We've already covered how third party endorsement can be incredibly valuable for your brand. And influences can be a really excellent source of third party endorsement. In this lesson, we're going to cover how you can engage with influences. How would you define an influencer influencers are people or organizations that have credibility and a decent following, and they use this credibility to influence or persuade others usually to buy things. They usually people who have built solid and loyal followings through activity on social media, they've spent a lot of time cultivating the followings. And if they believe your product or service will benefit their audience, they might be willing to promote it for you.

Celebrities are one type of influencer. But there are also many smaller more niche influences called micro influencers, who might hold sway in the eyes of your particular audience. And then there's what's known as macro influence. who tend to be experts in a field and have therefore amassed large followings. So an influence is slightly different from a brand new investor, which tends to be a customer who actively promotes your brand. Although they can be some crossover, how do you work with influences, you usually have to pay them although you can try reaching out organically.

But remember that they need to protect their own reputations and maintain their authenticity, which is what would have helped them build the network in the first place. So you can't just pay an influencer and then have free reign over their social feed to promote your product. You need to work with them to find mutually beneficial ground. They might write a blog or video post about you. share one of your posts on their social feeds allow you to guest post on their site. Review one of your products or services allow you to sponsor a blog post produce a promotional piece of content to share within networks mentioned you and their social posts, retweet, share or regram you Social posts, promote a competition or a freebie, or attend an event of yours and promoted.

How much you have to pay will very much depend on the level of influence that this person or account has. Kim Kardashian, for example, charges up to $250,000 to promote something to her social following. A micro influencers might be closer to your budget, the best influences are relevant either to the product you're selling, or your business as a whole, have plenty of clout. For example, their influence extends to a sizable chunk of your market hang out in the right locations, which means they use the same social networks as your target market, and they're accessible in that there's a good chance that you'll be able to engage with them how to find influences, there's no simple answer to this. I wish there was a huge and comprehensive and up to date database of all the influences in all the industries in the world. But such a thing doesn't exist yet.

So like with your media list, you'll need to keep your influencer list dynamic and constantly changing. And you'll need to use a number of sources to build your list. I would use Google News search. So find articles in your field and look for who's been quoted. Google search for blog sites in your field. search on the social channels your audience is into.

You'll know about this from your audience research. Ask your audience so survey them or conduct a focus group. And then you can use tools to find influences. So for example followerwonk buzzsumo, hey press, social Crashlytics and the influencer marketing hub. How do you engage with influences? You can do so organically or you can pay?

The best way to engage with influencers organically is to help them build their own profiles and influence, which will get you on their radars. You can do this by asking to interview them for your own channels, particularly if they're promoting something which you can find out from their social channels. They'll be much more amenable to working with you quoting them in a piece of content you're writing but Keep it authentic. Don't just ego bait, sharing their content to your own networks, engaging with them. For example, when they asked for comments on their YouTube video, comment, create natural links to their content. These will help you build organic relationships with the influences, and you can then nurture these relationships.

If you have a budget, then it's worth paying. And the best way to do this is to contact your influencer directly. You'll be able to find a way to do this through their websites, blogs, social feeds, or they might have an agent. I usually recommend you ask for information on how they engage with brands, as they'll probably have their own process. And you can tailor your approach to that. It's hard work, but it does work.

Then you get in contact with them with a highly tailored email stating who you are, what you have to offer, how it will benefit them or their network. And when this needs to be done by to avoid having your proposal relegated to file somewhere. This is just like hitting the media keep it super short and to the point they don't have to For too much detail or too many pleasantries, influencer marketing platforms will help you find and engage with influences. It's always a good idea to be very clear on what is expected of the influencer. And if you're paying you need a contract in place. What are the deliverables?

What is the timescale? Who gets to approve content before publishing? And do you get access to the community's data? And if so, under what circumstances, be careful not to work with influencers just because they're famous not to get too obsessed with numbers of followers relevance is much more important. Not to be too much of a kiss us and not to try to control them too much. quick recap.

An influencer is someone with credibility and a social following. You can often persuade or pay an influencer to endorse your product or service. Remember that influencers need to protect their own reputations and their followers. Finding influences is best done using a combination of technology desk research and speaking to your customers. Remember to be very care about the specifics of any influencer do. One important type of influencer is the business analyst.

And if you work in the tech sector, you'll definitely need to learn how to engage with these analysts. In the next section, you'll learn how