17 epic opportunities for reaching influencers (influencer outreach on periscope)

By dan - On

vperiscope_screenshotI have a confession to make. I think I’m addicted to Periscope!

It’s an amazing way to get useful content out quickly and build a whole new level of trust with your community.

But there’s also an insane opportunity for influencer outreach on periscope.

So much so that I just did a periscope about that very topic, 17 ways to get the attention of influencers (replay below) and I’ve written it up as a post as well.

In this post I’ll also share the approach I took to doing the periscope call (my 3rd one).

If you are on there please add me by searching for Dan Norris or handle @thedannorris).

10 minute plan

I thought of this idea this week, when legendary startup investor Chris Sacca tweeted my blog post to his 1.6 million followers.

Getting the attention of Chris Sacca is no small feat. The dude is a billionaire. To put that into perspective, there are less than 30 billionaires in the whole of Australia.

So I thought a periscope call on how to get the attention of influencers was timely.

I spent 10 minutes throwing some ideas into Trello.

periscope_flow

I set these up on my laptop on a stool in front of me so I could glance at them and refer to them on the call.

Periscope video replay

Periscope let’s you download the video to your mobile which is super cool. Their hosted version of the replay looks nicer but it only stays live for 24 hours. Here is the downloaded version which I uploaded to Youtube.

A few warnings, the one I tried prior to this crashed so my broadcast starts with “well that was shit”. Oh and then a bird flew into my window. The joys of live streaming! Click the thumbnail to check out the replay.

Keep in mind this is only the 3rd session I’ve done so I’m still learning 🙂

17 ways to get the attention of influencers

Bare essential assumptions

Here is a list of the 17 ways to get the attention of influencers. First, some bare essential pre-requisites.

  1. You will have to get your shit together in terms of your online presence. Make sure you have a good Twitter bio, nice photos, great design on your site and good proof that you are legit (don’t fill it with ads and other crap). Influencers will write you off immediately if you don’t look like you do things to a high standard, because their audience is used to a high standard.
  2. I’ve found content marketing to be the best way to get the attention of influencers. But not just any content. Only content that is as good or better than the content that the influencer is regularly sharing with their audience. I’ve written a book about this called Content Machine that comes out August 2015. Check it out at contentmachine.com.
  3. Choose someone you could be mates with. If there is no fit there from the start you will probably never build a relationship with them.
  4. Don’t punch above your weight. Everyone wants to be friends with Oprah, but it won’t happen. Aim a few levels above where you are now.

