Yesterday, Genevieve presented some ideas on how to find your social media influencers in real life. Once you’ve found your influencers, the next question becomes, “how do you connect with them?” To give you a starting point, here are 30 ways to engage your social media influencers:

1. Ask your influencers questions

2. Ask them to guest blog

3. Comment on your influencers’ blog posts

4. Share their content with your social networks

5. +1 and like influencer posts

6. Link to their content in your blog posts

7. Ask to cross-post influencer content on your corporate blog

8. Make introductions

9. Ask for introductions

10. Give your influencers a shout out on your social networks

11. Invite your influencers to a Tweetup

12. Invite them to participate in a Google+ hangout or webinar

13. Ask them to provide feedback on your brand or product

14. Make changes based on your influencer feedback

15. Provide feedback on influencer content

16. Reward them with exclusive content or offers

17. Host an event to show them your appreciation

18. Give them a sneak peak of a new product or service

19. Thank them

20. Connect with your influencers on other networks

21. Ask an influencer to be your brand’s spokesperson

22. Invite them to collaborate on campaigns

23. Offer to work together to author or co-author an ebook

24. Ask your influencers to host a Twitter Chat

25. Host an event panel and invite your influencers to participate

26. Do a blog or video interview with an influencer

27. Engage with your influencers as people, not prospects

28. Ask them for advice on brand or industry topics

29. Add your influencers to a Google+ circle and share it with your community

30. Create a Pinterest board with your favorite influencer content

These are a few ways to reach out to and engage with your influencers that can easily be incorporated into your existing social media strategy. Start with one or two and go from there to find the approach that fits best with your brand and your community.

How are you currently engaging with your social media influencers? What suggestions can you add to the above list? For more tips on engaging your influencers, be sure to check out chapter 3 of our latest ebook, Win Over Your Industry’s Social Media Influencers.

Note under Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines, any relationship where payment or other compensation is received for an endorsement or testimonial must be fully disclosed. You can read more about full disclosure and what it means here.

We recently shared a post and video about the United Nations Development Program‘s social media efforts, in case you missed it, you can find it here. This week, we have the second video in this two-part series, featuring Sebastian Majewski from the UNDP once more. He’s been using Radian6 to help identify stakeholders for UNDP and create a network of influencers.

The UNDP has experienced the power of using social media to find interested parties actively talking about relevant issues. It means that their supporters can make their voices heard within the organization, and it means the UNDP can gather feedback on important issues and share this across the organization. Social media allows citizens from every corner of the world to make their voice heard, and for the UNDP this means they can hear from those in developed and developing nations, giving them a more complete view of the issues impacting citizens.

Listen as Sebastian explains what identifying stakeholders does for the UNDP, and how it’s impacting the work they do when they bring the information gathered from social media monitoring back to the General Assembly.

Creating an influencer network can be a powerful tool. It can help you bring the voice of your fans, customers, and supporters into your organization. It can help you share information and ideas with the right people and keep a pulse on the issues or trends that are impacting your organization or industry.

Have you started to identify your influencers? 

There’s never been a more exciting time to be involved with an agency. Whether you’re part of an advertising agency, a digital agency, or work for a public relations or market research firm, Radian6 has real-time solutions to help both you and your clients succeed in the social space.

The software industry is full of innovators; after all, you’re in the business of being ahead of the curve. With this commitment to technological know-how, there’s no better time to enhance your involvement on the social web. We’re using our Software as a Service to help strengthen your online connections through facilitating engagement between your brand and its fans. We’re also keen on getting you in the loop on competitor developments, and helping uncover the influencers in your industry. The conversations you can discover are endless – what are you waiting for?

Get Started

We’re here to Help

You’re already active on the social web, but maybe you feel like you could use a little help on really getting your message out there. With Radian6, you can use the social web to engage with your influencers, track industry and competitor trends, and generate more sales. And that’s all just the beginning. Take a look and see how social media monitoring can help grow your business like never before.

