Do you want to drive more traffic to your website?

In this article and accompanying video, you’ll learn the step-by-step approach we’ve implemented to consistently generate up to 10x our average daily website traffic.

Website traffic is the online version of potential customers walking into your shop. More people means more eyeballs on your products and services.

How Will This Website Traffic Strategy Benefit You?

We’ve been implementing this strategy since the start of 2016 and it has consistently generated up to 10x our daily average website traffic. I don’t want to be one of those marketers that “guarantees” results that sound too good to be true, but from our experience, this strategy works every time.

In addition to the obvious website traffic increase, this strategy also opens up opportunities to:

✅ Build relationships with influential people in your industry

✅ Increase your credibility by being mentioned by influential people online

✅ Increase your own online influence

✅ Learn from the most influential people in your industry

The image below shows the spikes in website traffic we got when implementing this strategy recently with the following articles:

• Digital Marketing 2019: Top 100 Influencers
• Social Media Marketing 2019: Top 100 Influencers

What Is the Strategy?

The strategy is focused around creating an article which lists the most influential people/brands in a relevant niche, reaching out to the influential people/brands to let them know they made the list, and then waiting for your traffic to skyrocket once they share your article to their large online audiences.

Ultimately, the strategy works because it’s human nature to want to share our achievements. In the current age of YouTubers and social media influencers, being “influential” online is perceived to be a pretty big achievement.

Imagine how you’d feel being listed in the “Top 100” list of influential people/brands in your niche — in the world! You’d find it hard not to share the article. We’re all prone to a humblebrag every now and again.

How to Implement This Website Traffic Building Strategy

Step #1: Identify a Relevant Influencer List Niche

To gain the most value from this strategy, you need to create a list of influencers around a topic that is relevant to you/your brand. If you run a tech company, it would be pretty odd to create a list of the most influential gardeners in the world.

One of the easiest ways to identify an influencer list niche is to simply create a list around the industry you work in. It could be “The Top 100 Most Influential Manufacturers/Bankers/Farmers” etc.

The only trouble with this is that most people have created these broad lists before. This is why niching down even further can work really well.

For example, if you work in the food industry, you could narrow the influencer list topic down to one of the following:

Ⓥ Vegans

? Vegetarians

?‍? Chefs (could narrow further to the type of chef)

? Food Bloggers

? Food brands

▷ Food YouTube channels

Step #2: Identify Influencers Using Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo has a handy Influencer Identification Tool that allows you to type in keywords and identify the most influential Twitter accounts based on a variety of metrics that demonstrate an account’s influence.

I won’t get into the technicalities, but the ranking is based on the relevancy of Elasticsearch. If you’re a bit of a geek like me and want to understand a bit more about Elasticsearch, watch the video below.

To identify influencers on your chosen topic, simply type in the keyword in the box provided and click “Search.”

Step #3: Export the Data

Once the search results appear, an “Export” button pops up next to the “Search” button. Click “Export” and export the data as an Excel or CSV file.

Step #4: Create a Well-Formatted Table

Once you open up the spreadsheet, it will look like The Matrix, but don’t panic. What we need to do with all this data is decide which columns we would like to add in a nice table that we can paste into our article.

Now, what you include in the table is up to you. Ask yourself two questions when deciding:

1. What can I include that will make it more likely for the influencers to share the article?
2. What can I include that will help easily communicate what the table is?

Below is a screenshot of the data we include: Rank, Twitter, Name, Page Authority, Reply Ratio, Retweet Ratio, and URL Share Ratio.

Once you’ve decided your headings, delete any unwanted data and format the table. We make the column headers bold and use capital letters, and also link the Twitter usernames to the listed influential account’s Twitter page (this increases the likelihood of them sharing the article).

Step #5: Create the Influencer List Article to Build Website Traffic

Once you have created the influencer list table, you can put together the article on your website. It’s important to include certain things in your article to boost the chances of the influential accounts sharing it.

