More and more I hear it’s the quality NOT the quantity of followers, friends and however else people are categorized on social media outlets that matters the most. I use this philosophy for many aspects of my life (relationships, shoes, food… that kind of stuff).
So, the goal then is to find quality people and the influencers who are going to help you in this strange and competitive tech startup world, and who are true social influencers.
Jure Klepic , B2C‘s social media guru tells us some people spotting tips on how to find the movers and shakers we need to connect with and how even commoners like us can be influencers in our respective business spaces.
First rule of influencer spotting…
Look in the mirror
Search your own network, especially yourself. Jure believes that if you have even a bit of credibility within a topic, and someone in your network shares info you like or don’t, you’ve already proved you’re an influencer.
Jure’s tip for being your own biggest influence? Consistently engage in social media and you’ll gradually build your influential base and clout.
Look at your customers
If you’re an existing business, this concept is simple—if your customer is happy with your product and services, and they tell someone else about it, they have now become a person of influence for your business.
Jure’s tip for harnessing the power of satisfied customers? When someone writes a great testimonial or review, feed it through your social networks for all to see. If you’re in the HR world, the grunt work of finding influencers has been done for you by Brian Solis using his three principles of influence—reach, resonance and relevance. Check out his list of 175 HR influencers.
Not in the HR field? No worries. Jure says perform your own search for experts, anaylsts and journalists using keywords such as “best” and worst,” reach out to the influencers you find and start the conversation.
Look at key words
By searching important keywords and linking them to related topics, you can identify top influencers and communication hubs.
Jure suggests checking out Social Mention which is a real-time search platform that has a single stream of user-generated content to identify key influencers based on strength, sentiment, passion and reach.
Don’t always believe Klout
Klout has been getting some flack about its lack of transparency and its scores based on popularity and not necessarily influence. Again, it’s the quality not quantity issue. Tools like Appinions measure influence outside social media and have a more accurate influencer score based on preference, imitation and trend-setting.
Use an influencer Traackr
Traackr is the new “contextual influence measurement” tool in town that promises to find influencers based on all public internet activity, while managing engagement and measuring results. Users define the searches around different topics, and results are based on resonance, reach and relevance.
Jure says the art of finding one key influencer has not yet been established, but he suggests we continue to target ordinary influencers a-la our good friend social media.