Connect with your Influencers

Just like in a crowded room, some voices travel further than others. We call those people influencers. Your influencers can potentially become your biggest allies on the social web, helping you put your fingers on the pulse of industry news, and spreading your message to those who it might not have reached. They’re the online cool kids that everyone wants to be friends with, and you don’t want to miss out. Want to learn more about measuring the ROI of communicating with influencers? Check out our ebook on the topic.

Track Industry Trends

While it’s important to understand the conversations surrounding your brand, it’s also key to figure out what’s trending in your corner of the software industry. Social listening can help you uncover everything from whether or not certain software features are driving more demand, or if there are discussions going on surrounding industry-wide pricing. We’ll work hard to make sure you’re never the last to know.

Monitor your Competitors

Once you’re tuned in to what’s being said about your organization, it’s time to uncover discussions concerning your competitors. Check in to see if consumers are offering up their thoughts on their most recent customer service issue with your rivals. You might even discover that your competition is discussing their latest product innovations. Social listening can help you uncover all of this information, and more, giving you a real competitive advantage.

Generate Sales Leads Online

Connecting on the social web is like hosting a booth at an ongoing trade show. You’re already hanging out online, sharing interesting content surrounding your organization and its role in the software industry. Hopefully this is helping you engage your audience in dynamic conversations about your brand – you might even uncover previously unknown groups who are discussing your products. All of these voices are potential customers – and now that you’ve located them, you’re in a great position to create meaningful sales relationships. Just think, a conversation today could be the software sale of tomorrow.

Contact Us

This Use Case for the Software Industry discusses how organizations are gaining competitive knowledge, amplifying their supporters and building a community around their brand by leveraging the power of social media.

As Genevieve Coates proved in yesterday’s post, sports ties in well with the world of standardization. They practically wrote the book on it. But sports also has another trick up its sleeve. They can identify their diehard fans. Sports fans often sport the attire, they fill stadiums and you might see their smiling faces from skyboxes and season pass seats behind the dugout.

But when it comes to brands outside the sporting arena, true fans do not have assigned seating. If you could pack a stadium full of your customers, it would likely be tough to determine how many are your ambassadors.

However, by finding and reaching out to your brand’s biggest fans, a.k.a. brand influencers, you’ll get access to more customers by engaging with a few. And there are metrics to identify and call out those brand ambassadors loud and clear. And you won’t even need a jumbotron.

How Many are Out There?

Brand advocates are hard to find because, well, there’s not a lot of them. As shown in Jakob Nielson’s 90:9:1 principle, only 1% of your community are creators of content. They’re running the show while the other 9% and 90% read, share and follow along. Pinpoint that 1%, and you’ve determined which individuals are most actively sharing your brand’s content. These are your true fans.

Finding your True Fans

Your fans are likely using the social web as their soapbox for brand advocacy. To find them and their conversations, go beyond the traffic, clicks, tweets, Facebook likes and conversions. Look at the conversations around your brand and see who’s leading them. These are the people sharing your blog posts, talking up your product/service and associating your brand with the positive.

This month’s eBook has the details on the recommended brand advocacy metrics such as Net Promoter Score, Brand Advocacy Quotient and MotiveQuest’s Online Promoter Score. These measurements help identify influencers and their level of passion.

This approach will take some digging. Ensure you’re focused on the advocates themselves versus the overall positive sentiment.

What are they Talking About?

Now that you know who your influencers are, find out what content they frequently share. Perhaps it’s deals or links to your blog posts. Maybe it’s relevant articles that mention your brand. Mashable has a great post on this subject. In the post, they discuss ways to dig deeper with this group with user segmenting such as shoppers, gamers and entertainers.

The concept here is motivation. You can deliver favorable content to your advocates now that you know what makes them tick.

But that’s not All

Don’t leave the 9% and 90% in the dust. Without them, your 1% has no one to read and share their influential information! It’s still important to get the masses involved and engaged but utilizing a brand ambassador strategy could certainly expedite the process. As Augie Ray states in his blog, “The key to success for brands isn’t to get a couple key bloggers and Twitterers talking… Instead, the key to unlocking influence is to get the masses talking, which is a much more difficult challenge.”

