5 Techniques to Engage With Influencers

I feel a little overwhelmed with the endless advice on “How to engage with influencers” and “How to pitch bloggers.” Each piece I see keeps echoing the same recommendation: “Find out what interests the influencer or blogger and then pitch them that.”

Is that it? Sure feels like it’s missing a few steps. Maybe there’s actually something I could do that would actually get me to that point.

Here are some suggestions, but first…

Three universal principles for all engagements with influencers

An initial engagement with an influencer can result in another engagement, and then another. Do that enough and you’ll actually have a relationship. That’s the ultimate goal.

In a recent article, “Want influencers to pay attention to you? Pay attention to them first,” I explained the three basic principles of engagement:

1. Everyone enjoys being recognized.
2. Everyone enjoys a compliment (or debate).
3. Everyone enjoys giving their opinion.

For any successful engagement, always keep these three critical principles in mind.

1. Be an influencer yourself

This is the most overlooked, yet most consistent way to engage with influencers. The reason it’s constantly avoided is because it takes time to achieve.

It’s far easier to just broadcast a press release and hope a few people take hold. The problem is that kind of broadcast communications doesn’t seek engagement. It’s designed to see if anyone will parrot your message.

Once you’re seen as an influencer, you’re no longer perceived as a nuisance constantly broadcasting your own agenda hoping others will relay. You become an industry equal and a resource.

The simplest way to become an influencer is to just start a blog and write, video, or podcast about your area of expertise. As you well know it doesn’t work as simply as flipping on a switch. There’s a lot more to it. For step-by-step advice, read my Mashable article, “HOW TO: Jump-Start Your Career by Becoming an Online Influencer.”

People who don’t produce content online often feel overwhelmed. They claim they don’t do it because they don’t have the time. For those people, here’s a little advice on getting started. Read “Blogging advice for people who ‘have no time to blog.’”

2. Leave comments on blog posts because they’ll actually get read

Here’s something to keep in mind. Most bloggers read all of their comments, but they rarely read all of their email. A blog comment adheres to the first two principles of engagement: acknowledge the influencer and then offer a compliment or open a debate.

With that simple understanding, you can put yourself in front of bloggers simply by leaving a comment on an article they wrote. Do this a few times and they’ll remember your name. At that point you can follow up with a personal email and they’ll probably read it.

This “always reading comments” theory also works with tweets.

3. Send customized mass-mailed emails

Yes, customized mass emails can be done. Not only do they look personalized. They are personalized. You’re just merging the activities of mass emailing and personalized messages in a far more efficient manner.

The reason personalized mass mailed emails have gotten a bad rap is because they’re not personalized. We’ve been fooled into believing that just adding someone’s name and company in an email makes it “personalized.” It doesn’t. All you’ve done is identify the person you’re emailing in the message. Not a big accomplishment.

To personalize a mass email, you need to add some context. You can do that by simply adding a longer personalization field, such as “PERSONAL_NOTE,” just like you would have fields for “NAME” and “COMPANY.” Using the spreadsheet where you have all your contact information, add this extra field, and enter an introductory personal line. Use any personal point of contact you can. If you met them in person or talked to them before, recall the last conversation. If not, just reference one of their articles and maybe a comment you left. When you’re done, use Microsoft Word’s mail merge feature for mass emails to create all the emails.

For more efficient personalization tips, read “If you’re going to be fake, try not to announce it.”

4. Take an influencer out to lunch

Influencers are just like you. They like to eat. And they enjoy good conversation. Even the busiest people in the world have to sit down for a meal. A good ‘ole fashioned invitation to grab a meal (make it clear you’re buying) will usually be warmly accepted.

Not everyone’s ready to do that because they may feel a one-on-one meal will put them or the influencer on the spot. To soften the uncomfortableness of the meal and to actually make it a more attractive invitation, why not invite a group (keep it small) out to dinner? If there’s a group of industry influencers you’d love to have a relationship with, chances are pretty good they’ll already know each other and would love the opportunity to get together for a meal.

