82 Experts Share Their Favorite Influencer Marketing Tips to Increase Exposure

With the staggering amount of promotional material consumers are exposed to, they’ve started turning a blind eye to it. This makes it increasingly difficult for brands to connect with people and get the word out about themselves. It's also very easy for your content to get lost amongst that of your competitors online.

How can your brand gain more exposure and reach more people? The answer lies in influencer marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing remains one the most powerful marketing strategies there is. And in essence, that’s what influencer marketing is all about. The only difference is that the conversations have moved from being in person to being online on social media.

Brands are collaborating with key social leaders to gain the public exposure they desire. By having influencers talk about and promote you in their circles, your brand can generate buzz about yourself. People are more trusting of a brand that has been publicly endorsed by local or global celebrities or influencers.

Influencers are usually experts in their niches and have loyal fan bases. By collaborating with these niche influencers, your brand can reach a larger target audience. One you typically wouldn’t be able to.

You can also leverage influencers to generate useful and informative content about your products and services. This helps your target audience to make an informed and educated purchase decision. Influencer-generated content like reviews or testimonials is a great way to help you get that kind of brand visibility.

For more insights into some great influencer marketing tips to increase exposure, let’s take a look at what the top industry experts have to say below.

Please note: This roundup has been structured in ascending order, and not according to expertise.

#1. Alexandra Tachalova – DigitalOlympus.net

It's not a secret that large communities that once used to have a huge impact on the digital landscape no longer have the same power. Users have shifted to smaller communities, which is where the real conversations happen now.

As a result, a tiny number of bloggers who still hold sufficient share of the market can really influence their readers' decision-making process and convince them to purchase products and services. But while well-known influencers can help your brand become more recognizable, they won't bring you short-term results like traffic and conversions. And that's where you need to turn to smaller communities for help.

Here are a few influencer marketing tips on how you can find these close-knit communities that will bring you new visitors who are ready to click the “buy” button:

1. Facebook private groups

2. LinkedIn groups and LinkedIn posts/articles that are trending

3. Analyze what sites bring traffic to your competitors. To do this, use SimilarWeb

4. Find users that are active on Twitter. By active, I don't mean those who post on a regular basis; we need those who interact with other users.

5. Find out where your audience is and ask questions about similar products and services. Among those platforms could be Reddit, Quora, etc.

#2. Andrea Learned – Learned On, LLC

Make your streams less about you and more about cheering on/amplifying all the new research, advancements and leadership you see in the entire sector. Connect the dots to broader trends and make YOUR streams the curation of all anyone needs to know, with a positive angle.

You may occasionally share and cheer on your “competition” – but that is even more of a cue that you are to be trusted, and followers will note your generosity. It's about the cause or bigger problem you are solving, and NOT your immediate business.

Along the way, lots of new people will find you and you'll gain a reputation as an influencer – and that means more journalists are likely to see you as a source, too. It's a longer game, but so much more rewarding.

#3. Andy Crestodina – Orbit Media

This is the fastest, easiest and most effective way to collaborate with influencers. It doesn't work for celebrities, but it's great for the micro-influencers who have the attention of your audience. Add a quote from them in your content. Then when you share it, mention them in social media.

Although it's easy, don't take short cuts. Here are two ways to make it more effective for you.

• Don't just quote the influencer, reach out and ask specifically for a quote relevant to your article. This will let them know that the quote is coming and the back and forth gives you a chance to build the relationship.
• Don't just mention the influencer, make that social media post a minor masterpiece with numbers, special characters, hashtags and an image. It will get more likes, comments and shares, increasing it's visibility to the influencers who were mentioned in it. Here's an example…

source: Social Media Examples, Orbit Media

#4. Ashley Zeckman – TopRank Marketing

Working with influencers to co-create content can be an incredibly effective way to build authority and credibility for brand content. It can also increase the reach of your content and put you in front of new and engaged audiences.

However, influencer marketing isn’t as simple as it seems. There is a certain element of wooing that goes along with enticing influencers to participate with you and even more when it comes to convincing them to share. If you want your influencer marketing to actually increase exposure you need to:

#1. Identify the RIGHT Kind of Influencers

Depending on your objective, you’ll want to work with a mix of different influencer types. While brandividuals have extensive reach, they may not have the deep expertise that more niche influencers (often with smaller networks) do. Let your goals lead the type of influencers you choose to co-create with.

#2. Show Influencers What’s in it for Them

One of the biggest mistakes that marketers make is leading with what they want from the influencers, versus the benefits to the individual. Some collaboration will require payment but not all. In order to make it worth their time, you have to outline the clear benefits for them which could include increased exposure, brand affiliation, etc.

#3. Make it Easy for Influencers to Share

It doesn’t matter if your content is great, you still have to entice your influencers to amplify the content they co-created. Many experts (especially those that do this professionally) have very limited time. So, to make it easy, send along pre-written social messages and image bundles so that they simply need to copy and paste the messages you’ve written to their social networks.

#5. Brandon Brown – Grin

Never pay a % of your media spend to a marketplace, network or 3rd party who middle-mans the influencer relationship. The 3rd party has a built-in incentive to maximize your cash-costs, it creates a super transactional experience, and you get worse content.

The better alternative is to build long-term and direct relationships with influencers. When you do this you maximize your budget by paying with product, drive higher ROI and get much better content. Go direct!

#6. Brian Hart – Flackable

When pursuing increased exposure with influencer marketing, don’t let yourself get overly consumed by vanity metrics. Set clear goals from the beginning. For example, your goal could be conversions in the form of e-newsletter subscriptions. Once that’s established, focus on exposure and campaign metrics that have a positive correlation with your conversion goals.

Then, identify a well-defined target audience. For a brand promoting B2C products or services with mass appeal, you’ll likely want to cast a wider net than a niche or B2B brand. This will help you steer your efforts toward influencers and micro-influencers generating exposure to the best audiences for your brand – which aren’t always the biggest.

Vanity metrics can tank your influencer marketing ROI if they tempt you to go off course and away from the audiences and outcomes that matter most to your brand. So while increased exposure is important, make sure the exposure is worthy of the time and resources you use to attain it.

#7. Cameron Conaway – Solace

Authenticity. Genuine relationships. These are the types of words and phrases thrown around when it comes to influencer marketing. Truth is, those words are fluff unless they're coupled with specific details on how.

