How to make friends to influence people

With millions now obsessed by social media, more and more people are persuaded into making purchases just by seeing an engaging visual on an account they are following on Instagram.

Social influencers are the most effective form of advertising with 84% of consumers trusting recommendations from people they know, a survey by Neilsen revealed.

Each message carried by an influencer has four times the impact on consumers’ purchasing decisions than those delivered by non-influencers.

Effective influencers aren’t necessarily famous, they just have a specific audience with clear values and interests. Sourcing good quality ambassadors to represent and sell your brand can be a great asset to your business if done correctly.

1. Identify

A business must always start by identifying individuals who reflect both the brand and the industry. There are a range of tools that can be used to help identify the right people for the job including BuzzSumo, Klear, Keyhole, LinkedIn discussion groups, Followerwonk and ManageFlitter.

2. Initiate

Once you’ve narrowed the individuals down to a small selection of influencers, spend some time getting to know them. Marketers can forget about this stage, but it is incredibly important to establish a relationship.

Follow their Instagram accounts, Facebook profiles and Twitter to see what kind of thing your potential influencers are sharing. Use this information to then build an influencer profile in the same way you would build a persona profile.

3. Engage

Only influencers who are aware, educated and interested in your brand are considered to be assets so how you introduce yourself and your brand is key. Reach out and engage with the influencer by featuring them in your own content.

4. Create

You’ve found your influencers, you know a little about their interests and have started a conversation with them. The next step is to offer opportunities to your influencers to create content, campaigns and social activity. The content created needs to fall in line with the influencers’ values and reflect the needs of their audience in order to serve any purpose.

5. Nurture

An influencer could become a long-term friend of the business if you maintain the relationship so don’t just drop them once you have what you need, you never know when they could come in handy.  Regular follow-ups with influencers will keep them sweet and loyal to the company.