Book: Influencers and Evangelists - Part 2

Last week I wrote about spotting conversations going on about your brand.  This week I'll discuss how to identify brand evangelists and how to communicate with them.

Conversational Marketing: Brand Evangelists (continued)

Identify 
By doing simple searches you can find conversations going on about your brand.  It's a little more challenging to determine who the influencers and evangelists are.  Challenging only in the respect that you need to follow conversations back to their source and then read through multiple blogs, posts, and tweets to see if the contributors are actually fans of the brand or just making a statement about a particular incident.

If your brand revolves around entertainment, toys, candy, or something "sexy" then it is a lot easier to spot the evangelists.  Someone with the user name @StarbucksLover is giving you a good signal as to their coffee allegiance.  But if your brand revolves around something like dish soap as I mentioned last week, then they'll be tougher to spot.  In that case, think less about your brand specifically.  When your brand pops up in a search, trace it back to a conversation, see what else this person talks about.  You may discover that they write a blog about cleaning products or about coupon collecting.  Again, not specifically about your product, but their content is relevant and more importantly, notice who responds.  Look at each blog post.  How many responses are there?  What kind of responses are they?  Do you see a lot of "I agree!" type comments?  Do you see a lot of questions asked back to the blogger that imply that the blogger is respected and influential?  If the person communicates via Twitter, how many followers do they have?  How many responses to each tweet do they get?

What I'm describing isn't complicated.  It's just time consuming. 

And, again, big numbers aren't the key metric here.  Look, if only a couple of people are responding, then odds are this particular person isn't terribly influential.  But once the responses get into the teens and higher, then you should start taking them seriously.  If you've got the time, take a look at the people replying to the blogger and see if you can trace them back to see if perhaps they are bloggers too.  Bloggers often hang around other bloggers and comment on each others blogs.  Same is true with Twitter, Facebook, and most other social networks and communities.  Then you can see that this person may actually be heard by an audience beyond their own because of re-posted blogs and re-tweets.

There are tools to help with some of this process as well.  In fact, there are a lot of tools.  The only downside is they cost money.  One of the most accepted and least expensive tools is Radian6. Pop a few key search terms into a tool like Radian6 and it will show you not only where the conversations are taking place but also prioritize those conversations based on influential rank and how many people read and participate in those conversations.

Communicate
Communicating with these now identified evangelists and influencers is a process I've previously described in other posts.  Keep in mind that if someone has a big voice, or even a moderately influential voice, odds are that others like you are trying to contact them on a regular basis.  Remember to put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself this question: "why would I care?" If you were the one being reached out to, what would make you respond?

So craft your message carefully.  From subject line to content.  Make sure you identify exactly who you are, what you hope to accomplish, and more specifically, what is in it for the person you are contacting. Try to bond with the influencer.  If they already like your brand, it shouldn't be too hard.  You should be armed with knowledge of that person's blogs, tweets, etc. so that you already know that they are predisposed to like what you have to say.  Maybe they would love some exclusive information to share with their audience.  Maybe product for giveaways and contests.  Each influencer is different.  Do your homework and try to identify what makes them tick.

Know that your success rate will fluctuate.  In some cases you'll get great response and feedback.  In others you'll get nothing.  Don't get frustrated, just learn each time you correspond what works and what doesn't.  Don't pester someone who doesn't respond. That can actually hurt you.  Just try your best and never forget to think about what its like to be on the other side.

Everything I've described is relatively easy to do.  The tools exist to help you find influencers and evangelists.  It just requires time and patience. So take your time, follow the conversations, and if you do it correctly, the impact should be overwhelmingly positive.