So here's one attempt:

If you want to build a relationship with an influencer, solicit their services just as any other customer might. Too often marketers come at influencer marketing from a kind of co-marketing perspective, and this can be severely short sighted.

If you believe in the influencer's talent, invite them in to give a paid workshop, or ask them to speak at a company event. This shows them that you take their work (not just their influence) seriously, and it'll likely improve the knowledge of your company.

This, in my mind, is a great way to plant the seed for a deeper relationship to blossom.

From there, sure, put on that co-marketing hat. But break free from thinking about results six days from now and instead stay focused on what can happen six months down the road as the relationship is nurtured.

#8. Carol Roth – Future File

Hire a portfolio of micro-influencers to highlight your business, brand and products/services, using a service like Tinysponsor , where I am an investor and influencer myself.

Doing this allows you to leverage the audiences that others have built in a cost-effective way, as research has shown that micro-influencers generate a better engagement on a percentage basis that even celebrity influencers.

Plus, a tech-based platform like Tinysponsor will easily help you sort through who has actual influence and engagement, not just a big following, as those are not always correlated. Doing small campaigns with smaller budgets lets you test the efficacy and help you to maximize your return on investment.

#9. Chad Pollitt – chadpollitt.com

Don't be afraid to pay influencers to get them to really commit to a campaign. In some cases, having a big fish influencer that was paid can lead to access to other influencers that you don't have to pay. FOMO helps in this case.

#10. Charlene Li – Altimeter

Be 100% focused on helping people, rather than trying to be an influencer. This means not just posting on your own channels, but also scanning, sharing, commenting, and engaging. Be part of the community you want to support.

#11. Chirag Kulkarni – Medly Pharmacy

The most effective tactic I've found to increase exposure is to do a concentrated campaign in bursts where your target customer sees your content all over social accounts.

#12. Chris Abraham – Gerris Corp

Persistence is rewarded.

#13. Chris Muccio – The Social Fusion Group

Influencer marketing is a powerful tactic that can provide high ROI. However, to achieve this first, you have to ensure that your influencer is targeting the market you are seeking to address and that they actually have an engaged audience.

Next, focus on the ROI you are targeting and define the objective and goals you are seeking from influencer marketing. Some common ones are: increased visibility (brand awareness), traffic to a specific site, or maybe generating (X) amount of leads or sales.

These in turn, impact the type of influencer you may want to target. For example, if you want traffic back to your site, you should look for an influencer who has high traffic and is willing to push a link to your site. If you want brand awareness, maybe a social media influencer with high engagement is the way to go.

There are many more influencer marketing tips to share, but this one is key. Use your objectives to set up the parameters for your success and execute toward those. This is often the difference between success and frustration.

#14. Dan Scalco – Brain Wiz

The most effective influencer marketing tips I can give anyone to increase exposure is to not think about exposure/impressions first.

Instead, think about the interest level and engagement of the perspective influencer audience. An interested and engaged audience is much more likely to convert than a “broad” audience.

To do this, go after micro influencers rather than the “big” influencers. Not only will this help your conversions, you’re likely to secure less expensive rates from micro influencers due to their audience size.

#15. Dan Knowlton – KPS Digital Marketing

Curate a round up of industry influencers and reach out to those influencers to let them know that you have featured them (like this round up that you're reading).

I've written a step by step tutorial showing you how to do this here. Why does this work? Influencers love their egos being stroked and are likely to share your article out to their large network. This provides an influx of free traffic to your website and a ton of exposure.

#16. Dave Chesson – Kindlepreneur

Having an online asset that others would love to be a part of can give you major street credit with other influencers.

Take for example my website. It's a website devoted to listing the best SciFi books in their different genres. But because of this, and it's traffic, I've become a well known name in the Science Fiction world.

It's landed me some consulting gigs and has allowed me to work side-by-side with some of my all-time favorite authors. It's helped me to get meetings and even had me be a guest at the Writers Of The Future award ceremony.

#17. Deirdre Breakenridge – Pure Performance Communications

To increase exposure, create relationships with influencers for the long term. I'd rather have a smaller group of influencers who are active brand ambassadors than a larger list of one-time friends who support a brand.

The more you know about an influencer and how they like to participate in your marketing program, the better. Influencers enjoy specific activities and it’s your job to know their preferences; from the people who will participate in your blog content and ebooks to those who choose to speak at your events and like to showcase your products.

Similar to the days of media relations and understanding a reporter’s beat, your influencers have an area of interest that excites them and their community members. Feed their passion with their favorite activities and you’ll get friends and brand advocates who stick by you for the long haul.

#18. Delphine Reynaud – Traackr

Focus on quality rather than quantity: identify not the biggest influencers but those that truly impact your target audience, play win-win and build the relationships over time, listen to them and collaborate as they know their audience better than you do. If you do this, your costs will decrease over time while your impact will increase.

PS – I think exposure is only the tip of the iceberg.

#19. Douglas Karr – MarTech Zone

Do a test with an influencer before signing a long-term contract. Many “influencers” have large numbers but that doesn't equate to their ability to drive conversions.

#20. Emily Spurlock – Ignite Social Media

Always, always make sure that the influencer's content is on-brand with your product. An influencer can have all the reach in the world but if their audience isn't interested in your category, they won't be engaged.

#21. Eric Lam – Revfluence

1) Approach influencer marketing with the same test and invest mentality as any growth channel!

2) Identify several, diverse groups of influencers that match different personas of your customer audience and get enough sample size for each. If you use too small of a sample size it will be hard to get actionable learnings from the data to build on.

3) Define your goals and how to measure success first before establishing a strategy. If you're looking for maximum exposure + engagement within an audience that is going to be a very different tactic than driving clicks/traffic/sales conversions or generating creative for a paid social ad campaign. There are highly effective ways to utilize influencers for every part of the marketing funnel, but executing each of them is very different.

4) Remember that each influencer is a personal relationship. Don't treat it as transactional. Even if you use a platform, make sure that each of your touchpoints is personalized because you're selling the influencer on why they should be excited just as much as they are selling you on why to pick them. The best influencer programs we've seen show the highest ROI from influencers in month 3+ because it's clear those influencers believe in the product/brand so much.

5) Utilize the full value of influencers by not just having them post on their own social media, but licensing their content for your entire marketing stack. Because influencers are a relatively low cost, hugely scalable option for content creation, you can personalize almost every marketing channel (paid social, e-commerce, email marketing) based on hundreds of images and videos you can create through influencers on a monthly basis.