If that’s still too much cold calling for you, the other option is to find one person that has the industry connections you want. Invite them to the dinner and ask them to extend invitations to others for you. I’ve actually done this for clients in the past and it’s worked extremely well.

5. Give an influencer a ride at a busy conference

The best thing a company ever did for me was pick me up at the Las Vegas airport when I arrived to attend CES. It was seven years ago, and I honestly can’t remember what I saw at that show or who sponsored the parties I attended, but I do remember Podzinger (created by BBN Technologies, later became Everyzing and now RAMP)  picking me up at the Las Vegas airport in a gold limousine.

CES, the largest trade show in Las Vegas, is notorious for very long cab lines. Sitting in the limousine, having avoided a two-hour cab wait, I happily listened to Podzinger’s pitch as they drove me to my hotel. The pickup was an amazing service. I greatly appreciated it. I’ve retold this story to dozens of people over the past seven years, but I’ve yet to hear of anything like it since.

CONCLUSION: Always follow up

Whichever engagement technique you do choose, it’s critical that you follow up after the engagement. I’m stunned how this basic principle of human communications is completely lost on people. People rarely follow up when I hand them a business card. And worse they often don’t respond to my emails after they handed me their business card (for more annoyances like these, read “16 annoying communications that must end in 2011″).

Don’t let follow up be lost on you.  Take notes from your engagement. Those will be your personalization cues that you can use as touch points to send follow up information.

All it takes is a few of these back-and-forth interactions and you know what you’ve got? A relationship…with an influencer. Congrats, you did it.

Marketing Writing – What Are Clients Buying From You?

One of the biggest marketing mistakes we can make is not to understand what our target market clients are buying when they buy our services. We believe they are buying a service only, and that our job is to grab their attention through all sorts of marketing acrobatics. We want to impress them with our brilliance and credentials. The truth though that prospects don't care much about your brilliance and credentials until they have confidence in you. To make them feel secure they must know that you understand them and their problems. In addition, you must understand what they are actually buying from you when they buy your services.
1) One of the primary things clients are buying is our understanding of and appreciation for the problems they deal with.
Don't misunderstand this statement. This is about the problems that you solve for clients. They are buying your expertise in solving that problem. You must illustrate your depth of experience with clients having that problem. You don't do this with marketing writing that is all about you. What is relevant is talking about your clients' experiences of their problem.
2) Your clients are buying trust.
They believe that you are trustworthy to help them solve their problems. They will never develop that trust until they see that you understand how the problem affects their life. Typically, trust does not develop overnight. You must be meticulous over time in keeping your promises and agreements. You meticulously follow through in every way that you deal with your clients. That develops trust.
3) They are buying results.
The more quickly you can ensure that your clients have at least rudimentary results, the more quickly they will feel confident in your abilities. It is critical at the beginning of the client relationship to help the get at least a "taste" of the results they are paying your for. Give them visible results and you will cement their loyalty early in the relationship. Of course, ongoing consistent results is what every client wants, and it's smart to provide results in every session.
4) They are buying the solutions you provide.
They are buying the hope for that changed situation the long for. They are buying the contrast between the "before" and "after". It's important that your marketing writing shows prospects that contrast. They see themselves in that new situation no longer plagued by daily travails. They are buying the belief that this is what they will get from working with you.
5) They are buying relationship.
They need to like, believe and be attracted to you and your proposed solution. If they don't like you, they'll never want to work with you. If they don't want to be around you or associate with you, they certainly won't want to engage with you over time. Be sure that you base your business on your best relationship-building skills.
6) They are buying the secure feeling that their money will be well spent, not wasted.
They want to feel at peace with their decision to buy your service. Of course, they want to be rewarded for this faith. They need for their faith in you to be validated and to know that their money has been well spent. The more that you validate this with results not words, the happier your clients will be.
7) Clients buy logic and logical solutions.
Your marketing writing must describe results that your prospects see as believable, authentic, and attainable. When prospects can easily believe and grasp your description, they will be more likely to buy. If you oversell, hype, or make unbelievable promises, a sizeable portion of your target market will never consider your services for even an instant. Even if you are that miracle worker who can deliver on those over-the-top promises, prospects will seldom get past that overblown language long enough to check you out.
It's important to understand what prospects are buying from you besides your services. When you deliver on these unstated promises, it's much easier to attract and close target market clients.

