Base One blog article

March 03 2011 5:33 PM

Google & other search enginesAn obvious starting point would be to do an organic search by targeting your keywords to see the types of mentions listed. Search for “ball bearing manufacturing”, “e-commerce software” or “office cleaning services” or whatever your B2B niche is, and compile a list of the apparent movers and shakers. Social Media MonitoringMBuzz is a great tool to use [well, we use it anyway]. Editor’s choice in January 2011’s B2B Marketing Magazine, it allows you to set up the list of keywords and let the tool run. Most monitoring tools will start picking up results within the hour. Some tools such as Mbuzz have an ‘Influencer’ section that collates the profiles (whether they are a tweeter or a blogger) and tell you where, when and how frequently they are mentioning those targeted keywords. There are, of course, other tools such as Radian 6, Social Mention & Yomego in the market, so take your pick, but it’s always best to monitor to give you an indication of where and what context the keywords are being mentioned within. LinkedInA great place to start! LinkedIn will give you almost all the information you want to know about an influencer because essentially it’s a good way of blowing your own trumpet. Key elements to look for in each individual profile would be the company’s website. Does it have a blog? Do they own a twitter account? Usually, the more social they are the more exposure the content will attain. How many connections do they have? Quantity doesn’t necessitate quality so it’s always advisable to look through their connections. Lastly, look at their summary; some will state that they are speakers at very reputable B2B events or webcasts.And back to the search engines…Try going back to Google and doing a few more detailed searches. For example, search for “John Smith + speaker” [assuming the individual in question is called John Smith, of course - otherwise it won’t work.] This will highlight those people influential enough to have been invited to talk on the subject. For the same reason, try “John Smith + webcast”“John Smith + published” and so on. Video-Sharing SitesWhile on the subject of speaking and events, it would be advisable to do a search on the video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo etc for the speakers and the events they speak at or other events focused around your keywords. Essentially, this would pull up those much-wanted influencers. TwitterTwitter is a great barometer for how ‘social’ they really are. They may be hugely expert in your field, but a low follower count suggests they maybe don’t have the social media footprint you are looking for. Searching for keywords as hashtags on Twitter can throw up some good leads. Again, click through to the Twitter profile and see how they measure up.BlogsBlogs are excellent places to find the thought leaders within a specific field. When looking for influencers, it’s important to know what a thought leader can bring to the table. Inevitably, they will have passion for what they write and, to an extent, market relevance and reach. Someone like this that could really leverage your campaign. Another great way to find influencers is to look on the blogrolls of the blogs in your sector. If a blogger puts someone on their published roll, it is either because they like them, or think they might benefit from linking to them. The cynic in me thinks it is most often the latter…FacebookSearch for the keywords that the campaign is targeting and Facebook will accumulate a list of groups and fan pages. Have a look at the most active users within the group and the content they are posting on the wall. You might start to notice a few names if you’ve already done social media monitoring, LinkedIn and a Twitter search. And the result…A lot of the above may seem fairly obvious to those who are familiar with social media, but I find that it is a useful process to go through. Once you’ve followed these steps, you should have a list of people you need to talk to.But don’t forget that, in effect, you have defined a separate audience here, and you should plan your communications separately. So while you may be creating content for your wider target audience, you also need to plan your communications to this select channel that is going to help you reach your prospects. For example, it makes sense to visit their blogs, listen to what they have to say, learn what they are about and communicate with them as [important] individuals. If you send out a standard email or press release, you are undoing all the hard work you have done and in their minds you will be forever branded as a self-serving product-pusher rather than a useful person to know in your industry.The usual principles apply. Be nice, be generous, be useful and you won’t go far wrong.Image courtesy of citygirlny10305 via Creative Commons licence