You can then evaluate which types of influencers resonate with which audience segments, on which channels the best. The biggest e-commerce brands in the world use influencers as content creation vehicles more than they use them for traditional influencer marketing.

And of course finally – if you're serious about building a large scale influencer program in-house, use Revfluence because we're the only solution specifically built for all of the above.

#22. Evan Carmichael – EvanCarmichael.com

The fastest way to grow is to connect with influencers who already have your target audience. Before asking for anything from them though, look to provide value first.

Be a member of their community. Be the first to respond to their posts. Write insightful comments and replies. Follow them on all the networks they post on. Pay close attention to where they are personally involved and responding. That's where you have your best shot and getting on their radar.

Your name and face should be known to them. They should see you so often and think you bring so much value that they can't help but want to click on your profile to learn about this superfan who is a huge part of their community. Then when you reach out you're far more likely to get a yes.

#23. Evan Dunn – Transform Inc.

1) After segmenting your influencer targets by topic, group them by influence.

High influence (e.g. >5,000 Instagram followers, >10,000 Twitter followers) will have the biggest reach of course, but they will also be the most difficult to leverage, because they will either be already committed to influencer programs, or will be expensive.

Low influence (e.g. 1,000-2,500 Instagram followers, 2,000-5,000 Twitter followers) will have a smaller reach but will be accessible to you in high volumes.

2) Train one of your team members (or yourself) on a repeatable process for outreach. If you can find an influencer's email (usually easiest if they're a blogging influencer rather than purely social), that's great, but if you can't, don't hesitate to reach out via social media.

Directly engaging with influencers on Instagram and Twitter is commonplace and valuable. Use a Twitter outreach tool like ManageFlitter to identify, sort and engage with Twitter influencers.

3) Make it easy for them to engage. Don't require a lot of time or work from them, but give them an offer (particularly the first time you work with them) that makes it difficult to refuse.

Example: product comps or payment in exchange for a few social posts. Obviously, this is a lot to do for not much value to your business, but then, when you later return for a longer-term, larger-scale campaign where you want more direct influencer involvement and ask for more of their time, they've already said yes to you. Makes it that much easier to say yes again!

#24. Eve Mayer – evemayer.com

It seems simple, but it’s absolutely vital to be certain that the influencer you select for your product or brand fits everywhere. Having an influencer means advertising to two audiences: your followers, and the influencer’s followers – and people with big reputations have fanbases who will immediately see through something they don’t feel makes sense for their faves.

Michelle Obama, for example, would not be a good match as an influencer for junk food. It’s really a merging of two brands – and authenticity is a key thing to remember for increasing exposure with this kind of marketing.

#25. Gil Eyal – HYPR

Influencer marketing is a form of marketing. The best influencer marketing tip is to apply the same fundamentals. Find influencers that have a strong following within your target audience and can actually impact decision making. Fame doesn't equal influencer. Chef Chaya doesn't have the same audience as Kim Kardashian.

#26. Giles Palmer – Brandwatch

My no. 1 tip is that influencer marketing isn't a short term solution. It needs to be grounded in long-term strategy and a real commitment to building a relationship with the influencers.

So all the stuff that is important for this kind of program should be considered. Time and money commitments, internal responsibility, clarity on what you're trying to achieve and how you would measure it.

SPEND TIME PLANNING is my top influencer marketing tip.

#27. Gini Dietrich – Spin Sucks

Everyone always wants to go for the big names, the celebrities, the people everyone recognizes. But the true value is in the micro-influencer. The person who has 100 followers, but every one of them reverently does what the influencer says. And I will take 100% activation and engagement over less than one percent any day.

#28. Glen Gilmore – Gilmore Business Network

At its core, influencer marketing is about tapping into communities of trust. An influencer is someone who has already created and nurtured a community that is primed to trust the content of the influencer.

Agencies and brands must carefully vet influencers to ensure that they are closely aligned with the brand's values – and once this is done, the influencer should be provided with access and opportunities to tap into the influencer's own creativity and community.

The real homework in influencer marketing is in finding the right influencers and micro-influencers who are passionate, creative and responsible in their own content creation and community engagement so that they can be trusted to craft a series of shares that will enliven the brand's inventory of content and engagement.

Empower influencers with access to do what they do best: take experiences and share them in ways that spark the imaginations of others!

#29. Grant Cardone – Cardone Training Technologies

Just because someone is labeled as an “influencer” doesn't mean they know how to sell. I only consider someone an influencer if they have the ability to actually persuade someone into taking action.

Celebrities online are seen as authorities but many aren't able to actually influence anyone to take action. If you want your “influencer” to promote your product, they better know how to actually sell because the idea that an “influencer” will somehow magically close deals down is a fairytale.

So my influencer marketing tip for you is that you still have to learn to sell and learn to close. And yes, selling and closing are 2 completely different arts.

#30. Guy Avigdor – Klear

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective marketing tactics out there today. Great influencer marketing campaigns generate authentic content and exposure that are invaluable for the brand. Some quick influencer marketing tips:

1. Choose the right influencers. I can’t stress this enough. Make sure you are focusing on influencers whose audience is relevant to your brand. Look at audience demographics, engagement rates, and previous brand work they’ve been involved in.

2. Stay authentic – let your influencers have their own voice. You can provide general guidelines and brand values, but make sure your influencers get to keep their own voice. Remember, you need them to generate unique content that feels real, not ads.

3. Measure and iterate. Track performance and analyze your success.

#31. Heidi Cohen – Actionable Marketing Guide

My favorite influencer marketing tip includes mega-roundups (like this) and influencer commentary in articles and ebooks since they put the expert's opinion in context for the audience. Further, I favor the use of micro-influencers, especially people within your community, since they have trust and credibility with your audience.

#32. Holly Pavlika – Inmar Collective Bias

Influencer content works wonderfully when it is leveraged as paid social content on Facebook. Collective Bias turns the influencer’s rich imagery into content and displays it to Facebook’s total addressable audience of 200 million.

We’ve seen that the content works its magic to the tune of 2 percent average CTRs. I spoke with Jacob Snelson, our Director of Media Operations and Strategy, who confirmed, “The average click-through rate (CTR) for Facebook ads across all industries is 0.90 percent. The key to increasing engagement is placing the right content in front of relevant audiences.”

