This is Day 5 of the 30 Days to 3,000 Fans program. You can learn more about the program here.
So far we’ve discussed a few of the basics behind promoting your Facebook page. Now we are going to go over a few tips and tricks that are going to help you reach the 3,000 fan target that we set at the beginning of this guide. Keep in mind that for some companies, 3,000 fans is excessive while for others 3,000 may not be a lot. You need to effectively assess your goals and figure out a good number that makes sense for you during the 30 day program.
Target Nodes and Influencers
In the “Tipping Point”, Malcom Gladwell discusses how key influencers can be the drivers behind viral consumer epidemics. The point is that the most connected individuals that are also connected to other highly-connected nodes end up having a ton of influence. We all know super-connecters and if you are looking to build your public profile’s fan base, you should be targeting them. Randomly pursuing these individuals is not the best way to go about it though. A well planned and well executed targeting process will yield the maximum results.
How To Perform Influencer Outreach
There are a number of reasons you shouldn’t just start randomly messaging influencers. The first is because it’s just bad form. Aside from that, if you randomly message people, you will miss out on a ton of opportunity. The largest opportunity is the phenomenon of overlapping networks. If two influentials share friends, the odds of your public profile becoming a recommended Facebook Page or ending up in a user’s highlights area on their homepage will be substantially increased.
So now that you know why I don’t like randomly reaching out to influencers, let’s explore the best way to go about reaching out to influencers. Here are the steps that I suggest going through:
- Influencer Outreach – Prior to reaching out to individuals, you should figure out who the most influential people are in a given network. There are a number of ways to go about doing this but the easiest is just to find individuals with the most friends in a network. The easiest influencers to find are among your friends since you’ll probably know which friends are influencers. Outside of your network it’s useful to browse through individuals on Facebook based on individual Facebook networks (organizations and geographic networks). You can quickly browse through networks and jot down the names of those individuals that have the most friends.
- Initial Outreach – Reach out to network influencers and introduce yourself. Spark up a conversation and explain to them what you are working on. Do not copy and paste messages. If you send the same message to tens or hundreds of individuals, Facebook will mark your account for spam. You need to actually build relationships with these individuals. It’s fine to make small changes to the first messages that you send out but following those initial messages, you want to spend time fostering a positive relationship with the influencers.
- Launch Day – After you have built up your list of network influencers set a date for getting those influencers to become fans. On that day, reach out to each of your influencers and tell them to fan your Facebook Page. Depending on how many influencers you have, you may want to consider a phased launch approach. Whichever model you pick, make sure that you do some research and some basic planning.
Keep in mind that some of these are guerilla marketing strategies, not traditional marketing strategies. Would Facebook encourage you to take each of the steps listed above? Probably not but the bottom line is that it works. If you abuse the system, Facebook will surely ban you. Theoretically collecting large amounts of data about network influencers can be a violation of Facebook’s terms of service but it’s also readily available information. Any research you do on Facebook is at your own discretion so make sure not to abuse their system!
Daily Task
Come up with a list of at least 20 influencers that you can reach out to. Begin an initial conversation with each and aim to have them all become fans of your Facebook Page on the same day.
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It's easy to tell find 20 people a day with thousands of friends. HOW? in Facebook people search you can search name, location, workplace school. How I can filter by most friends?
Comment by Marius Kuitniauskas — August 17, 2009 @ 7:15 am
Reaching out to influencers and introducing yourself is easily said.
But why should they trust you? Especially if later on you're asking to promote your fanpage? And even if you've built a relationship in which they trust you, why would do promotion for you?
I would be very happy to see a 4th item about "How to adress key influencers you don't know all that well and get them to promote your page?"
Comment by Louis Ingelaere — August 17, 2009 @ 7:47 am
Nick, please share your experience as an influencer – when you receive an introduction from a page owner that would like you to promote their new page – how do you respond? How many exchanges are necessary to gain your trust? Thanks for taking the time to create this post series.