Continue to talk to your stadium of customers but pay special attention to those season ticket holders. As your campaign unfolds, use the metrics above and see how results change. Then, refine your strategy and go back on the field. It’s game on.

Have you identified your brand ambassadors? Tell us about them!

The “Age of Interruption” is over. Brand perception is no longer influenced only by advertising, public relations and corporate messaging. Brands are now a sum of the conversations about them. Those conversations are happening everywhere and now being shared across the social web. Traditional marketing has changed. Social Media has created new and exciting ways for brands to engage with consumers and build fans.

Play

Listen and measure social conversations

Are people talking about you online? Learn who is talking about your brand and what they are talking about. Discover how your brand, product or service is being perceived by your community online and identify advocates that can influence public sentiment about your company and products.

Shape your brand with social media marketing

Understanding the health of your brand is easier than ever. Monitor public perception of your company and products on the social Web and understand the volume, overall sentiment, key demographics, influencers, and more. Look for trends, adjust your plans, and engage where you can make a difference.

Gain social market intelligence

Get a deeper understanding of what’s important to your customers, what is influencing their decisions and how they feel about your competitors. Stay ahead of emerging trends and get meaningful intelligence to guide decision-making and marketing planning.

Measure campaign effectiveness

Are your Marketing efforts generating the results you expected? Use social media monitoring to understand what is driving conversations and the “why” behind your social traffic, such as in-depth sentiment, demographics, likes and dislikes, and more. Adapt content and messaging based on campaign buzz and analytics.

Interested in hearing what people are saying about your brand? Click here to get started with Radian6.

“Influence – the power to sway or affect based on prestige, wealth, ability, or position”

Social media is all abuzz these days with talk about influencers – the social media rockstars with tens of thousands of followers and friends. Word of mouth marketing isn’t new, but today with social media its reach is out of this world. Smart, socially savvy corporations are hitching their wagons to these people, in order to spread their gospel. But – as with every trend – it pays to stop and think for a minute, before hopping on the train.

There are a few things businesses need to think about before reaching out to an online company advocate:

• How will you measure the influence of your influencer?
• What do those big follower numbers really mean?
• How do you track whether sales are directly related to an influencer’s positive blog post or great tweet?
• And with the rapidly changing tides of public opinion these days, should you invest heavily in an influencer who might have a short shelf life?

Our Social 2011 panel What’s the Value of Influence? is set up to tackle those questions and more. Panelists Chuck Hemann, Vice President, Digital Strategy & Analytics, Ogilvy PR Worldwide; author Philip Sheldrake; and Andrea Werdling, Director of Online Experience for Beachbody will be exploring the differences between influence and popularity, best practices for identifying key influencers, as well as looking at how businesses are measuring the impact influencers are having on their community.

At the end of the day though, no matter who spreads the word about your product or service, that product or service had better deliver.

Author Geoff Livingston nailed it not long ago with this: “A tow boat can only take a freighter out to sea, but if the actual ship is not sea-worthy it will sink with or without the tow. Similarly, influencers can only draw attention to something, but they can’t make a business, cause or idea succeed over the long term.”

What are your thoughts on influencers, good and bad? Are they just the latest thing, or an important part of your business strategy? And what other questions would you like our panelists to speak to? As always we value your input, so feel free to leave suggestions and comments below.

Stacy DeBroff is the founder of Mom Central, a one-stop web resource dedicated to providing busy moms with smart household and parenting solutions. She also heads up the company’s consulting arm, where she and her team provide strategic advice and resources to companies who want to reach the powerful Mom market.

Stacy is a powerhouse of information and insights about how the social web is changing the game for companies and brands, and compelling them to understand customer loyalty in ways they never have before. Her deep bench of experience in law, writing (she’s the author of several bestselling books) and the world of parenting gives her a unique perspective on how Moms (and Dads) drive buying behavior, and how social media has empowered them to have stronger voices than ever before.

So download and have a listen to our chat with Stacy where she’ll share thoughts on online influence and what makes it unique, ROI vs. SOI, the challenges brands will face with a new social web, and where Dads fit into the mix.