#33. Ian Cleary – OutreachPlus

When you involve influencers opinions in your content you add some authority to your content and increase your own influence. Looking for opportunities to quote something they have said or written about and reach out to them to let them know you have quoted them.

Interviewing them is another way of involving them in your content and it helps build the relationship. Use a tool such as OutreachPlus to help personalize and track all communication with them. You need to build up a profile of them, be aware of what they said for previous emails and track all their response.

Another great way of involving influencers is pre-promoting your content. Share your post to a group of influencers before you post it and ask their opinion. Add their feedback to the post and then reach out after you post it to let them know.

#34. Jaime Masters – Eventual Millionaire

Set a goal to get in front of a number of your perfect avatar, and then let it be a numbers game. If it's 100,000 then do whatever you can to get in front of large audiences to hit over that number – make friends/guest post/get on podcasts/ get in front of ten times that.

You'll get to be an influencer more being in front of people over and over and over again then just playing it too small. (social tactics don't work nearly as well as getting in front of already built huge communities!)

#35. Jamie Turner – 60 Second Marketer

It's one thing to find an influencer, but it's another thing amplify the campaigns they're doing on your behalf. Many businesses make the mistake of simply relying on the influencer's organic reach to increase exposure, but I've found that any organic campaign needs to be supplemented by a paid campaign.

So remember to continue doing your organic campaigns, but use paid media to amplify them. That one-two punch can be very powerful indeed.

#36. Jason Quey – Growth Ramp

I like to use expert roundups to source ideas and place them into behemoth guides.

If you notice in this guide on influencer marketing, to the untrained eye, it looks like a normal guide.

But if you dig deeper, there are around 20 experts mentioned.

As a result, not only does it give opportunity for waves of traffic, it also increases the article's credibility because the experts are used as social proof.

#37. Jeet Banerjee – JeetBanerjee.com

The biggest tip I have when it comes to increasing exposure with influencer marketing is to appeal to your audience. It's an absolute must to first create a genuine and authentic brand.

Once you do that, you need to create content that is going to appeal to your audience and resonate with them. Focus on creating valuable content and everything else will come afterwards. Don't focus on the influencers that have the largest followings or the most engagement.

Instead, focus on an influencer that fits your vision. You know who your audience or customers are, now which influencers cater to them? It's all about quality instead of quantity when it comes to influencer marketing for the best exposure!

#38. Jeff Sauer – Jeffalytics

My most effective influencer marketing tip is to make the request personal, and make sure there is something in it for the influencer you would like to reach. It's one thing to put out a bunch of thoughtless, generic requests to post more pointless content on the Internet.

It's something else to really focus on creating a valuable contribution with your influencer outreach. It's more than just getting exposed to a larger audience, it's about making the influencer actually care about the subject of the post just as much as you do.

The most in-demand influencers are approached hundreds of times a month to contribute to various articles. How is your approach different? What gets them excited to contribute? What about your pitch is the most exciting email they will receive that entire month? Make it personal, make it interesting, and make them say “yes” without even thinking twice.

#39. Jill Schiefelbein – The Dynamic Communicator

Be selective. If you're going to be sponsored to promote a product or service, it needs to be something that you genuinely support and use.

When you're truly excited about a product, it will show in the messages and videos that you produce. If you're not, it will likely come off as rehearsed and scripted.

The most impactful influencers out there are guided by authenticity and transparency. It doesn't always have to be polished, but it does have to be personal.

#40. Jim Wang – Wallet Hacks

It's important to target influencers with highly-engaged audiences and not just the largest ones (follower counts can be inflated very easily with just a few bucks on Fiverr).

You'll find that some influencers have enormous public stats – Twitter followers, Facebook likes – but you need to check how engaged their readership and followers really are. A hundred thousand followers on Twitter but just a couple likes on a Tweet? Ten thousand likes but just one share on a Facebook post? No thanks.

Do the extra work to find influencers with highly engaged audiences and your marketing budget will go that much further.

#41. John Boitnott – Boitnott Consulting

One the most effective things you can do is consistently interact with influencers in person on social channels. The fact is that the more time you give professionally to social channels such as Twitter or Linkedin the more you will get out of it.

What that looks like is positively interjecting yourself into influencer conversations that address your area of expertise. In this fashion, over time you can increase your exposure as a thought leader, not only among influencers, but among the many thousands of people who pay attention to them.

People who have larger social followings are just like you. They loved to be talked to, even catered too. Give them free exposure by speaking to them in front of your followers fairly often, and they will see you are someone with whom they should cultivate a relationship.

#42. John Hall – Relevance

The biggest influencer marketing tip I can offer up here is to make sure you're partnering with the right influencer to help promote your brand and increase your exposure.

The best way to do this is to make sure that the influencer has a substantial following, but also that his or her followers are engaged. You want this influencer to fit with your brand and create a union that makes total sense. It needs to be authentic in order to really reach their audience, so make sure you partner with someone who has the right type of influence and that seamlessly fits with your product and/or brand message.

#43. John Rampton – Calendar

One of the biggest changes I see is a rise in experiential marketing as part of influencer marketing tactics to connect and engage with specific audience segments. The online events, in addition to the interaction with the influencers online, increase exposure and draw more people who are seeking to meet these influencers in person just like they would with celebrities. It's an excellent way to connect your off-line and online marketing tactics and deepen those relationships.

#44. Juan Merodio – JuanMerodio.com

A influencer is a person capable of make movement in other people in a natural way, and based on the trust that he has created in others. So it is important that brands understand that this is a different kind of advertising, and if they want to be successful in their campaigns, I mean, increase exposure and get business results, they should follow the next influencer marketing tips:

-Create an influence map based on micro-influence. What it is mean don´t focus on numbers of followers, and focus on engagement and online reputation. For example in this image you can see a potential influence map for women in a concrete field.
For creating the map you can use professional tools and look on Google for the main keywords in the industry you want to create an impact.

-Don´t make bulk, I mean, when you have the influencers that you want to contact, create a personalized message, and send them by email or private message in any social network. So think about them and use what I called Karma 2.0: Give 10 times more that you expect, and you will receive 10 time more that you were expected.

– Think in the long-term. The real successful influencer market is not about an specific action, it is about to create a relationship between the brand and the influencer, in order to create value for your audience day by day and month by mont.