Suzi Elton provides business writing that attracts targeted prospects to your service business and converts them into clients for you. She is a Robert Middleton Certified Action Plan Marketing Coach, as well as a professional writer. Her website offers a free series of 8 assessments you can use to analyze your own site.

Bing vs. Google: The Battle for Your Advertising Dollars

Bing vs. Google: The Battle for Your Advertising Dollars

How Hugh MacLeod's "Evil Plans" Became an Illustrated Business Manifesto

I Do the Work For Free Source: fastcompany.com

In his new book, Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination, , Hugh MacLeod teaches us how to a make a living doing what we love. In this slideshow, the author gives us a behind the scenes take on life and happiness. When MacLeod came to New York City he had nothing but a suitcase, a few boxes, and a YMCA reservation. The copywriter was lucky enough to land a freelance gig that turned permanent and life was pretty good. But as the work piled on, the rewards became fewer and fewer. Su...

Fed Forecasts Faster Growth as Economy Gathers Steam

By SEWELL CHAN

Published: February 16, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve revealed Wednesday that its policy makers had substantially upgraded their forecasts for how much the United States economy will grow this year, though they expect unemployment to remain painfully high for some time.

 Top Fed officials now expect the output of goods and services to grow by 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent this year, up from the previous forecast, released in November, of 3 percent to 3.6 percent. But their grim outlook for the job market was largely unchanged: 8.8 percent to 9 percent unemployment this year, only one-tenth of a percentage point lower than in the November forecast.

Growth expectations were lifted by an improvement in consumer spending in the fourth quarter, though Fed officials were uncertain how long that would last, according to minutes released on Wednesday of the Fed’s policy meeting in late January.

“On the one hand, the additional spending could reflect pent-up demand following the downturn, or greater confidence on the part of households about the future, in which case it might be expected to continue,” the minutes noted. “On the other hand, the additional spending could prove short-lived, given that a good portion of it appeared to have occurred in relatively volatile categories such as autos.”

At the meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s main policy arm, voted unanimously to continue a plan announced in November to purchase $600 billion in Treasury securities, the second round of a strategy that is intended to push down long-term interest rates and lift share prices. The strategy, known as quantitative easing, has been controversial — critics say it could set the stage for future inflation and asset bubbles — but the Fed has been fairly unified behind it.

The minutes indicated that Fed officials saw a diminishing risk of deflation, a protracted fall in prices of the sort that has afflicted Japan for more than two decades. That fear of deflation was a principal factor behind the decision in August to set the stage for the bond purchases.

Other economic reports issued on Wednesday supported the Fed’s view of an economy starting to gather some steam. The Commerce Department reported that new home construction rose by the largest amount in 20 months, and the Labor Department reported that wholesale prices rose sharply in January, driven up by gasoline and pharmaceuticals. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, the index rose by the most in more than two years.

The Federal Reserve’s own report on industrial production in January was more mixed. Factory output rose for the fifth straight month, spurred by strong car and struck sales, but utility and mine output fell, leaving the overall level of production lower, the first month-to-month decline in 19 months.

For their part, investors have been bidding up stock prices steadily since late November. In midafternoon trading, the S. & P. 500 index was about 0.6 percent higher for the day and 6.2 percent higher for the year.

The minutes painted a picture of a committee that was not quite certain about how long and painful the recovery would take from the 2007-9 recession — the longest downturn since the Depression.

“On the downside, participants remained worried about the possible effects of spillovers from the banking and fiscal strains in peripheral Europe, the ongoing fiscal adjustments by U.S. state and local governments, and the continued weakness in the housing market,” the minutes stated. “On the upside, the recent strength in household spending raised the possibility that domestic final demand could snap back more rapidly than anticipated. If so, a considerably stronger recovery could take hold, more in line with the sorts of recoveries seen following deep economic recessions in the past.”

