When I have a client that needs something launched in a big way I go at it with guns-blazing, concurrently pimping their social networks using ManageFlitter, buying followership if their Twitter following is pathetic using FastFollowerz, sort out a following strategy based on keywords and hashtags using SocialOomph, then jump headlong into influencer and blogger research using GroupHigh, Audienti, and InkyBee.
Then I jump in, feet first, and reach out to all the most salient and germane influencers by hook or by crook: I follow everyone who is in my demographic, be it via keyword or hashtag, I engage with them all, no matter what their mozRank, Total Reach, Alexa Rank, Kred, PeerIndex, Kred, Page Authority, or PageRank, or Domain Authority.
Creating real buzz, at least on Twitter, and in the Blogosphere, doesn’t rely as much about all those things, such as Followers, like SEO-focused social media marketing does.
Timing’s of the essence so go go go go go go go!
When it comes to campaigns like this, I get the explicit OK for me to leverage my own personal social networks — that’s why I work so hard on developing my 79 Klout — because the only online influencer I can 100% rely on is me.
So, the more force and impact I have o sole mio the more I can really make a splash on behalf of my client and their product, brand, event, offer, or service.
- Twitter: @chrisabraham: 51.5k followers
- Facebook: /chrisabraham 5k followers
- Instagram: /chrisabraham 7.5k followers
- Vine: @chrisabraham 1k followers
- YouTube: /chrisabraham 3.5k followers
- Periscope: /chrisabraham 605 followers
- Tumblr: chris-abraham.com 451 followers
Buy 10,000 Followers!
So many worthwhile organization and companies have very many followers. I always recommend that an account have at least 10,000 followers before I put my my mad skills to work on them because my mad skills have a lot more room to work when there are more followers. So I recommend buying followers, at least at first (and not for the followers, but because Twitter has limitations on how many profiles an account can follow based on how many are already following).
I personally use Fastfollowerz and spend a little extra money — OK, three-times the money — to buy accounts that are more germane to the owner of the account (such as US only, etc). Some clients really don’t like doing this because they often don’t consider things like buying followers to be “authentic” — and it’s not — but it’s not me, it’s Twitter’s fault for putting lame limitations in there. For example, for $299 you can buy 10,000 targeted followers targeted by location and keyword and with a guarantee that the followers have active accounts.
Audienti & SocialOomph & ManageFlitter
I have had some amazing luck using automation tools that allow me to automagically follow everyone who has the correct keywords, bio, or hashtags. Once you have someone’s attention, you can then see if they’ll follow you back. Once they follow you back there’s a better chance that you’ll be able to influence them. While SocialOomph and ManageFlitter are following and follow-back tools, Audienti is a local MD business that has done an amazing job of doing automated influencer marketing.
The Keys to the Kingdom
While I am always more than happy to personally use @chrisabraham, etc, as the campaign account, it would benefit the campaign if my clients were to allow me to have admin access to their Twitter and Facebook Page.
#Hashtagging and Copying/Stealing
While most clients have already chosen their home hashtag, it’s really important to do some serious research as a discovery to see which hashtags, followers, and keywords all your brother, sister, and competitor organizations, brands, and companies.
I know, I know “hijacking” is such an ugly word, but it’s the most efficient way of finding your most salient and topical birds of a feather Twitter profiles and campaigns.
Luckily, once you discover all of these hashtags, it also allows you to find the profiles and users who use them so that you can not only follow them but also follow everyone they’re following as well as the people who follow them, too. One can easily go down the rabbit hole on this, which is why everyone needs to have at least 10,000 followers!
Influencer Outreach (Earned Media)
It’s essential that we only engage people who already have and feel the synergy with your campaign. While influencer outreaches are generally used to reach the readers of the blogs and the platforms, influencer outreach using emails and reaching out to people who have their own social media platforms, allows for de facto direct messaging, which means we can reach out directly to your ideal vertical to let them know about your campaign (for their followers, wink wink, but also for them as well, wink).
Usually, I break up each outreach to A-List and everyone else. I reach out to the A-listers by hand via GroupHigh’s excellent blogger/influencer-dedicated social CRM — it allows me to track the outreach and, if I can’t find their email, I can still fill out their contact form or reach out to them via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or even DailyMile, if that’s what I have to do.
For the longer tail, I only reach out to people who have emails. And then I send out a blast.
For both of them, I need to come up with a client-approved message model for the email and other communications. Sometimes if a client doesn’t have all the messaging in one place, I collect everything into a landing page, something I call a Social Media New Release (SMNR).
Prep takes as little as a couple days or as long as two weeks, depending on how addicted you are to the hours of 9-5 versus the kind of workaholicism I am still way too addicted to at 46.
That’s how I do it, in a nutshell. I go into a lot more detail in my other blog posts. You should look around and check them out!
Good luck and go get ’em, Tiger!