– And last but not least, you have to create a dashboard for tracking the results of each influencer. You can see here a snap of a very simple dashboard .

Besides, depends on the audience that you want to influence, first of all you have to know and understand them. For example, millennials has some things in common. If you want more information about them, you can watch this talk that I gave about How to Impact to Millenials.

#45. Kath Pay – Holistic Email Marketing

Influencers don't force themselves on their audience. Their audience follows them because they like and/or respect them.

One of the things that is key in selecting an influencer is that not only do they need to have reach (providing exposure to new audiences), but the audience also needs to be loyal, so the audience can be influenced to perform an action.

With this in mind, transparency and authenticity is key. The more the influencer believes in the brand they're promoting, the more authentic they will be and the more successful the campaign will be.

#46. Keith Keller – Global Social Media Coaching

“VIDEO – VIDEO – VIDEO”

Without a doubt, video is the most potent way to share your message in today's crowded marketplace.

The main question is do you not if but when you will be begin and if you are already doing this how can you improve the process.

I prefer to pre-record my videos and then edit them into “snackable snippets” that I can share easily and that my followers can enjoy on the go.

Many of my friends prefer to live stream in the moment and that works really well for them as well.

Either way video is HUGE now so find a way to incorporate it into your strategy.

You will find that your engagement will EXPLODE when you do.

#47. Kelly Ann Collins – Vult Lab

Target, target, and target again! I can't say this enough.

When looking at an influencer, you have to make sure their community is a good fit — because working with an influencer who has 10,000 targeted followers is more effective than working with someone who has 1,000,000 followers who would not use your service or product.

Think of this process as you would fishing. You will not catch anything with the wrong bait. And the influencer is your bait. If the people in your influencer's network do not fit the profile of your ideal customer, then partnering with them with not benefit your business.

Before you start reaching out to influencers, you'll have to do some research. Create an ideal customer profile (or persona) for your brand. Who are you targeting? What is the age range? What topics interest them? Where do they hang out? What are their biggest needs? If you have not defined your niche, then you'd be better off doing absolutely nothing at all.

Next, after you have the correct demographics in place, start your influencer search. Suggested tools to use: BuzzSumo (helps with searches) and GroupHigh (delivers monthly influencer lists).

When the influencer responds to your request for information, make sure you ask for some data. You'll want to see engagement and click-through stats. Previous campaign information would be ideal.

#48. Kirsty Sharman – WePushMedia.com

Engagement is becoming more important than ever in Influencer Marketing – not because it's a metric we all use to measure success, but because 2018 is the year that platforms are updating their algorithms to surface more ‘relevant' content from people you love.

This essentially means that the more engagement an influencer can drive, the further the post will travel. Organic reach is making a comeback, and for the brands collaborating with influencers this is great news!

If you're working with influencers on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – make sure you're building influencer programs that push for comments, likes, shares and views. I'd even go as far as to say include cross-influencer sharing as part of your campaign roll out.

You can also increase engagement by asking influencers to include comment loops, giveaways and WOW content. Another trick we've been using to get more brand exposure is by building squads of small micro-influencers and getting them to engage with branded content as it's pushed out. This tactic uses influencers to push your engagement rates up, and get your content to organically travel further.

#49. Larry Kim – MobileMonkey

Be helpful! Share and comment on your influencer network’s content and always expand your network of influencers through mutual connections and by engaging in their ventures. Build a mutual relationship of goodwill, just like you do with your circle of friends, in order to help one another succeed. If you help others, they’ll want to help you in return.

#50. Lilach Bullock – LilachBullock.com

There are several important elements to a successful influencer marketing campaign and it all starts with the influencers you’re using. Many focus on the wrong elements when choosing influencers – namely, their reach. The thinking being that the bigger an influencer is, the more effective the campaign will be, but that is not always the case.

When researching influencers, it’s important to look beyond vanity numbers. There are 2 main things to look for: the influencers’ relevancy, and the level of their actual influence over their audience.

Look at the influencers activity: what kind of content do they usually create and share? Who exactly forms their audience? Do you share the same target audience? If not, there’s no point in targeting them – no matter how big their audience is.

And secondly, you need to look at their engagement, namely, how engaged their audience is. Check their blog and website, as well as their social media profiles to see how many shares they get on their posts, if they get comments on their blog, and if their audiences engages with them regularly on social media.

Forget about follower numbers – it’s much more profitable to use smaller, but relevant and respected influencers rather than huge influencers with little relevance to your business.

#51. Mae Karwowski – Obviously

Analyze each micro-influencer's audience so you know who you're reaching with your partnership. Important factors include: age of followers, where they live, gender, engagement rate, % fake followers.

#52. Maria Johnsen – maria-johnsen.com

Businesses can increase brand exposure and sales through influencer marketing. You should use this type of campaign at least for a month in order to measure the result. It doesn’t work with one time campaign. If after a month the campaign works for you, then use their service again. If you have a bigger budget hire several influencers to market your product or service.

Influencer marketing is better than paid ads and gives a faster result. It depends on your ad copy though. Make sure to target the right influencer for your product or service and it should be done at the right time of the day.

You must create quality campaigns that don’t look or sound like an advertisement. That’s the beauty of an influencer marketing. Create several ad copies along with pictures in high resolution and give them to your influencer to promote on his/her / their channels.

If you’re targeting worldwide prospects for brand exposure and sales, choose the one who is communicating with targeted audience in different languages. There are more strategies and I will write an article about it. Make sure to create your ads in multiple languages.

#53. Maria Sipka – Linqia

The most successful influencer marketing programs are the ones where the influencer content is used beyond the original scope of the campaign to improve the performance of their paid, owned and earned media.

Marketers looking to increase exposure should repurpose influencer content across a variety of channels, from email communications and website content to paid social and native advertising. 51% of marketers  that repurpose influencer content report that it outperforms brand-created content, and of those who have yet to test influencer content against brand created content, 59% plan to do so this year.

You can expect to see more brands A/B testing influencer content against brand-created content to determine what pieces will deliver the best results. Advanced marketers will then develop a strategic blueprint using those assets to increase brand exposure and drive incremental performance from their paid, owned and earned media.

#54. Marji J. Sherman – Sherman Social

Brands need to begin my choosing influencers that are relevant to their brand, not just influencers that have massive amounts of followers. Micro-influencers are now more impactful for increasing exposure than macro-influencers because most macro-influencers overused their influence to the point that their followers now tune them out.