Although food and energy prices have increased recently, especially in fast-growing emerging markets, the committee did not have a consensus on whether that development would lead to higher inflation in the United States, noting that the factors affecting businesses’ ability to pass higher costs through to their consumers were “complex and hard to monitor in real time.”

The minutes noted that most Fed officials viewed the large slack in the economy — that is, the economy’s underperformance relative to its potential — as “likely to remain a force restraining inflation,” and believed that while price declines were unlikely, inflation was likely to remain below its desired level (2 percent or slightly below) “for some time.”

Some participants also said that if the public doubted the Fed’s willingness to reduce its huge balance sheet — by selling the financial assets it acquired as a response to the crisis — when the time comes to do so, “the result could be upward pressure on inflation expectations and so on actual inflation.”

In recent months, the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has been adamant in saying that the Fed was ready and willing to curb inflation — and could even raise interest rates at a moment’s notice if it needed to.

The committee’s unanimous vote in January to consider the $600 billion bond-buying program, which is to continue until the end of June, surprised some observers, because a small but vocal minority on the committee had questioned the need for the program. But the minutes revealed that for now, the committee was unified on continuing the purchases, viewing the risks to doing so as manageable.

“A few members noted that additional data pointing to a sufficiently strong recovery could make it appropriate to consider reducing the pace or overall size of the purchase program,” the minutes stated. “However, others pointed out that it was unlikely that the outlook would change by enough to substantiate any adjustments to the program before its completion.”

Foursquare Source: fastcompany.com Foursquare's Dennis Crowley Picks His Favs From Mobile World Congress "It's crazy. Everyone in the world is here," Crowley says, taking shelter from the Barcelona rain in a VIP lounge here at Mobile World Congress. He sat down with FastCompany at the wireless industry's biggest trade-show to help us wade through the latest innovations in 3D, NFC, UI, LBS and ... EZ-Pass, the highway toll thing. "I find this to be an awkward size," he says while handling this writer's loaner phone from HTC, a siz...

Building Your Brand with Social Media

-Five steps to establishing a credible online presence for your small business-

Tapping the vast audience of the social Web is a low-cost way to catapult a small-business brand onto the global arena. Building your brand using social media allows you to develop new (and strengthen existing) relationships, which often leads to everything from brand awareness, loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing.

While perhaps initially daunting, the trick is to break the process into manageable pieces. From creating your online destinations to connecting with influencers, following these five steps will get you on your way to building your brand and boosting your business.

1. Create branded online destinations.

This is the first step to raising brand awareness and loyalty. Companies with the most successful social media branding surround consumers with online experiences that allow them to select how they interact with the brand.

Consider using popular, free options like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and so on. Of course, for small-business owners without the manpower to effectively manage too many destinations, you should consider testing each of these to determine which social media service you're most likely to stick with over the long haul. This will become your core destination. All your other online destinations should link back to the core.

2. Establish entry points.

One of the most important aspects to accomplishing this with your branded online destinations is to continually publish meaningful content that adds value to the reader's experience. The goal is to publish useful information that people will want to talk about -- and then share with their own audiences. This creates additional ways for people to find your branded destinations and it can lead to higher rankings from search engines like Google.

Here's one way to think about it: If you have a website with 10 pages of content, there are 10 ways for search engines to find your site. If you attach a blog to that website and write a new post every day for a year, you will have 365 more ways for Google to find your site, and your brand.

I call this the compounding effect of blogging. You cannot buy that kind of access to a global audience.

3. Locate your target audience and bring them back with you.

Where does your target audience already spend time? You need to spend time in those places, too, and engage in the conversations happening there. Get started by conducting a Google search for keywords that consumers would be likely to use when searching for a business or products like yours. Follow the paths that those consumers would follow and you're likely to find them.

Join relevant online forums and/or blogs, and write posts, publish comments and answer questions. Once that audience understands that you're there to genuinely offer useful information and not to self-promote, you can start leading them to your own branded destinations -- particularly your core branded online destination.

4. Connect with influencers.

As you search for your target audience, you should identify online influencers in those communities and get on their respective radars. To do so, leave comments on their blogs, follow them on Twitter and retweet their content. You can even email them to introduce yourself.

