It is pretty safe to say that marketing has changed significantly over the last decade. Many strategies of the past are now considered obsolete today. With social media being such a prevalent method of communication, it would be prudent for more organizations and business professionals to have a strong presence on its many platforms. For some, this can be a rather daunting task. However, it doesn’t have to be. Utilizing bloggers and influencers in your social media strategy can go a long way.
Here’s some quick recommendations:
- Promotion – Bloggers and influencers with sizable followings could be a great way to get your name and business out there. For example, if you own a restaurant and want to drum up publicity for a new menu item, you could reach out to food bloggers to invite them to try your new dish. You can also encourage them to write a review on it and then share those reviews on your social media outlets. Find creative ways to incorporate bloggers and influencers into your strategy by matching them up to your specific business.
- Contributed posts – Depending on your brand or business, utilizing a blogger to create a post or two could be fantastic. Invite them to use your product or try your service. Once they have knowledge and/or experience with it, you can ask them to consider creating a contributed post. This could be a video, a photo essay, or a funny post. Depending on the amount of bloggers you know, this could become regularly scheduled content on your social media.
- Takeovers – Some businesses may let an influencer or blogger stage a takeover of their social media. This is especially common with Instagram. If this is a strategy that you decide to try, remember to select someone who makes sense for your brand. You’ll want to choose someone with a decent sized following, because those followers will learn more about your business and may want to do business with you. Also, it will be helpful to develop talking points to help steer their direction.
Social media doesn’t have to always be tricky. When it comes to developing an effective strategy, remember to work smarter and not harder. There are many bloggers out there, but as long as you do some very good research and vet which ones to team up with, you should get positive results.