Micro-influencers have a better chance of sounding more authentic and establishing a real connection with their influencers. An authentic connection is what your brand needs in order to gain meaningful exposure that will lead to a social media relationship and brand awareness and loyalty.

Brands need to spend their budget on multiple micro-influencers, rather than a couple of macro-influencers. Brands will not regret this influencer strategy.

#55. Mark Traphagen – Stone Temple Consulting

I think one of the most overlooked influencer strategies is brand partnerships. Look for brands that are non-competitors but have some crossover relevance to your business, and that also have a strong content and social presence. Develop a relationship with their key people and offer ways you could partner, such as a joint content project.

A great example of this from a few years ago was when Playboy and Redbull teamed up to create a video of extreme cyclists jumping over pools filled with Playboy Bunnies at the Playboy mansion. The video had appeal to both brands' audiences, and was viewed by millions. We tell the story at StoneTemple.

#56. Michael Brenner – Marketing Insider Group

Influencer marketing works best when brands create strategic relationships that don't feel like an influencer just being paid to promote something. Ask your influencers what they love to create and then discover how to create a series of content pieces that tie what they love together with your brand. So brand affinity + influencer consistency = influencer marketing success.

#57. Michael Brito – Zeno Group

Planning for your B2B influencer marketing strategy requires an understanding of the 1:9:90 model of influence. This model, while it’s not perfect, serves as a way to segment the market and build programs that deliver true business value.

The 1% of the market are influencers. They are the ones driving the conversation. They create buzzwords (think Digital Transformation), markets and categories. When they talk, others listen.

The 9% are what I call promoters. They share everything. Typically when the 1% have an opinion, the 9% will provide their own perspective and share it with everyone else.

The 90% is everyone that make up that market. I call them lurkers. They rely heavily upon search and word-of-mouth. They consume mass amounts of content but don’t publish anything.

Once you identify the 1%, you’ll have to formulate a strategy that amplifies engagement with them across paid, earned, shared and owned media.

#58. Mike Allton – The Social Media Hat

My best advice is more of a mindset than a tactic, and that is to be patient. Influencer Marketing is all about building and nurturing relationships. That takes time!

If you rush into a relationship and start creating expectations before there is mutual trust and perceived value, that will create tension. And most influencers will react negatively to that kind of tension, resulting in the exact opposite behavior you're looking for.

#59. Mike Kawula – MikeKawula.com

Every business owner LOVES going out and hunting elephants.

It’s in our blood.

We’re like bloodhounds sniffing for opportunities everywhere.

We look to find prospects who can make the biggest purchases or “influencers” who can assist us in moving the dial the most in our business.

I’m all for going out and finding a way to partner with the biggest influencers in our Niche, but each of us has the opportunity inside our current network or customer base to watch a metamorphosis take place.

Think of your current network like a bunch of potential BEAUTIFUL butterflies who can spread their wings and your message everywhere once that metamorphosis takes place.

You see, each of us are surrounded by caterpillars in our network or business that when developed can become magical butterflies that will spread your message to their tribe.

Everyone is an influencer to their network, don’t forget that.

I believe the very first thing you should do before running out to set up an influencer marketing campaign is you should set up systems and procedures within your business immediately to encourage that metamorphosis to happen.

You already have a bunch of opportunities of individuals who have influence over one or many.

Go make it happen.

#60. Murray Newlands – MurrayNewlands.com

Work with influencers who have the most passionate audience not necessarily the largest audience. There are for example YouTubers with large subscriber bases who's audiences are inactive and they get few views on new videos. Some small YouTubers have very passionate audiences who hang on every word the creator says.

#61. Nadya Khoja – Venngage Infographics

I think it's always important to start off with a tangible goal – something that you can easily envision and work towards. When it comes to increasing exposure and online presence, there are a lot of factors at play. Ultimately you're working towards becoming a thought leader, which means you need to share strategies and processes that you've tested and used in the past, which have lead to success.

Knowing that, you can then work backwards. Do some research into some of the low, mid and high tier thought-leaders that you look up to, and establish some milestones that you can work towards. These are your “tangible” goals.

A milestone might be something as simple as “Get 20 comments on a LinkedIn Post” or something requiring a bit more perseverance like “Get an article published on Forbes.” Eventually all these little milestones add up and you find yourself becoming a lot more “exposed” online.

#62. Nellie Akalp – CorpNet.com

The most effective influencer marketing avenue I've found to increase exposure is blogging! If you have an expertise and information to share, start blogging!

Whether it is on your own blog or guest posting on more established blogs – sharing your insight is a great way to build an online community that trusts you as a resource. They then share your content to their community which brings fantastic increased exposure for your brand and business.

#63. Rachel Miller – TopRank Marketing

It's important to focus on exposure but more important to strive to add value. Tagging or mentioning individuals who will find your content valuable, and share with their audiences, is a great way to increase awareness of your efforts and add value to the greater community.

Another great influencer marketing tip is to share the piece of content with multiple headlines. Don't just use the title! Get creative. Pull out quotes, use bullets and emoji's to attract your target persona and encourage them to click and consume.

#64. Robert Rose – The Content Advisory

Specific to increasing exposure, my advice would be to look at an integrated media promotion to highlight a deeper look into your influencer's passions. In other words, it's great to share out your influencer's quote, and have them do the same.

But, instead of just asking them one question – take the time to understand what content THEY would like to promote. They may have a book, or an event, or something timely that would really work with thoughts that are related to your content, but specific to them. So – ask yourself how can you work that into whatever it is you’re promoting.

Perhaps, for example, you're looking to get a quote for one of your blog posts. How about asking another question about related to what you're talking about, but is something THEY are passionate about. Include that as a sidebar after the quote that highlights the influencer's profile.

Then, consider paid, shared or other media to not only promote your post – but their take on their passion… You may end up with fodder for an entirely new blog post… Two different kinds of reasons to pay for promotion, and the influencer will be much more likely to share it…

#65. Ross Simmonds – Foundation Marketing

The most effective influencer marketing tip is twofold: (1) make it easy for them to show you support and (2) make something so valuable that they'll want to share it.

For the first tip, embrace the idea of sharing content that they can easily retweet or reshare on their own account. Give them easy “click to tweet” links or a handful of images that they can use to promote the fact that they were on your podcast.