17 ways to get the attention of influencers

  1. Proof proof proof – Influencers want to see proof that you are legit. When I was getting started, I landed a post on my dream blog Problogger.net (See Are you wasting your time guest blogging), by first getting a post on a slightly lower level blog, Think Traffic (see Case study – which source of web traffic converts the best). Problogger could see that post went well and credibility was established. If I reached out cold, there would have been nothing to prove that I was legit.
  2. Amazon review and email – Most influencers have written books. Books get to the top of Amazon by people leaving reviews, so influencers LOVE it when you leave a 5 star Amazon review. Email them and tell them you left a review too, to make sure they saw it.
  3. Start a podcast – Getting influencers to agree to a podcast interview is one of the easiest, least friction ways to have a conversation and help them. More often than not they will say yes because it helps them just as much as it helps you. My post, The beginners guide to podcasting includes everything you need to know to start a podcast.
  4. Itunes review – If they have a podcast, they looooove iTunes reviews. Again like Amazon, if they want to get to the top of the iTunes rankings, it’s based mainly on reviews. Even better, if they have a new podcast they will be desperate for reviews because they will be super keen to get into the new and noteworthy section. Leave them a review and let them know you did. Some podcasters even read out reviews on their shows.
  5. Present at conferences – This has been a game changer for me. Conferences give you an unprecedented opportunity to hang out with influencers. Most conferences I’ve spoken at have speakers-only dinners and some even have full day speakers-only masterminds before the event. I started presenting at conferences last year and haven’t looked back. Here is a video of me speaking on 10 things bootstrapped founders can learn from Startups at James Schramko’s event Superfast Business Live. More on how I got the attention of a big influencer like James later.
  6. Write about them – Influencers are just like the rest of us. We naturally pay attention to content about us first. I’ve done this many times before, the Chris Sacca article is the biggest example of an influencer sharing my content (1.6 million proper followers).
  7. Become a customer – A lot of influencers have some sort of product, service or online community. Sign up and become a customer and you will get their attention. I’ve done this with all of the guys I’ve built relationships with. Then I’ve become advocates of their offerings as well.
  8. Roundup post  – This is a super easy way to get the attention of influencers. Just write a blog post where you ask for their opinion on something. We do this all the time on the WP Curve blog, so much so that we have a guide on how to do it (The definitive guide to writing a roundup post). Email them, ask them to share it and include a Click To Tweet link that you’ve created just for them.
  9. Send them traffic – Figure out a way to send them traffic. They will notice one way or another, perhaps even just through Google Analytics. A lot of influencers use Mention.net, so they will be noticed if you link through to them.
  10. Send them customers – Even better, send them customers for their business. They will definitely notice that! If it’s not customers they need, have a think about what they do need and figure out a way to send that to them.
  11. Use their techniques – Want a really meta story? I heard Dan Andrews once say that a good way to get the attention of influencers is implement their advice and then tell them about it. So I did that, with Dan Andrews. His idea was to make sure you don’t link to people’s home pages, instead you link to a blog post so they get a trackback notification and know you wrote about them. So I wrote about podcasting and included a link to Dan’s podcast episode on TropicalMba.com. He noticed, left a comment, gave me a shout out on the show. He’s become one of my biggest supporters and we’ve become friends.
  12. Do something different  – Generally with attention, you’ll get more of it if you do something that other people aren’t doing. One example was when I reviewed James Schramko’s Traffic Grab training course as a non affiliate. He had a lot of people reviewing it using affiliate links. I did a review with no affiliate link. I was the only one. That was the first time I got on his radar, and have since presented at his event, surfed with him and become good friends.
  13. Write a book – Sounds daunting but writing a book doesn’t have to be that difficult (I’ve written 2, how hard could it be?). Having a physical book gives you immediate credibility among influencers because you are one of them. You can do it virtually for free, check out The complete guide to book marketing for everything you need to know.
  14. Don’t be afraid to ask – This is a tip from Keith Ferrazzi who wrote the book Never Eat Alone. He pointed out that if you have some sort of relationship with someone, asking them for a favour will often enhance the relationship rather than hurt it. It seems counter intuitive but if it’s an opportunity to do something together and hang out, the relationship will be better for it. Make sure you have a reasonable relationship first and don’t go randomly asking influencers to do things for you. Asking to be on a podcast is a good example. I asked Rob Walling to go on Startups for the rest of us when I launched my first book The 7 Day Startup. He ended up having me on, writing the foreword to my book and we are now friends.
  15. Periscope – There is an INSANE opportunity right now to get the attention of influencers on Periscope. Influencers are jumping all over this platform right now, most of them are just finding their feet and still have very small followings. That won’t last forever but for now you can get on with big name people and add some value with comments (you can comment if you are the first 500 people on). As an example, Darren Rouse from Problogger.net just started using it. At the time of writing he has 3,700 followers and is getting around 300 people on each call. I’d say a max of about 50 of those would comment, so you are a 1 in 50 chance of getting his attention if you add some value to his calls. To put that into perspective, on Twitter he has 222,000 followers. Chris Ducker has been killing it on Periscope and he came on this call to say hi which is super cool. Getting the attention of guys like Darren and Chris is pretty badass I reckon.
  16. Get offline – Relationships will always go to the next level when you can meet in person. Go to their events and meetups, do anything you can to get in person with them. I can’t recall too many meaningful relationships I’ve built solely online. Eventually you need to meet up, so look for opportunities to do that.
  17. Book giveaway idea – One more idea which is a bit of a weird one. Yesterday I decided to give away my first book The 7 Day Startup to 15 or so people in my Content Machine Facebook Group. The Content Machine group is filled with people interested in my second book, so I thought there might be people in there who hadn’t necessarily read my first book. The post went really well and lots of people commented on it. But what if you did this for someone else’s book? Why not pick an influencer, grab a $20 Amazon gift voucher and give their book away to a bunch of people? That will surely get their attention!

In summary, get on Periscope it’s insanely addictive and fun. Search for Dan Norris (handle @thedannorris) and join me as I figure it out!

Mentioned on the Periscope

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