Your goal is to dominate the rankings. You have a clear brand strategy (see previous post) which means it’s time to start engaging influencers. If that seems like an odd leap then let’s consider some of the factors that might determine your success with SEO:
– Awesome content
– Links from related sites
– Social engagement
– Brand traffic
– Reviews
That influencer, assuming they are truly aligned to your brand, should be able to provide all of the above.
For example:
– Request to interview an influencer on behalf of one of your clients in return for a free/discounted product – easy
– Post it up on your client’s site – great content!
– They then share it with their audience – social traffic sorted
– You then turn it into an infographic and give it to them to use on their blog – awesome link from a relevant site
– They then give your client a review
– In the process they have also reinforced your brand’s positioning, credibility and reach
It’s the ultimate killing a shit load of birds with one massive stone strategy. And just to be clear, influencers exist in all markets, no matter how boring that market may seem on the surface. You just have to ask yourself, who are the big dogs in this industry and how do I get in front of them? For B2B these could be company directors or other industry experts. For B2C it’s obviously going to be someone consumer facing, but you must remember that it’s far more important to use someone who’s aligned to your brand than it is to use someone who’s just got a massive following. In fact I would far rather engage with someone who embodied the brand entirely but only had a small but tightly defined following, than someone with 50,000 broadly scattered followers who were only loosely connected to the brand. Their content will be far stronger, they will take less management and probably be a lot more grateful for the opportunity!
Dan