Firstly, take a look at the examples below for inspiration and then go through the list of items below to ensure you include them in your article.

Example 1: Digital Marketing 2019: Top 100 Influencers

Example 2: Social Media Marketing 2019: Top 100 Influencers

Example 3: Top 100 Most Influential UK & USA Mummy Bloggers

Example 4: Top 10 Agriculture Influencers

Example 5: Top 100 Digital Marketers 2018

Step #6: Explain the Methodology Behind the List

I want to let you in on a little secret. A lot of “Top Influencer Lists” you see out there, even ones on the most credible websites, are nothing more than a list of people the contributor has chosen.

I wrote about this in this article, “Fake Influencers: Are You a Fake Influencer?” and it’s still a big problem today. Most of these lists are not backed up by data.

That’s why it’s so important to use an influencer identification tool like Buzzsumo and explain your methodology. It provides a level of credibility to the list.

Below is an example of how we explain the methodology when we use Buzzsumo.

Step #7: Include Images of the Listed Influential Accounts

If you include images of the influential people/brands, they are more likely to share the article. It’s kind of like when Starbucks’ baristas write your name on a cup. It makes you feel more special than if they just verbally said, “This is your coffee.”

We include these images in the header image, social share images, and thumbnails.

Step #8: Link Back to the Influential Account’s Profile/Website for More Traffic to Your Site

You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours? Linking back to the listed accounts provides them value and ultimately makes it more likely that they’ll share the article.

Step #9: Make It Easy to Share

Utilizing a mobile responsive social share tool like Sumo and adding Click to tweet links throughout the article make sharing the article a walk in the park. Again, this makes it more likely to be shared by the influential accounts listed.

Step #10: Contact Influential Accounts that Have Been Listed

This step is the most important of them all. You need to personally reach out to every account that has been listed and congratulate them.

Personally, I would not recommend asking them to share the article, people don’t like being told what to do. We’ve found sending a DM to the account on Twitter works the best, but you could email, message, etc.

“Content marketing is all about providing value, so focus on the same with influencers: give them something before you ask for shares in return.”

Susan Moeller

Below is an example message we’ve sent in the past.

Hey [first name]! We used [influencer identification tool] to identify the Top 100 [influencer list topic] in [year], you made it on the list! You can find the full list here: [insert link to list] Congrats! – [your name]

Conclusion

This strategy works. If you’re looking for a proven strategy to consistently deliver more traffic to your website, give this a go. Why not tweet me a link to your article when it’s published and let me know how much traffic it generated. ?

It’s easy to forget that marketing is really just the art and practice of influence. After all the buzzwords and technological bells and whistles, marketing is really about moving people from passivity to partnership.

Once you understand how to do this through building influence, your company won’t just enjoy more customers but more customers who feel an authentic connection to your brand – a profitable advantage.  

INSERT VIDEO SNIPPET HERE

Discovering Your Minimum Viable Connection

Minimum Viable Connection (MVC) is the bare minimum amount connection a brand needs in order to influence a potential customer. Until MVC is established, all other efforts will struggle. Just like you can’t have a conversation with someone who doesn’t know you’re in the room, you can’t hope to influence someone who doesn’t even know your company exists.

That’s why the MVC every brand needs to work for is attention. There are a number of other strategies you can later pursue for moving people from passivity to partnership, but it all begins with first getting someone to realize your brand is there.

Fortunately, there are four different channels you can use to reach MVC.

4 Channels for Reaching MVC with Your Market

Depending on your specific market, some of these channels may grab the attention of your audience better than others.

After you’ve read through each of them, it might be clear from experience which ones represent the most promising paths.

Still, it’s worth doing some research to see if your competitors have found any of them to be especially effective. As much as they’d enjoy having that channel all to themselves, I’m sure they’d understand that it’s important to share.

1. Borrow the Authority of Influencers

Influencer marketing continues to find fans across almost every industry, even among B2B companies.  

