#BuildYourTribe - Who Are Your Influencers?

Identifying the influencers that impact your tribe is not a complicated task. It requires interaction, paying attention, focusing on what makes them tick, and what piques their interest. These influencers will automatically be gathering the types of clients and customers you want. The largest benefit to this is that they will have their own large tribe of people that might also be interested in what you have to offer. Building a relationship with both your influencers and the individuals that influence your target audience will open up opportunities for growth that you would find both difficult and time consuming to do on your own.

Here are three steps to help you find and engage with your influencers.

• You need to understand your community.
  This includes your customer base, clients, power partners, followers and brand advocates. Research your target audience. Educate yourself on their demographic, psychographic, and social media preferences. Be prepared to engage based on their wants and needs in the market they’re interested in (make sure you are completely mobile-friendly, for instance). Get to know your customers. This is part of building your tribe. Once you find them, pay attention to what they are following. Who influences them? Where are they finding support and inspiration? What information are they sharing with their own audiences?

• Now that you know your tribe and you’ve targeted your audience, you need to where to promote your business, product or service. Your observations should show you where your tribe congregates, so make sure you’re there. Which hashtags are the most popular, what social media shares do they engage in with your posts, etc. are very important. Start building both an online presence and awareness for your signature programs. Before you go courting your influencers, it is vital that you have a handle on your brand and what you bring to the table.

•  Find your influencers and the people that influence your audience. Follow them. Pay attention to what content they are posting and actively engage with it and make your existence known. This can be a slippery slope since you don’t want to come off as spammy or appear to be poaching from their client base. This works best when you locate an influencer that has a similar audience to you but offers a non-competing product or service. This would be an excellent potential power partner for you and allow you both to refer to one another. Share their content, engage with them, and make your brand stand out. Ask to do a guest post or interview them for your blog/podcast/YouTube channel. This is a nice reciprocal move as you will both gain more online presence and expand your reach.

Keep in mind that any influencer you cold contact will need to benefit from having a business relationship with you. Any influencer is an essential member of your tribe. If you abuse the connection, their influence could swing in the other direction, so keep that in mind.

Follow these three steps and you’ll find your influencers are just waiting for you to connect with them. Be patient, listen, and most of all learn what makes your tribe tick so you can utilize that information to #BeAwesome at what you do and continue to grow your own list and funnel. 

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

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