For the second tip, it comes down to making them understand and believe that this marketing effort is important. Once they think it's an important message or that the project that they've been involved in is one that matters – You're gold.

The real influencers don't care if they're mentioned in a top 200 list. The real influencers want to be involved in something that tells their story in a meaningful and memorable way.

#66. Ruben Gamez – Docsketch

When it comes to influencer marketing, I like to make sure I've done the research and uncovered who influences the influencers I'm trying to reach.

Generally, I'll find that it's actually easier to reach influencers through the people that they listen to or are friendly with. This typically means showing up on podcasts they listen to, or doing guest posts on blogs they may read. I've also found that certain places that curate content can be a great way to reach the right type of influencers.

Basically, I prefer the indirect approach.

This is because influencers tend to have a lot of people directly trying to reach them. So if you can take an indirect approach and leverage social influence at the same time, you'll have a better chance of getting your message across.

#67. Ryan Foland – InfluenceTree

By far, my top three influencer marketing tips for increasing exposure are to focus, focus, and focus. There is a natural tendency to want to be all things to all people, especially when your influence grows and more and more companies reach out to tap into that influence.

Think of your personal brand as a bottle and your influence potential as fills the bottle. Let’s call this your personal brand bottle. As your brand grows, it creates more space in the bottle to fill with more influence.

When you grow a strong personal brand that focuses on your niche and communicates a consistent message, not only will your brand bottle grow in size, the quality of your influence will be purer. The stronger your brand story, the more influence your brand bottle will hold. If you lose focus on your brand story, your influence will start to leak out.

Real (and authentic) exposure comes over time as more people are introduced to your brand bottle. Focusing on your core brand message and narrowing in on your content’s target market is the most sustainable way to grow your exposure.

Some people push for the biggest brand bottle they can by trying gain exposure through a wider market. Sure you might get followers and you might feel like your brand bottle is filling with influence. But is it really?

When you spread yourself over multiple topics and areas of expertise, you dilute the concentration of your influence.

When it comes to influencer marketing, bigger is not always better. What matters most is the influence you have inside of your brand bottle. The more focused the sphere of influence, the more influence you can have.

That makes you more marketable to companies who want you to bring light to products and services that cater to specific markets. Or on the flip side, if you are an executive or CEO who invests in building a brand bottle full with influence, you can use it to shine the light on your company’s products and/or services. This drives awareness, trust, and ultimately more inbound leads for feeding bottom line growth.

Focusing on focusing is one of the hardest things to do — SQUIRREL! SHINY OBJECT! — because there are squirrels and shiny objects trying to distract you everywhere.

The real riches are in the niches, so gain exposure by narrowing down the expertise that you want to be known for, and stay there. Dig in and master your trade. By doing so, you will build true influence — the kind that companies will pay you the big bucks to tap into.

It’s not how big your brand bottle is, it’s the quality of the influence you hold within it.

#68. Samantha Kelly – Tweetinggoddess

Be kind, assist others, share your knowledge, and build a community around you of like minded people who “get you” and what you do. Be consistent and don't get involved in controversy. Stand out from the rest by sharing great content and keeping it positive and inspiring!

#69. Sandra Chung – Mention

The next time you collaborate with an influencer, ask specifically for them to create more video content. This can be in the form of webinars, (which have worked particularly well for us at Mention) tutorials, product unveiling or reviews, behind the scenes, Q&As just to name a few.

Also, see what kind of video content they’ve made in the past to get a feel for if they’ll be a good fit for your brand. (Sandra Chung, Head of Content at Mention)

#70. Scott Britton – Troops

Build great relationships and be a giver to your influential relationships. The law of reciprocity will eventually pay itself back tenfold when you need help promotion something.

#71. Sheena White – Dinner Table MBA

To increase exposure and establish ourselves as a reputable source for information, we reach out to subject matter experts for relationship building and to request interviews for creating our own unique, original content.

#72. Shelly Kramer – V3 Broadsuite

For success with influencer marketing, you've got to know how to find the right influencers. Friend/Follower numbers are not the mark of a successful influencer, and most brands and agencies get that wrong.

Finding the right influencers, with the right communities, who have the ability to compel that audience to action—that's an art. Both on the part of the person finding the influencer, and the influencer herself/himself.

Lastly, knowing how to craft the right kind of campaigns, with results that can be definitively measured, is critical. And again, something that doesn't happen very often.

#73. Sheryl Plouffe – Sheryl Plouffe Media

From a personal brand-building perspective, nothing beats live action video. The kind where we see you on camera. It is the closest thing we have to being there in person. It’s the fastest way to build rapport, relationships and connection with your ideal audience.

Video also brings a legitimacy to your brand. People are checking you out. They’re creeping you on Google. They want to see if you’re the real deal. If when they reach your YouTube channel you have a minimum of say 15 videos there, it puts you in a different echelon of authority and influence.

Not to mention that social media algorithms organically favor video and put your message in front of more people without having to spend a penny. Now that’s pretty good deal.

#74. Stefan James – Project Life Mastery

As an influencer, I think one of the best and often underutilized strategies to increase exposure is through collaborations.

You have two choices: 1) You can build your audience and increase your exposure yourself, or you could 2) collaborate with other influencers and cross-promote each other.

I've personally found the 2nd option to be much easier and faster. You're basically borrowing the other persons credibility and leveraging their exposure, so that you can increase your own. It's about working smarter, not harder!

#75. Steven Tulman – Social Pulse Marketing Inc

#1. FIND THE RIGHT INFLUENCERS FOR YOUR BRAND

Identifying the right influencers can be the most difficult part of influencer marketing. Influencers essentially become an extension of your brand, which makes it crucial that they represent your brand’s mission.

Research the influencers to make sure they will be a positive association with your brand and that the interests of their followers align with what you’re promoting. Although the industries of fashion and beauty, health and fitness, food and beverage, consumer technology, and consumer packaged goods have an easier time identifying the right influencers, influencer marketing can work well for almost any industry, it might just require a little bit of more effort to find the right influencers and create the most effective messaging.

#2. DON’T FIXATE ON FOLLOWER COUNT

Marketers are naturally attracted to statistics and often focus on influencers with larger follower counts, but smaller ones can easily outperform them when engagement is taken into consideration.