As recently as 2017, a survey of 272 marketing managers found that 28% said influencer marketing was the fastest-growing method for customer acquisition. That put it in the top spot over mainstays like organic search, email, and paid search.

If you’re not familiar with the tactic, here’s a great definition from Neil Patel, who’s no stranger to exerting massive amounts of influence himself:

“Influencer marketing is the process by which brands leverage well-known figures who have influence over their target markets to promote their brands.”

REPLACE QUOTE –SUSAN to do

In short, someone else has already achieved MVC with your market. In fact, they’ve achieved a whole lot more than that. They’ve made it all the way to the summit: holding influence over an entire group of people.

So, while it’s definitely wise to pursue a similar path and build your own authority, why not borrow theirs in the meantime to start influencing your audience ASAP?

REPLACE QUOTE –Express Writers – Already replaced quote.

If you’re already a BuzzSumo user, our Influencer Tool will make this much easier. Here’s some helpful advice from our own Steve Rayson, too:

“I would personally consider avoiding influencers with very large follower numbers as they are likely to be approached very frequently. I would focus on finding the niche influencers that are passionate about your topic.”

2. Post on Blogs Your Market Already Loves

A similar tactic for grabbing your market’s attention is guest-posting. Instead of allowing influencer content to carry your message, though, you’ll actually be the one creating it.

Think about what sites your market currently goes to when they’re in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. Where do they go to learn more about the challenges they’re facing and potential solutions? What would happen if an article you wrote was waiting for them with the answers they desperately needed?

You’d gain more influence.

The more you post on these high-traffic sites, the more that influence will grow. Clearly, you must know what you’re talking about if these websites are willing to lend you their platform.

As an added benefit, your site may receive a backlink from the website on which you’re posting. That would be great because Google tends to look kindly on links from high-quality sites. It tells them that your site must be something special and should, therefore, receive a boost in rankings.

3. Socialize on Social Media

There’s plenty you can do with your own social media accounts, as well. So, while you’re waiting to hear back from your pitches to influencers and authority blogs, stay busy by growing your social presence into one that commands attention.

The first way to do this is to create content based on what’s trending. You can try to manually survey your industry or simply use BuzzSumo to find out which topics are popular by keyword. This will help you join the conversation and even bring traffic back to your site.

The second way is by going out and engaging with other accounts in your market. Comment on their posts with your own thoughts or by sharing other helpful posts (not necessarily your own). Every day, make sure someone new knows that you’re a trusted resource and your influence will grow.

4. Enjoy the Spotlight on YouTube

Finally, video marketing is becoming an incredibly popular strategy with almost 90% of companies reporting that it’s part of their repertoire and 54% of consumers saying they actually want more videos from marketers.

With YouTube, you have a simple method for hosting your company’s videos, too. Just record, upload, and then share them on your website and through social media.

Better still, YouTube viewers have no problem watching longer content. When Pew Research analyzed nearly 700,000 random YouTube videos, they found that the average length was 9 minutes, 31 seconds. That’s a lot of time to make the most of the attention you’ve earned.

Build Influence Now and You’ll Enjoy It for Years to Come

Even though you know which channels to pursue for capturing attention and building your influence, you still have a lot of work ahead.

The good news is that, if you put that work in now and succeed at becoming influential, you’ll enjoy it for years to come without having to put in the same hard work. Sure, you’ll need to reward people’s attention by being helpful, but you won’t have to fight for it anymore.  

Build your influence with the right people and content. BuzzSumo offers influencer marketing solutions that can help you find and filter key influencers of any topic and location. It lets you also discover the content that keeps their audience engaged. Know how you can use influencer marketing with BuzzSumo.

As a company with an online presence, there is no shortage of goals worth chasing in an effort to see better results.

Website traffic is an obvious example. Companies are constantly investing time and money into boosting the organic traffic they are able to earn from search engines.

More and more, there’s another KPI that’s being treated with just as much – and sometimes even greater – priority. Many marketers realize that one of the best things they can do for a company is to build its influence.