The key is to make sure they know your name and understand that you add value to the online conversation. This also exposes you to their audiences.

5. Give more than you receive.

Success in social media marketing depends on being useful and developing relationships. If you spend all of your time promoting then no one will want to listen to you. It's not a short-term tactic, rather a long-term strategy that can deliver sustainable, organic growth through ongoing, consistent participation.

A good rule of thumb is to apply the 80-20 rule to your social media marketing efforts. Spend no more than 20 percent of your time in self-promotional activities and conversations, and at least 80 percent on non-self-promotional activities. In time, you'll see your business grow from your efforts. And it starts with leveraging these fundamentals.

Facebook's Web of Frenemies

Facebook Inc.'s growing ambitions are redrawing battle lines in Silicon Valley.

As the seven-year-old company ramps up its hiring and adds new features to its social network, it is disrupting the businesses of established companies like Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and putting even more Internet firms on notice.

Facebook, which has more than 600 million users and was valued at $50 billion in a recent funding round, is grabbing online-advertising from Yahoo, Myspace and others. The social network is a potential rival in electronic payments to eBay Inc.'s PayPal, while partnerships Facebook is cementing with smartphone makers set the stage for competition with Apple Inc. and Google in mobile services.

Facebook's growing ambitions are re-drawing battle lines in Silicon Valley, with big established companies and startups alike considering how to work with -- yet maintain some independence -- from the tech juggernaut. WSJ's Geoffrey Fowler talks with Stacey Delo.

Meanwhile, Facebook is tussling with Google and Microsoft Corp. for top engineers.

As a result, many Silicon Valley companies increasingly have to decide whether to treat Facebook like a friend whose reach and user data can help propel their own growth, or a foe that can become a destructive force.
"Facebook is both a great competitor and a benefactor here in Silicon Valley," said David Cowan, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. "Anyone who's trying to get the attention of the young Internet user now has to compete with the dominant position that Facebook has there. On the other hand, they have opened up a lot of opportunities."

Facebook executives aren't shy about their aspirations. "We think every industry is going to be rebuilt around social engagement," Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said.

Facebook already helped spur a new crop of videogame companies designed around interacting with friends, Ms. Sandberg said, adding, "News, health, finance, shopping and commerce—we think similarly, all of these things will be rebuilt by companies that work with us to put social at the core."

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So far, Facebook's key battleground has been in online marketing.
In just two years, Facebook's share of online display ads has surged to 13.6% from 2.9% of the U.S. market, which reached $8.88 billion in 2010, according to research firm eMarketer.

Facebook's growth comes at the expense of companies such as Yahoo and AOL Inc., and the site is also likely taking ad money away from traditional media like newspapers and TV.

Yahoo has stopped trying to compete directly with the social network and instead integrated Facebook features into its sites, hoping to halt a slide in the time its users spend on Yahoo each month.

Myspace, which like Yahoo has struck some partnerships with Facebook, declined to comment. Myspace and The Wall Street Journal are owned by News Corp.

Jeff Levick, the president of AOL advertising, said he viewed the rise of Facebook as "complementary" because the companies are "running two very very different businesses."
AOL, he said, focuses on monetizing the content that Facebook users share. "The more high quality content we produce and is shared, the traffic comes back to us," Mr. Levick said. The top advertisers who are working with both companies are spending more with AOL each quarter, he said.
Facebook likely had revenue of $1.9 billion to $2 billion last year, mostly in advertising, one person familiar with the company has said.
Facebook has recently introduced ad formats that incorporate users' networks of friends—even their names, photos and postings—into the ads.
And Facebook has also turned its attention to the local advertising market, launching its own location check-in and deals services that bring together elements of sites such as coupon site Groupon Inc. and business reviews service Yelp Inc.
Groupon and Yelp declined to comment.
Facebook is likely to tread on more toes as it builds out what's known as a platform for the Internet, which other websites, cellphones and now even cars can use to build their own offerings to allow people to take their friends and preferences with them.
Some 2.5 million websites have so far tapped the platform, which lets them populate blog posts, news articles, product listings and other pages with Facebook's "Like" button.
With its platform play, Facebook is positioning itself as a partner to other tech companies—even Google, which allows YouTube users to share videos with their Facebook friends.