Comment by Figgy — August 17, 2009 @ 9:40 am
Main problem in my eyes with this approach: The basic idea of reaching out to influencers is great… Of course… But best influencers are often not the people who have the most connections… Often these guys are spammers or wannabes… Because "influencing" usally is not about knowing as many people as possible but having connections to the right people… Which are often influencers as well;) So you can't find influencers just by looking at the number of contacts that someone has… You have to take a look at the quality of the contacts as well…
Comment by Felix Holzapfel — August 17, 2009 @ 9:47 am
@Louis great questions. The answer is that you offer them something they like, such as a sweepstakes or a contest that offers a cool prize, that they can share with their friends. That way, they trust you because you are catering to their interests and they promote your page by doing what they enjoy doing anyway.
Cheers,
Brendan
Comment by Brendan — August 17, 2009 @ 9:56 am
@Figgy, I get at least 20 Facebook Page requests every day and I don't respond to them. The best way is to build a relationship with the person first and then ask them to join. I always join all of my friends' and business contacts' Facebook Pages.
@Felix, I think false influencers are not valuable. You want individuals with true influence, not just a lot of Facebook friends. Most marketers should be able to differentiate between those two.
Comment by Nick ONeill — August 17, 2009 @ 10:08 am
So how do you introduce yourself if you're the marketing person? "Hi, I'm John Doe, Marketing Specialist for XYZ Organization."
Right away any person who receives that message would be suspicious and click "Delete."
For example, I manage a public school district's fan page. There are probably tons of parents I could find on Facebook who are influencers, and who I would love to become a fan of our page. But how do I build that relationship with them to do that? I'm not a parent myself so I can't even relate with them on that.
Comment by deelirium — August 17, 2009 @ 11:44 am
@Brendan Thanks for the response, but I doubt if that is the best way to get influencers fanning your page. I don' think trust is generated with sweepstakes and contests.
But you got me thinking. What about offering them premium content they can share, both personal branding for the influencers and your brand. But that only goes up when you have killer premium content… In the end it is always about content, I suppose
But, @Deelrium that still keeps the question open: How do you approach influencers. How do you introduce yourself and your fanpage? How do you take the first steps? How do you build a relation? And what is the relation about?
Comment by Louis Ingelaere — August 18, 2009 @ 4:22 am
Hi Niel
One of our clients is a leading anti-microbal brand called Germ Warfare.
We're trying to open up our facebook page to more users(i won't post the link). We've had successful facebook pages in the past for our clients but this one needs something extra, a little more love and attention to really get it going since it is such a good product/company.
The product and client are superb, they have just recently been on the TV show Dragon's Den with their product Halo Laundry Liquid, you might have seen them.
It's on the BBC website here http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/entrepreneurs/eva...
What advice could you give such a page to branch out into new networks?
I'm really interested in your thoughts.
Thank Niel
Regards
Matt – Ph.Creative
Comment by matt hoey — August 18, 2009 @ 5:28 am
My question would be- how to research which influencers you are looking to target? I have also never seen a facebook list with the # of friends each person has available right there…
Do I type in "my industry i.e. furniture" and see the top influencers in that demographic, or "moms who shop" and find an influencer in that area to approach regarding selling my furniture online?
Please advise also the step – by- step: facebook network search? I'm unsure about all of this.
Thank You!
Come up with a list of at least 20 influencers that you can reach out to. Begin an initial conversation with each and aim to have them all become fans of your Facebook Page on the same day.
Comment by cc — April 23, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
Hello everyone,
I believe this "influencer outreach" strategy is a sound one if you know who the influencers in question are. I see from a lot of the poster on this topic that they haven't got a clue.
As pointed out by someone, the mere number of friends someone has is not proof enough of authentic influence.
In my case, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt who the influencers in my industry are. I have been immersed in the "conversation" of this industry for months and actively participating in it.
There is simply no way around it. Start participating in your industry's "conversation". Listen carefully, start making contact, join groups, talk to your peers, search on Google, some "influencers" are definitely public figures.
Also remember that there a very specific niches within those industries, so find the right fit for you.
In short, do your "Due diligence."
Comment by Mauricio — May 20, 2010 @ 7:07 am