5 Signs Your Company’s Influence Is Growing

Of course, influence isn’t a remotely new concept, but many companies were able to shift their focus in the Digital Age. With so much quantifiable data available about online behavior, it was easy to focus on clicks, traffic, and shares.

The pendulum is swinging back. In recent years, many companies that once dominated SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) have lost business to companies that wield far greater influence over their industries.

As Chris Widener explains in The Art of Influence, “Influence is the key to success. Influence is the art of business.” In short, it’s worth becoming influential.

So, if you decide to make influence a priority for your company in 2019, here are five signs you’re on the right track.

1. Greater Engagement and Community on Social Media

For the most part, doing well on social media means more than just linking to good content. You need to engage in discussions and provide helpful advice, as well.

Mari Smith, one of our favorite Facebook experts, is a master of community engagement.

The poll below has 752 votes, 136 comments, and 12 shares.

But, what really caught our attention was how much Mari joins the conversation with her Facebook Audience.

Because of her tremendous knowledge and her willingness to interact with people online and off, Mari commands incredible influence.

You’ll know your influence is growing when you receive responses to your social content, but also – and more importantly – when you see your follower-count grow. Increased traffic to your website from your social media accounts is even better still.

Don’t forget to keep tabs on how often your company is mentioned, as well. You might not always get tagged, so use a brand-listening tool and compare numbers month-over-month to see if your influence continues to grow.

2. Your Email Subscriber List is Growing

Moving people from passivity to partnership is a lot easier to do when you have their permission to contact them.

It’s even easier if they are looking forward to your next newsletter!

Ann Handley makes this point brilliantly when she describes email inboxes as one of the few digital spaces where humans, not algorithms, control what gets in (and what stays out).

(Speaking of Ann, her Total Annarchy newsletter is one of the finest to hit my inbox this century and one of the few I read to the P.S. every. time. it. comes.)

If your subscriber list is growing, you have an opportunity to build your business. When it declines, you’re losing ground.

When your subscriber list grows, you have more influence; when it declines, you’re losing ground.

3. Other Sites Are Linking to Yours

Similar to the last point, if you’re becoming more influential, you may notice more sites linking to yours. This will precede an uptick in traffic, too, because Google loves backlinks.

The reason you’re seeing those links is that companies know that Google appreciates when sites link out to other websites – not just interlink to their own. Google appreciates it even more when the outbound links are to high-quality, authoritative sites.

Connections to compelling sites also makes the human-readable content better. A statistic, example, or even just an idea sounds much better when the reader understands it’s coming from an authority.

4. Other Businesses Want to Collaborate on Content

Collaborative content can do wonders for a company, but only if the business pairs with respected brands. That’s why you should take it as a very promising sign if you get approached by another company because they would love your assistance with some new content. It means even your peers are now recognizing the influence you have.

Working with a partner on content also expands your resources to cover a topic well. We recently worked with Trust Insights on a piece comparing clicks and social engagement for B2B content.

BuzzSumo contributed the engagement data, and Trust Insights contributed the click data. The result is a unique look at successful B2B blogs.

Depending on the industry you’re in – especially if you run a personal brand – you may find companies approaching you for help with influencer marketing. This means that they think you’re so influential that simply supporting their products or services online would be enough to boost their sales. That’s proof you’ve become influential.

5. You’re Able to Lead the Conversation

Perhaps the pinnacle of influence is when your company isn’t just participating in conversations and chiming in with your two cents, but when you’re actually able to start and/or lead them. When your company can leverage its expertise to cover topics others don’t or take a unique viewpoint and see shares or traffic as a result, you now have the ability to move your market at will.

One example of an unquestioned influencer in the world of online marketing is Brian Dean. He made a name for himself years ago by realizing that backlinks were important, but that the vast majority of marketers were going about getting them the wrong way. It seemed like almost overnight he went from relative-unknown to sought-after master of SEO.

