Arik Hanson (@arikhanson) and Greg Swan (@gregswan) discussed connecting with online influencers in a BlogWorld LA panel called Blogs, Bribes and Blasphemy: Engaging Influencers in a Changing World.

They compared connecting to influencers to dating. Marketers need to go through a series of steps to get to know their influencers, just like you would with a date. The goal is a long term relationship with the influencer, rather than a quick hit for some publicity.

When looking for influencers, there is no quick solution or single tool. They mentioned several free and paid tools to discover influencers. As Klout is one of the hot topics in the influencer space, they pointed out that while it is nice for PR pros and marketers to have one number to focus on, a Klout score should be used as one of several criteria to identify influencers.

10 Tips for Engaging with Social Media Influencers
Arik and Greg offered the following tips to help PR pros and marketers understand how to maximize success with their influencer outreach programs.

1. Personalize and Individualize Your Pitch
Make sure you know who you’re contacting and why you are contacting them. Mass emails require less work, but are also less effective.

2. Be Brief
Keep pitches short, maybe as brief as a one paragraph email. A single tweet can also work if the influencer is a heavy Twitter user.

3. Don’t Focus Solely on the A Listers
There is more power in numbers, so rather than targeting a handful of top influencers, contact a greater number of second-tier bloggers for greater reach. They might also have more time to engage with you and the brand.

4. Don’t Forget About Offline Activities
When looking for potential brand advocates, offline activities make some choices better than others. A PR pro who is also a blogger is already a trained spokesperson and could be a great person to promote your brand.

5. Make Your “Ask” Compelling
Your request must be clear and relevant or you won’t get very far.

6. Lead with Them – Not You
The approach needs to be about the influencer, not the brand. This could include why you are contacting them, why you respect their work and what they are going to get out of the request.

7. Collaborate – Don’t Preach
Look for ways the brand and the advocate can work together and get some mutual benefit. If you are asking them to create content on their blog or other profile, offer to share it. If you want them to create content for you, make sure it makes sense for them.

8. Always Have a Follow-Up Ask
The goal is to build a long term relationship. After the initial connection, have something else you want the influencer to do. Even if it’s campaign related, there is always more an advocate can do for a brand.

9. Disclose Paid Relationships
Encourage full disclosure of payment or free products. (This is a legal requirement in the US.) As a brand, you need to remind influencers that this is required. Having this in writing can help you in the future if this disclosure doesn’t happen.

10. Measure, Evaluate and Adjust
Like any online program, you need to have metrics of success so you can evaluate the effectiveness of the influencer outreach and make adjustments for next time.

Are you conducting influencer outreach programs for your company or brand? Are they are other tips that you would add that have made your outreach successful?

Here’s a link to their presentation: Blogs, Bribes and Blasphemy: BlogWorld & New Media Expo

Jeffrey L. Cohen is a social strategist at Radian6 and the co-author of the forthcoming The B2B Social Media Book. You can follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen.

Tags: #BWELA, Arik Hanson, beginner, blogworld, Greg Swan, influence, influencer outreach, Klout, social media engagement