers and sending messages to all of them without doing your homework. This “spray and pray” approach will quickly get you deleted — if not blocked — by influencers.
To become the expert, you need to consistently and continuously monitor their conversations, preferably on a daily basis over multiple weeks or months. If you want to know who the best influencers might be for your brand, you need to see what they post, how they post, and what type of rethey’re they’re getting.
Being an effective influencer isn’t just about having many followers; it’s more about an influencer’s ability to capture and keep an audience’s attention. Understanding their coverage shares and key influencer details, such as followers and audience reach, are all key metrics you should consider when assessing if an influencer is a good fit.
#2: Understanding Their Audience
As part of your influencer monitoring efforts, you shouldn’t just be on the influencers themselves and understanding their specific audience. You already know your target audience, so taking the time to deeply understand the influencer’s audience and ensuring alignment will be critical to getting them to work with you.
You want to know what their audience wants, what type of campaigns or content performs well with them, and how the influencer serves that audience.
Look at what other types of blogs or social media their audience follows. Who else are they interacting with? What other influencers are on their radar? Gathering intel on their entire audience provides you with a holistic picture of the audience you’re going to target. It provides insight that can steer the direction of your marketing when working with the influencer in the future.
By carefully and consistently monitoring your shortlist of influencers, you’ll have the data you need to craft a compelling campaign with each influencer that drives their audience into action.
#3: Timing Your Approach
As a PR pro, you know that timing is everything. Knowing the perfect time and when it’s not a good time, particularly with influencers, is key.
To be most relevant, you want to time your approach so they will likely say yes to working with you. For example, they’re focusing on a specific issue your brand has been monitoring and can address; your timing may be ideal for getting a yes to working together. They’re focused on topics not aligned with the ones you’re managing; you can avoid approaching them, and they’re likely to pass on the opportunity.
Daily influencer monitoring can ensure that you can spot top influencers and pitch opportunities in real time. You’ll also be able to avoid missteps when planning to work with top influencers.
A media monitoring service is one of the best ways to ensure you’re not missing your moment.
Our client, MUFG Bank Ltd., uses daily media monitoring to help identify which influencers are active on the issues and topics of interest to them and their clients. They rely on this intelligence to determine who the top influencers are that they should engage with. Using this influencer intelligence, they use a data-driven approach to finding top influencers.
According to Adam Snyder, VP of Corporate Communications, the top influencer reports they receive from Fullintel have been a game of”anger. “I think of my peers in other agencies; they’re just not set up to handle influencer research and engagement like I am. I’m thrilled to have found Fullintel and to have them as part of our media intelligence “arsenal.”
Whatever influencer strategy you choose to employ when attempting to influence an influencer, one thing is clear: working with top influencers to promote awareness of your brand is now an integral part of being a PR professional. If anything, more and more businesses will begin to include influencer monitoring and engagement activities as part of their budget, and the best way to make the most of your marketing dollars is to use data to support your influencer marketing strategy.
Check out the MUFG case study to learn more about influencer monitoring and how Fullintel can elevate your influencer marketing.
