How to Use Social Influencers to Build Your Brand

Engaging your brand with influential people in your industry allows you to increase awareness, create advocates, and improve your online reputation.

It’s no secret that people appreciate recommendations from people that they trust above all else. This is why online reviews are becoming so important for small businesses–they are a direct way for consumers to hear what “real” and unbiased people have to say. Fortunately for brands, reviews aren’t the only way to improve your reputation. Social media is a great way to get the right people on your side. These “right” people are known as social influencers.

A Step-by-Step Plan to Using Social Influencers to Build Your Brand

If someone is influential on social media in an industry or with an audience, it means that the audience trusts him/her. Influencers can have an impact with a group because in the past they likely made themselves transparent and showed credibility. Your job as a brand is to turn these social influencers into social advocates of your brand to help build your trustworthiness. And hey, if you play your cards right, the ultimate goal is to someday become a social influencer yourself.

Below are five steps you can take to position yourself to work with social influencers to help build your brand online:

Step #1: Spend time finding the right influencers.

Of course the first and arguably most important step is to find influencers that actually matter. Believe it or not, social influencers don’t always stick out the way you would assume, and in many cases the ones that do don’t have much potential to really help your brand. This is where being able to analyze and identify influencers is key. A few things to look for:

• Relevance. They don’t necessarily have to be a part of your industry and your industry only, but they have to have ties to it in some way. For example, someone who is a social influencer for something that compliments your industry is still going to be relevant to your ultimate goal–building your brand.
• Engagement and reach. Part of what makes a social influencer is the fact that they have a large following. Take a look at not only the number of followers, likes, engagement on their social accounts, etc., but look at the quality. Are the people this person is influencing a quality audience, or do they seem spammy?
• Authenticity. Always make sure a social influencer is putting out quality information and not just endorsing things they get paid to endorse. You have to believe in what they say or they won’t be seen as a social influencer for long.
• Frequency in a community. Always check to see if his/her face pops up across the community you’re targeting. They need to be active often to be a true influencer that will make a difference for you in the long run.

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