Hardwood Floors December 2018/January 2019

Understanding Influencer Marketing (Continued)

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for contacts, followers, and friends. Use hashtags to narrow searches by topic or geographic location. List potential influencers on a spreadsheet. Follow them for a few weeks to see if they look like good candidates. Make notes about their number of followers, engagement, and topics discussed. Like, share, or comment on their content to start building relationships. Track your contacts with them and keep notes about your conversations. When you find a candidate, reach out to see if they’re interested in collaborating. As with any new strategy, start small and test. Set goals, choose an appropriate influencer, try different options, and evaluate the results. Learn from each attempt and tweak the content, delivery, and execution to determine if the relationship is worth pursuing further. Katrina Olson is a marketing consultant, trainer, writer, and principal of Katrina Olson Marketing + Training. Reach her at katrina@katrinaolson.com.

When evaluating social media influencers, consider the following: • They must be trustworthy, engaging, and a credible source of information. • The influencer should have a high number of followers on social media platforms. • Their posts must have high engagements. • He or she must be passionate about what they do and share that passion with others. • The influencer should post consistently and communicate well with their followers. If the idea of influencer marketing is appealing, but doing it yourself sounds too complicated or time-consuming, consider retaining an agency like Linquia or Collective Bias that specializes in matching companies with influencers. 8 “HOW DO I GET STARTED?” Start by researching the topic and looking for potential social media influencers in the geographic market or industry. Search your LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter platforms

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