Social Media Marketing: Give, and you shall receive…

The type of friends, fans and followers a brand amasses on social media sites matters more than the number.  Successful social media marketing isn’t simply about amassing thousands of followers, but instead precisely identifying the most influential members of your audience and recognizing them for their value.  According to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report, approximately 1% of a site’s audience generates 20% of all its traffic.  These people we like to call the “influencers”, because they drive a higher share of customer conversion and can directly influence 30%+ of overall transactions.  Influencers are loud voices on the web and can/will recommend your brand’s site, products or promotions to friends.

The challenge in crafting a successful marketing program to motivate influencers is two-fold.  First, you have to use the right data and traffic analysis tools to find out who the most influential followers are.  Second, you have to connect with these people in an authentic, “non-salesy” way, and truly build a relationship with them –- because if you overly “sell” to your influencers, you’ll burn a bridge and potentially turn your biggest fans into your worst detractors.  Then, the challenge is to find out who these passionate people are and where they hang out online.  To do this, you need to use a social media analytics tracking and measurement tool that truly “listens to their conversations”; measuring website traffic, clicks on campaign links, conversions etc…

Next, identify which social networks, blogs, forums, and websites the influencers utilize and the methods they use to share content, whether it’s e-mail, social updates, tweets, etc..  Finding these sites requires some sleuthing.  Aside from digging deep into the traffic data, others ways to find these sites is to follow a number of active “experts” on Twitter and to ask them where they go to learn about and share content.

Interestingly enough, according to TrendsSpotting’s 2010 Social Media Influencers report, most influencers share (or, get loud) in pursuit of fame, not fortune.  They share links with friends and their wider social network because it makes them feel important, special, and useful.  Early on, engage these folks in a dialog around what they like about your brand and products, why they like it, what they’d like to see improved, and what types of opportunities and offers they’d be most interested in receiving.  My Piehead colleagues and I agree that brand influencers should be rewarded with incentives/promotions/deals to keep them as active brand proxy marketers.  This can include using your company’s Twitter and Facebook pages to call out public achievements, like funny or useful YouTube videos on relevant topics posted by your top influencers, or blogging about an interesting article, post, or tweet an influential member has written and/or giving influencers insider access to your brand via promotions/deals/incentives etc.  By finding and reaching out to your brand’s biggest fans, you’ll get access to thousands of new customers for the price of engaging a few.

After all, why not reward the people that tout your brand.