Take a look at one of his newest posts, The Definitive Guide to SEO in 2019, and you’ll see he’s still at it. While many in the industry continue focusing on conventional metrics, Dean is emphatically recommending readers prioritize dwell time, a metric that traditionally doesn’t get a lot of attention.

Make “Influence” One of Your Top Priorities

Here’s one of the best parts about growing your company’s influence: once you do, its power can last forever. It will take time and work to get there, but once your market sees you as influential, moving people from passivity to partnership will become less and less of a struggle.

That’s why you should make it one of your top priorities starting today. The sooner you have influence, the sooner you can begin wielding it for years and years to come.

Grow your business’s influence through influencer marketing. Buzzsumo offers tools to let you discover the best content relevant to your niche and the right influencers by location. Try it for free today.

There are a lot of myths about finding influencers. One of the most common is, “Influencers can drive awareness for your brand because they have large audiences on social media.”

The myth goes like this. If an influencer mentions me on social media, or an influencer shares something from our brand, it will drive awareness and traffic.

Most Marketers Don’t Look for the Right Influencers

Most marketers start and end their search for influencers on social media.

You can see how prevalent the tactic is by searching Google for the term “how to find influencers.”

The results reveal the dominant thinking about how to find influencers.

But influencers with large social followings and social media influence don’t always drive engagement, and engagement doesn’t always drive traffic. Here’s an example.

Example: Shared by an media account with 1,000,000+ followers

I write about Google Analytics at lot. Sometimes, the official Twitter account of Google Analytics shares my articles. I’ll admit, when this happens, my heart skips a beat. I stop working and walk over to Amanda, our Marketing Director, to brag about it. Then I print the tweet and hang it on my fridge.

The Google Analytics account is influential by any metric, no question. It’s credible, authoritative and big. But what’s the real business outcome from this share?

When I check traffic from that source to that URL that day, it looks like this: around 150 visits and one subscriber.

Yet this is exactly what a lot of marketers are chasing. In fact, some marketing departments are paying for this kind of outcome, hiring influencers to create exactly this kind of social posts.

Look Beyond Social Media to Find and Collaborate With Influencers

Shares, likes and comments are the most visible, but also the least impactful marketing metrics. But they aren’t always correlated with awareness, traffic and demand.

• Social media wins are short lived. Even viral events last for a few days at most.
• Social media wins don’t always drive traffic. They may be isolated on the social network, which isn’t where leads are born.
• Social media wins are harder to come by anyway. You’ve probably seen the BuzzSumo research.

It’s for these reasons that digital marketing managers resist the lure of social media metrics. Most of the marketers I know would trade 100 likes for a single email subscriber any day.

But we all tend to overvalue the things we can see, and social metrics are so very visible. I always remind people of Julian’s Law of Marketing Metrics: “The more visible the metric, the less important it is for your business.”

Which Influencers Should We Collaborate With?

Mark Schaefer has a great perspective on this. He says that there are three main types of influencers. The social media celebrities are one type, but all content creators are potential influencers. And really, anyone who shares content has influence over the reach of content.

I made this little diagram to summarize his point and then asked him for his input. He points out there aren’t hard lines between these categories.

“There is blending at all levels. For example, a celebrity, Gwyneth Paltrow is building her company goop through an authentic advocacy of products. A content creator might be paid for an engagement, etc. The model is a guideline but there are lots of exceptions.”

“Second, I think the the definition of ‘pay’ can be pretty wide. It really means there must be a fair value exchange. That might mean access, an experience, or a barter agreement. There are many compensation options.”

The 1% Rule

There’s a rule of thumb in internet culture that relates to community engagement. It states that within any given network online, 1% of users create content and 99% of users consume that content.

This rule applies not just within networks, but to the internet as a whole. Just a small percentage of people online are content creators. They are the bloggers, influencers and journalists.

Find and Focus on Content Creators

Here’s where the collaboration can have more durable benefits.

