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Learn How to Create a More Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer Marketing Lee Odden

“Who is more influential to you than the people closest that you respect and trust?” – Lee Odden

In the time that I’ve been at TopRank Marketing, I’ve had the opportunity to witness first-hand how influencer marketing can be an incredibly powerful way to build credibility for a brand, and create connections with the right people.

I remember that one of my first experiences with influencer marketing was an interview that I did with Avinash Kaushik (that was of course facilitated by Lee Odden). I was overwhelmed by how humble and happy he was to collaborate with me. Why? Because Lee and the team at TopRank Marketing had found ways to feature him previously and begin building that relationship.


Learn How to Create a More Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy

2016: 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Follow

SMMW16 Influencers Social Media Marketing Speakers

One of the largest and most influential social media conferences, Social Media Marketing World, starts this week in San Diego.

Bringing together a mix of industry experts, influencers, brands, practitioners and social media enthusiasts, #SMMW16 represents a confluence of interests about all things social media that is virtually unmatched.

At the center of the conference is the program featuring big name speakers like Gary Vaynerchuck, Guy Kawasaki and Mari Smith. There are over 100 speakers in all that will be giving presentations and imparting their knowledge.

With such a concentration of authority, expertise and industry influence, I wanted to see who the most influential speakers are, relative to “social media”. The influence of a speaker affects who follows who and can guide which presentations to attend.


2016: 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers to Follow

[eBook] Influencer Engagement: 15 Ways to Fail & 25 Ways to WIN

Influencer Engagement - 15 fails and 25 wins

Schadenfreude (n.): Pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.

Who doesn’t like watching a good fail? As long as the subject isn’t seriously injured, we can all enjoy a hearty laugh at the guy who slips on the banana peel, the woman who gets her shoe caught in a grate, or the kid getting bopped by the family cat. Even if you’re the one who fails, you know eventually it will be a funny story you can tell at parties.

While these minor pratfalls are all in good fun, failing at influencer engagement isn’t as entertaining. Instead of a few bruises and an amusing anecdote, an influencer outreach fail can end your campaign before it starts. And there are far more ways to fail than you might imagine.


[eBook] Influencer Engagement: 15 Ways to Fail & 25 Ways to WIN

Learn Where Influencer Marketing Fits in the B2B Customer Journey

influencer-marketing-b2b-customer-journey

When you lose a potential customer to a competitor it can leave you reeling with questions and wondering what they did to set themselves apart and how they did it. Companies that work hard to be the best answer wherever their customers are looking and build trust and credibility early in the sales cycle are typically those that win new business when it comes time for customers to make a decision.

One way that brands can begin building trust and credibility early on with prospects is to incorporate influencers into content meant to represent different stages of the buying cycle. In fact, recent research has found that 51% of marketers believe that incorporating influencers into their marketing helps them get better customers.


Learn Where Influencer Marketing Fits in the B2B Customer Journey

Embody the Form: How to Master SEO & Influencer Marketing

mastering-SEO-and-Influencer-Marketing

Here’s a parable about SEO and influencer marketing mastery:

I can play the guitar. If there’s no one else in the room who knows anything about guitar, I can pass for a guitarist. Give me a chord sheet for your song of choice, and I can lead a sing-along like nobody’s business. Unless there are weird chords like C#m7, of course.

Stevie Ray Vaughan could also play guitar. In his hands, the guitar seemed like a living creature. It moaned; it wailed; it could sound happy or sad or righteously ticked off. Give him a backbeat and a bass line, and his fingers could fly up and down the fretboard, no chord sheet required.

So what’s the difference between my clumsy strumming and Stevie’s divine riffing? Mastery.


Embody the Form: How to Master SEO & Influencer Marketing

5 Steps to Perfecting Your Influencer Marketing Waltz

influencer-marketing-waltz

A well-performed waltz can move those watching it unfold on the dance floor. The audience can get caught up in the seemingly intricate steps and the flow with which the dancers move.

However, one small misstep can change the entire vibe for both the audiences and the dancers. As with dancing, influencer marketing can be both beautiful, and filled with stumbling blocks.

Influencer marketing has become a much larger part of the way that successful brands approach digital marketing. In fact, a recent study from McKinsey found that influencer marketing (which falls under Word of Mouth marketing) shows an average of a 37% higher retention rate and twice the amount of sales when compared to paid advertising on its own.


5 Steps to Perfecting Your Influencer Marketing Waltz

Influencer Content Marketing: The Art of Relationships and the Science of Software

Influence Content Marketing

Much of influencer marketing is about advocacy and as the industry matures and includes more digital marketing intentions than PR, I believe influencers will be viewed more as partners than simple proxies for message distribution.

