Book: Influencers and Evangelists

Last week I went out of order and riffed on social media as it relates to business.  I am writing a longer article based on that topic and I'll share it here once I get it done.  In the meantime, let me get back to my thoughts on tactical approaches to conversational marketing.  This week I'll talk about influencers and evangelists.

Conversational Marketing: Brand Evangelists
I have a theory and that is that someone is always talking about something.   Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous.  But what I mean is that whatever product you are promoting, odds are someone is talking about it.

Do a simple search and you will find those conversations. Do some digging and you'll be able to navigate your way to the big voices.  And keep in mind, being a big voice is all relative.  You don't have to have 100,000 readers of your blog to have a big voice.  There have been examples recently of people with a couple thousand Twitter followers who have single-handedly stopped an ad campaign in it's tracks.  (Yes, I'm talking about Motrin)

The point is that there are people out there in social media universe that when they speak, many listen.  They can effect sales and reputation both positively and negatively.

Here are some steps to properly locate, identify, and converse with evangelists and influencers:

Locate - AKA Listen
Pop your product's name into a search engine and see who's talking about it.  If your product is brand new and literally hasn't hit the market yet, then type in your product category.  For example, if you are selling dish soap, type in "dish soap."  Also type in the names of competitive products such as "method dish soap" or "ivory dish soap."   You have to dig.  The first things that will usually come up will be the actual product websites and maybe some retailers.  But sift through the listings and you will find people raving and discussing.  Search, by the way, is more than just Google.  You have to consider all conversations taking place in a multitude of venues including blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, message board forums, and even user-generated content sites.

I recently wrote an article for the specialty coffee association about a similar topic.  With respect to locating evangelists and searching for conversations I wrote:

The first thing you want to do is listen. Just take some time to read conversational threads and, with an open mind, listen to your customer. Start with the free tools. No need to spend money yet. Just do a Twitter search (www.search.twitter.com) and see what comes up. For example, pop “Peet’s Coffee” into the Twitter search and you’ll see a stream of conversations.

Some will be good: “lalitd: Enjoying Peets Coffee at CVG again. The line at Starbucks is missing out. #fb”

Some will be bad: “mel_1981: 1 manager looking around 2 ppl at register & 1 person making coffee for 7 ppl...oh Peets get a clue!!”

Some will just be mundane: "superbetch09: At Peets Coffee on Broadway. Cute Barista!”

But within a matter of minutes you’ll have an idea about what people are saying about your product, right now!

You can apply this to blog searches as  well and discover what larger conversations are being had. Use free tools like Ice Rocket (www.icerocket.com) and Blog Pulse (www.blogpulse.com) that will list and link to all the conversations on blogs taking place that invoke your brand’s name.

And go a step further than even many of the social media savvy do and pop your brand’s name into the search bar of Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. See what people are doing with your name. Either they’ve dedicated a group to you or just tagged you in their descriptions of what they were doing or thinking when they uploaded their photos and videos.

You get the point.  Conversations are taking place.  Spend a few hours just visually listening to what people are saying.

Next week I'll give some tips on how to identify the big voices and I'll follow that up with some tips on how to communicate once you've found those influencers and evangelists.