Smart marketers, especially in B2B, are finding and collaborating with content creators.

Andy Crestodina

Thinking beyond social, there are loads of content creators that you may have otherwise overlooked.

• Editors of the publications your audience subscribes to
• Writers of the articles your audience reads
• Podcasters of the shows your audience listens to
• Organizers of the events your audience attends

But traditionally, we’re looking for bloggers and authors, journalists and editors. These are the people who create, publish and promote everyday. And our friends at BuzzSumo make it easy to filter this 1% from the rest.

Connect, Co-Create, Collaborate

Once you’ve built your list of possible collaborators, start interacting on social media. You’re using social media for influencer marketing, but as a networking tool. You’re sharing their work, adding your own POV, showing thoughtfulness and gratitude.

Once there’s a bit of a relationship,

• Ask them to provide a quote for something you’re working on.
• Invite them to contribute to a roundup on a relevant topic.
• See if they’d be open to an email interview. Sent them questions.
• Offer to write something for their audience if they accept guest posts.

Regardless of the ask, it’s never cold (you’ve already been interacting online) and it’s always relevant to recent topics (you’ve been reading what they’ve been writing).

This type of collaboration with other creators increases the value of your content exponentially.

Need more inspiration?

Here are some examples of content created collaboratively:

BuzzSumo and Backlinko teamed up to create an analysis of 912 million blog posts.

TrustInsights used BuzzSumo data to create a understand what factors predict clicks to B2B content:

For her look at Content Distribution, Heidi Cohen worked with BuzzSumo to create her case study about what the company could have done to distribute a piece of content more effectively.

Joint research projects like the annual survey of B2B marketers done by Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs may be the gold standard for collaboration, due to their complexity, high production value, and lasting impact.

The results of research can be stretched even further by including additional comment from industry leaders when publishing the results. The Orbit Media Studios Blogging Statistics and Trends showcases this approach.

“If you’d ever like to collaborate on anything at all…”

This is one of my secrets. Whenever I’m emailing or direct messaging with a content creator, I type this one simple sentences at the end of the messages:

If you’d ever like to collaborate on anything at all, don’t hesitate to reach out!

When you write this and they read this, they’ll pause and think about the possibility of making something together. If they have a podcast, they may consider having you on the show. If they run a Twitter chat, they might consider you as a guest. They might need a contributor.

I’ve typed it so often that I once joked during a presentation that I should set up a tool that types it for me. As it happens, Susan Moeller was in the audience and later suggested a text expander. I installed it right away.

To this day, whenever I type the letter a three times, it expands to that magical sentence.

Do it for love, not likes

The social metrics may be super gratifying. The social influencers are highly visible. But a collaborative content project is better for your marketing and far more gratifying. The content is more durable and the relationships are stronger.

The best outcome of “influencer marketing” is friendship.

Few abilities will serve your marketing goals better than being able to wield influence.

This doesn’t just refer to moving leads through your funnel, though.

Influence is also a powerful tool for moving people from passivity to partnership.

Grow your influence and you will also grow a network of people who can help you build your brand, find new leads, explore opportunities, and much more.

The 6 Essential Stages of Influence

One of the reasons influence is such a powerful force is because it usually takes so much time to build.

“If you’re influential, you have both authority and the trust of others.”

Nether tends to come overnight.

Fortunately, at BuzzSumo, we know a thing or two about building influence.

Here are the six essential steps you must master in order to become influential.

1. Identifying Your Audience

The first step is simple: whom do you wish to influence?

Fortunately, you probably already know the answer because it’s the people who make up your market.

What you may have to give more attention to is where this audience likes to consume their content. When it comes to building influence, this means asking:

• Which social media channel do they like most?
• Which blogs do they follow?
• Which conference speakers do they line up to hear?

You don’t want to spend all of your valuable time posting on Instagram when it turns out your market is spending all of theirs on YouTube. Nor do you want to get a coveted guest post spot at the wrong blog.