Or at least as chatty dinner guests like the motley crew pictured above from a NewsCred influencer dinner (LtoR: Rohun, Bryan, Joe C., Alicianne, Joe P., Chad, Jon, Drew, Ann, Sheryl, Michael, Rebecca, Moi and Michael.)

It’s a very surreal experience sometimes being treated as an industry influencer one moment and then working on influencer marketing programs the next. But hey, I’m not complaining. Seeing both sides helps me empathize and pass those insights on to our consultants and clients.


Influencer Content Marketing: The Art of Relationships and the Science of Software

Having Trouble Connecting With Influencers? 4 Influencer Marketing Questions to Ask Before Your Next Attempt

Nick Ehrenberg
Nick Ehrenberg
Influencer Marketing

Influencer-Outreach

Does this influencer marketing scenario sound familiar? You’ve set up your initial influencer list full of high-profile names and a few up-and-comers in the industry, developed a compelling question for your outreach and just hit send on the first round.

Then, crickets.

Big, green, loud crickets.

What went wrong? Did you have the wrong list? Is there a possibility that the outreach somehow didn’t get to the influencers? Or maybe you said something wrong?

Influencer outreach has taken on a whole new meaning in 2016, and it has become crucial for brands to develop relationships with influencers. Getting the most from your influencers requires more than a simple email or InMail. You need to adopt an extended research and outreach process, cultivate the relationship, and continue it well beyond any campaign-related focus.


Having Trouble Connecting With Influencers? 4 Influencer Marketing Questions to Ask Before Your Next Attempt

5 Ways Influencer Marketing Can Grow Your B2B Company

B2B Influencer MarketingInfluencer Marketing programs for B2B companies tend to focus on a handful of marketing objectives. The thing is, like many marketing focused investments, influencer marketing can yield many more benefits than the simple act of a famous person in your industry saying nice things about your product or brand.

When B2B companies focus on influencer marketing solely from a campaign perspective, they miss out on the need to maintain relationships. There’s a lot of competition for well known influencers and relationships can keep the connection strong in your brand’s favor.

The future of influencer marketing is bright and with business to business marketers, it’s even more important to include influencers in ongoing marketing because buyers are so self directed in the sales process and they trust experts more than brands (Nielsen).


5 Ways Influencer Marketing Can Grow Your B2B Company

TopRank Marketing’s 2016 Influencer Marketing Predictions

2016-Influencer-Marketing-Predictions

This year, headlines throughout the marketing blogosphere proclaimed that influencer marketing is “the next big thing.”

At TopRank Marketing, we have been refining our influencer marketing strategy for nearly a decade. It’s our past, present, and next big thing. When done well, influencer marketing can boost brand credibility, provide valuable exposure for the brand and the influencer and create killer content your audience will love.

Now that influencer marketing has officially arrived, how will it evolve in 2016? We asked our in-house experts, and some of our favorite marketers outside the TopRank Marketing team, for their opinion. Here are the influencer marketing predictions for 2016.

Steve Rayson

Steve-Rayson
Director, BuzzSumo
@steverayson


TopRank Marketing’s 2016 Influencer Marketing Predictions

Content Marketing Tactics: Influencer Content Pros, Cons, Examples and Best Practices

Influencer-Marketing

While the world is more connected than ever, it’s also more cluttered than ever. Yes. It’s the age of information overload, and competition to get noticed is fierce. As a result, marketers are focusing on creating scalable content that gets shared more often and reaches more people by using influencer content programs.

Influencer marketing often refers to celebrities or brandividuals advocating for a brand. Influencer content goes beyond advocacy to focus on the actual content being produced for marketing. Influencer content isn’t something new, but the digital era has changed how it’s used. Influencer content marketing in its current form started gaining momentum in 2014, and it’s now the fastest growing and most cost effective marketing channel.


Content Marketing Tactics: Influencer Content Pros, Cons, Examples and Best Practices

Defying Gravity: Our 5 Most Shared Influencer Marketing Posts of 2015

Top-Influencer-Marketing-Posts-of-2015

If you have ever seen a space shuttle launch–and let’s pause for a moment of silence for NASA’s funding—you remember how small the shuttle itself looks on the launch pad. Even though it’s a massive vehicle, it’s dwarfed by the fuel tanks that will boost it into orbit. It takes a lot of energy to defy gravity, and the shuttle needs all the help it can get.

For marketers, influencers are the fuel that can get our content out of the gravity well and up where people can see it. We know influencer marketing gets results, and it’s great to see it emerging as a trend. Eighty-four percent of marketing and communications worldwide expect to launch at least one influencer marketing campaign in the next year, and 81% who have already tried it say influencer engagement was effective.


Defying Gravity: Our 5 Most Shared Influencer Marketing Posts of 2015