Econsultancy found that 72% say relevancy is more important than reach, which solidifies the notion that context is key. Engagement rates and the type of engagement posts receive will determine if an influencer’s followers will respond to what you’re marketing. A massive following isn’t as important as ensuring that the influencer is reaching your brand’s target market.

#3. GIVE YOUR INFLUENCER CREATIVE FREEDOM

The influencer has managed to accumulate their following for a reason, which makes it important that you give them complete creative control when it comes to promoting your product or service. Of course you need to be comfortable that the content they develop will respect and work within your brand’s content guidelines.

Promoting in the vein of an infomercial won’t resonate with followers and will come off unauthentic. The influencer understands their followers better than anyone else and will know what will work and what won’t. The more organic a promotion appears in a post, the better the followers will respond to it.

#4. DON’T JUST OPT FOR ONE MEGA-INFLUENCER

Micro-influencers tend to have significantly more engaged followers, which makes securing multiple smaller influencers a better and more effective approach than having just one mega-influencer for the same price.

Opting for one mega-influencer limits your marketing budget by concentrating all resources in one place. Covering more ground with more than one influencer will help you better understand your brand’s most receptive audience.

Depending on your budget and specific goals, working with one or multiple mega-influencers or celebrities might make sense for your brand, but there are many factors for you to consider prior to making that decision.

#5. DON’T NEGLECT OTHER MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Influencer marketing can generate significant brand awareness, but it’s important that you have more to offer when those potential consumers decide to look you up. When focusing on influence marketing, brands often neglect their other campaigns, which is a mistake.

Influencers should compliment your overall marketing because some followers might need further promotion or research prior to being sold on your product or service. An always-on influencer marketing strategy would also help as audiences will be exposed to more positive content about your brand from multiple sources over a period of time, increasing the likelihood of them purchasing your product or service.

#6. CONSTANTLY TRACK YOUR CAMPAIGN

Adjustments may be necessary to get the most effective response from your campaign. Continually tracking metrics using various analytical tools will help you understand what changes need to be made in order to maximize the results of your influencer campaign.

Influencer marketing isn’t just a one-step solution and should be treated as you would any other marketing campaign. Using influencers to market products or services can be a powerful tool, but attentive research and persevering effort are vital to ensure success.

#76. Tara Hunt – Truly Social Inc.

I'm not a huge fan of signing up to a tool, posting an “assignment”, setting and forgetting. The resulting posts will end up looking contrived and inauthentic. It's important to build relationships online (with influencers and non-influencers alike) loooooonnnng before you ever need them.

When you have a real relationship with people and they feel actual affinity to your brand, it will come across in anything they post. Invest the time.

#77. Ted Rubin – TedRubin.com

If a person demonstrates passion and knowledge, they’re much more likely to gain traction with people who share their interests and become influential in that respect. Everyone influences someone, so we all have a place to start.

And from the start your comments, the links you share, and your conversations with connections all make an impact on the people who see them.

Creating content about things I am passionate about, sharing, engaging, and building relationships is what has worked for me.

That influence may be subtle, but it may also be the thing that motivates a connection to check out a new brand, reconsider a business or pick up a new interest of their own. These little moments of influence help you extend form a network to a community, and community is one of the most important drivers of consumer habits. A Network Gives You Reach… But A Community Gives You Power!

Just don’t forget about those subtle, important moments of influence that everyone has the capacity for. Watch and listen to your audience, and others, closely for clues as to who influences them, what influences them, and how they engage and interact.

It’s worth the effort to do some social sleuthing, so take a look at their conversations, personalities and interests, and start making connections. The more you do this, and the more conversations you have with the everyday people who influence small audiences, the better you’ll get at understanding why they share and what they share.

Relationships are like muscle tissue… the more they are engaged, the stronger and more valuable they become. #NoLetUp!

#78. Tom Augenthaler – TheInfluenceMarketer.com

Be sure to pinpoint the influencers you want to leverage carefully.

Make sure their audiences include your ideal consumer or customer. Then begin following the influencers on their social channels and blogs.

Then participate in conversations, share those posts you genuinely find helpful and add value with your own thoughts, ideas. If you can figure out what those influencers need help with, offer to help them out. Give value up front before ever asking for anything.

Next, develop a round up post that solves a particular pain point for your audience and contact the influencers to asking them to participate. By following them and their content you've already ‘greased the skids' so you should get a fair number of positive responses.

Draft the post and let them know when it is to be published. Thank them and ask them to help you evangelize it. More than likely, they will as it benefits them too.

Rinse and repeat.

#79. Venchito Tampon – SharpRocket

Integrate non-text content from influencers to your content piece – making it more comprehensive than other similar content assets. Giving links to their pages (or embedding their rich media on your post) upfront can help encourage them linking to your content/site too, when you started promoting your rock-solid content to them.

#80. Viveka vonRosen – Vengreso

As a LinkedIn Expert, I'm always playing around with new features to see how we can use them in our Marketing and Lead Generation efforts. Native Video has become a real winner for us at Vengreso.

When positioning oneself as an influencer, video can really help you take your content to the next level. It helps people to see who you are, and that you truly have expertise. Because (like all other social sites now) LinkedIn is giving more weight to native content in it's timelines, video is naturally going to get more visibility than sharing a YouTube link.

A final strategy to amp up visibility is to create “sharing hubs” (We use either email or LinkedIn Messaging) where you share the link of your video post with the group and amplify each other's content. Depending on who you have in the group, this can vastly increase visibility, (and align you with some pretty cool people!)

If you are (or want to be) an influencer, then get over your fear of video and jump on LinkedIn's latest platform. For more on how to best use LinkedIn Native video, sign into LinkedIn and go to LIVideoTips.

#81. Warren Whitlock – WarrenWhitlock.com

Before you begin any influencer campaign you have to learn that the power of influence is not how much you can carpet bomb the marketplace. If you are looking for mass media, pull out your checkbook and be prepared to spend a lot.

Influence is “PULL” not push. If you work with quality people producing quality content, your ROI will be 10x what you get with ads.

If you are looking for exposure, just buy ads. If you have an awesome story to share, care about the market, and are ready to listen to the conversation, influencer marketing will get you much better results.

#82. Yann Gourvennec – Visionary Marketing

For effective influencer marketing my most important recommendation is to aim at working with micro-influencers, those people who are not divas but are good at what they are doing and are unassuming. In that way, you will be able to co-create and spur mutual benefit for both parties.