2. Grabbing Their Attention

According to Social Media Examiner’s 2018 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, here are what more than 5,700 marketers said were their most commonly utilized types of content:

• Visual Images: 80%
• Videos: 63%
• Blogging: 60%
• Live Video: 35%
• Podcasting: 9%

Another good place to look for inspiration is the current influencers in your market. What go-to posts seem to be grabbing their attention?

If you want help to discover influencers, try our Influencer Search. You can search any industry to see who has the biggest following. Then, start studying the influencers’ posts to see what works best.

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Even after you’ve done your research, it’s usually a good idea to experiment a bit with what your market likes most. You may find an opportunity those other influencers missed. Regularly check your analytics to see how much progress you’re making.

3. Building an Authentic Connection

Engagement is great, but it’s not the same as growing your influence. That requires authentic engagement, as well.

Do your best to respond to everyone who comments on your posts.

But here’s the thing: your response has to be thoughtful, not generic. Ideally, it should be helpful, as well. Saying “thanks” is great, but if you can also give the commenter actionable advice that will somehow improve their life or business, you’ve made an authentic connection.

Marketing rockstars Andrew and Pete made this point well when I chatted with them at a recent conference.

If someone came up to you in public and told you how much they admired your work, Andrew says. You wouldn’t just give them a thumbs up and walk away, Pete says. Ouch.

They are right!

We need to follow the same etiquette in our digital interactions.

As hard as this may be to believe, you might even receive some negative comments every now and then. A couple might be downright nasty.

If you think you can engage the person in a productive conversation, give it a shot. Otherwise, it’s best to move on.

4. Developing Ongoing Communication

Building a loyal following is a two-way street in terms of communication. If all you do is post and wait for comments, you could still become influential, but it’s probably going to take an extremely long time.

A better tactic is to develop a solid strategy for collaborating with influencers.

At the very least, you’ll want to consistently comment on other people’s posts, especially those with whom you’d like to partner someday.

While your comments need to be relevant, they can take on many forms. You can add your two cents, ask a question, share posts that you think they’d find interesting (don’t only share your own, though), or even take a stab at humor.

The important thing is that you continuously make positive impressions, both by posting to your own account and commenting on others’.

5. Ask for the Decision

When your analytics tell you that you’re clearly building social-media momentum and your level of influence is rising, it’s going to become time to start prospecting would-be partners. Don’t expect them to come to you and don’t assume the incentive for partnering-up will be obvious.

In 1984, social psychologist Robert Cialdini wrote what many people still believe to be the seminal text on influence, the aptly named, Influence. Among other things, he discovered what may be the most powerful word in all of persuasion: because.

Why?

Because, according to Cialdini, “A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason.”

So, even though you’ve invested a lot of time and energy into those last four steps, don’t forget to provide a “because” – a compelling reason – for people to become partners.

Remember: “partnership” means both of you should stand to gain something. Make sure they know the benefit of moving from passivity into becoming your partner.

And, make their part of the arrangement valuable. Offer something of value — free access to your platform, access to your audience, promotion of their content. Be creative!

And even if your end goal is to be able to move the masses, don’t be afraid to reach out directly to any potential partners you’ve already engaged with through social media. Research shows that just 20% of marketers have used these apps for marketing purposes.

6. Reflect on Your Efforts

How’d it go?

Do you have a long line of people who can’t wait to partner up?

No matter what your result, take time to reflect on which efforts paid off and which didn’t have their intended effect.

The Secret to Building Influence

Like all things, becoming influential will take practice. As I mentioned at the beginning, building influence takes time, too.

However, any success is also another opportunity to attract new partnerships through social proof (even user-generated content can be great for this). Show off the new allies you’ve won, grab attention by doing so, and you’re ready to get started back on step #3.

Good things may come to those who wait, but something as powerful as influence is earned by those who work hard, over and over. Get started today and, little by little, you’ll find more members of your market paying attention to what you have to say.