Influencer marketing has great benefits. Connecting with and befriending top bloggers and influencers is the latest mantra on most marketers’ lips. That’s easy to understand.

What’s Influencer Marketing?

To understand the term better, it’s like a friend recommending a particular restaurant or a holiday spot. You trust the friend, so his/her opinion carries weight.

In the digital world it is much more than just a word of mouth recommendation from a friend or a family member. Welcome to the world of Influencer marketing!!

Read: Blog Posts and Articles: What’s the Difference?

Increased Trust

A Nielsen study reports that 92% consumers have more trust in recommendations from a person they trust, whereas only 58% have trust in a branded site.

Connecting with Top Bloggers

To make the most of your blog, try to connect with top bloggers,

• They allow you to target audiences that follow and trust the influencer.
• These influencers are like celebrities.
• They can influence people just like celebrities do, but the difference is that people relate to them more easily.
• They have genuine opinions and their followers take them seriously.
• It’s the perfect opportunity for piggy backing on a top blogger’s follower base.

But finding top bloggers and influencers and collaborating with them could be quite time consuming. Here are some useful tips for staying on the track.

Finding Relevant Influencers

Invest some time to select people relevant to your blog or website. Influencers are present in all markets, such as blogging, fashion, fitness, travel and so on.

#1. Search hashtags and find posts with plenty of comments and likes.

#2. Crawl through Instagram accounts. It could take some time doing this manually. You can use free tools for finding relevant influencers on social media, such as Instagram and Twitter.

Use your blogpost keywords to find Twitter accounts of similar content.  Search for links or conversations on these platforms, and find those getting lots of comments.

#3. Look through Internet forums, where members offer references of the top bloggers in their niche. Important people might even make posts in the forum.

#4. While searching use criteria like location, topic, reach and authority as sorting filters.

#5. Stop chasing a personality, which does not have much sway over the targeted audience. Different products have different influencers. It’s important to select the right influencers.

#6. Use Google Search for connecting with the right person. It takes all the legwork out of hunting for names.

#7. Identify the top markets related to your product and try connecting with strong people, thereby expanding your reach.

#8. Establish relationships with the person before you reach out to him. Big names receive emails all day long and don’t have the time to respond to them. You need to stand out and offer some value in return.

• Follow the selected influencer in social media sites and engage with their content.
• Make your presence visible.
• While connecting with them, link or share the influencer’s content.
• Offer products for free, or at a discount. Once they are happy, they will recommend the product or service to their followers or clients.
• Try to get an introduction to top bloggers through another blogger or influencer.
• Check out events that you can attend, where you can meet influential bloggers and create an impression.
• Focus on what you can offer the top bloggers as well.
• Avoid building a pushy or aggressive personality, but you can ask for something if you have something to offer in return.

#9. Connect with top bloggers and YouTube stars and pay them to talk about your product or service.

#10. Invite top bloggers and social media influencers who are popular in the target audience.

#11. Send top bloggers promotional packages and display your customer service.

Micro Influencers

You can engage with several micro bloggers as well. There are many top bloggers with less than 10,000 followers. But they have more engagement with their followers than those with a million followers.

Collaborating with several smaller bloggers will increase your total reach. The tradeoff, however, is that managing several top bloggers takes more effort, so select the optimum number suitable for your resources.

Benefits of Connecting with Influencers

#1. Generate more sales.

#2. Boost brand awareness.

#3. Enhanced customer loyalty.

#4. Result in long-term engagement.

#5. Increase in product revenue and bottom line.

#6. Deriving benefits of social media. Your influencers will be talking to the target audience and engage them with your brand. This helps you reach more consumers.

#7. Gets Content noticed by native advertising.

Influencer marketing offers content that followers are already viewing. Consumers are increasingly using technology for blocking ads, so they may not even see your online ads.

Yet, they are sure to read content about your brand written by social influencers whom they are already following.

Top bloggers collaborating and connecting with you can encourage your target audience to view, engage and discuss related content. The message becomes more visible to the target audience, as it comes from a trusted source.

#8. Creating Content.

Social influencers can also create content for you, by providing testimonials and quotes. Connecting with them could prove to be an invaluable part of your marketing strategies.

#9. Easier/Cheaper Analysis

You can analyze the market easily while connecting with Influencers. You can view the engagement rates, the comments, readers’ opinions, the number of clicks, the conversions and so on. It is also more cost effective.

Building the Relationship

Collaborating with top bloggers and influencers is a great way to improve your sales. They are powerful, motivating factors that can increase your brand awareness.

If you are not already using influencer marketing as a strategy for consumer acquisition, you are missing out on a big channel. It surpasses emails, organic search or ad displays.

59% of marketers are planning to increase their budget for influencer marketing over the next year.

But it is a strategy based on relationships. It works best only if you have trust and familiarity with your influencer, who shares a close relationship with your target audience.