Facebook's Growing Ambitions

View Interactive

With more than 600 million global users, Facebook's growing ambitions are disrupting the businesses of established companies like Yahoo and Google. See key dates in the history of the social network.

• More photos and interactive graphics

"The foundation of a platform is one where people want to build on top because there is equal value exchange," said Dan Rose, Facebook's vice president of partnerships and platform marketing.
Still, Mr. Rose said Facebook intends to participate in new businesses that emerge from the use of its platform.
One case in point: Game developers such as Zynga Game Network Inc., among the first to find massive growth on Facebook's platform, now have to pay a kind of tax.
Last month, Facebook said it would require all game developers on its platform to use its in-house Credits, a virtual currency for buying things in games. Facebook takes a 30% cut from all Credit sales. Zynga declined to comment.

Facebook could later extend its Credits system to other areas of commerce, including physical goods, potentially making it a competitor to PayPal and Amazon.com Inc.

Mr. Rose didn't rule that out, but said the company had no current plans to do so and was focused on virtual goods for now.
PayPal President Scott Thompson plays down any rivalry with Facebook.
He said his company partners with Facebook, which lets people pay for Facebook Credits with PayPal. Even if Facebook gets deeper into payments, he said PayPal will be well-protected. "Payments is really, really hard to do," he said.
Yet many Silicon Valley firms are wary of Facebook's control over its platform and have turned elsewhere.
Online-dating service Zoosk Inc. launched in 2007 as an application on Facebook, where it experienced fast user growth. But in mid-2008, co-founder Shayan Zadeh decided Zoosk needed to expand to other platforms such as Myspace and its own website. It began to ask its Facebook users for their real email addresses, instead of just relying on Facebook as a means of communication.
Mr. Zadeh said he was concerned that some shift in Facebook's business model or platform strategy could destabilize Zoosk. "If you want to be a long-term established business, you have to establish a direct communication line," he said. Today, Zoosk has about 15 million to 20 million active monthly users; only about 20% of new users come through Facebook.

Facebook executives also have their sights set on smartphones, where they hope to become more integrated in the software on the handsets. Last week, INQ Mobile, owned by Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., unveiled a handset for the U.K. that prominently features contacts, photos and other data from users' Facebook accounts. More such arrangements are expected soon.

Such activity increasingly puts Facebook on a collision course with Google, Apple and others in mobile advertising. Mr. Rose said Facebook could eventually make money off its mobile efforts through ads and Credits, but doesn't have any plans for it at the moment.
Google declined to comment on Facebook, but in an interview last, year Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the two companies compete for talent but not for ad dollars and that Facebook users use more Google services than any other users. He also said that "you're assuming that if they do well we do poorly," but "winners tend to all do well."


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704593604576141350618351030.html#ixzz1E3Lf80OP

With all the social media platforms, do businesses still need websites?

Frebruary 2011 - 

Although more and more companies are starting to incorporate social media into their marketing strategy, websites are still a must for any business. Unlike social media, websites can still provide the best information about a company's products, services, mission statement, etc.

Then there is search engine optimization. While social media networks, like Facebook and Twitter, facilitate great communication between advertisers and buyers, websites are still the premier source for "findability or visibility" on search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

Let's analyze the example of a restaurant on search engines. If a consumer conducts a search for (restaurants San Francisco, CA), they may find a restaurant's website, but they may not find a restaurant's social media page.

Websites vs. Social Media

Without a website, a restaurant can only solicit fans or followers with discounts, events, or specials. But what if buyers want more information about the restaurant? Where will buyers find information about catering services, banquet space, or menu items? Yes, there have been some eateries that try to get creative and scan and post their menus on Facebook walls...not enough.

Websites, provide a complete spectrum of information that no social media network can provide. It can provide consumers with a virtual tour of the actual business, company history, mission statement, you name it.
At the end of the day, your business needs both social media and web development.