In the world of SEO, we’ve experienced a huge shift from rank-centric SEO to influencer marketing SEO. Initially search engine optimization centered on highlighting those keywords and pushing them as hard as possible so Google realized that we most definitely were the authority because look how many times we say that keyword. Then Google changed the game because they realized we weren’t necessarily giving their searchers the best experience, we were just saying the words they wanted to hear. As SEO shifted the focus moved to the customer. Then, somewhere along the way we realized that an influential web presence could actually do the marketing for us if we appealed to them. From these experiences and this evolution, influencer marketing SEO was born.
So how do you tap into your SEO efforts and push them toward influencer marketing – how do you win in the influencer marketing game?
Go Social
The social realm is where all the cool kids play – literally! Make sure that your brand has a social presence and is working with what is relevant today. This can change quite quickly or it can hang on for years, you just need to have an eye and ear on the ground to stay on top of it. You also need to feel relevant in the social world so that people realize you’re out there.
Crowdsource
While your marketing team works diligently to create content that people want to share you can encourage the outside world to help in that aspect. Shake free of the sell, sell, sell mentality and come up with a way to invite people to share stories, images and video of themselves with your product.
Backlinks
Natural backlinks have huge SEO power and the best way to do that is to create something a market influencer wants to share. If you or I share a link, chances are it might get shared by a few people or it might not get shared at all but influencers have the prestige and authority that sparks an epidemic of sharing; reach the right market influencer and that content exponentially works in your favor.
Find Your Influencer
Do your research and find out who your target demographic looks to for information and entertainment. Then hire that person to work for you. While it works best if it appears that market influencers are organically promoting a product it doesn’t actually have to be that way. The key here is to actually find the right person who not only is a powerful source to your customers but one who also aligns with your company values. Share their posts so the relationship looks organic and mutual. Make this a long-term, lasting relationship with believability at the core.
Use the Influencer Fan Base
Don’t forget that if your target audience loves Celebrity Blogger X and you think they’d be a perfect marketing influencer for you then they probably have a pretty big fan base that may love your product/service/website but not even know it yet. You don’t have to rely on Celebrity Blogger X to hit their base, you can do it too by becoming a part of the conversation and introducing yourself to their fan base.
Influencer marketing SEO, in many ways, is a fresh approach to SEO and to marketing itself but it does all come back to the old idea getting a “celebrity” to promote your product. The catch is that in this day and age a celebrity standing up in a commercial talking about a product isn’t believable but a powerful market influencer mentioning an item or sharing a link from your campaign does strike the audience as not only believable but desirable.
If you need content that speaks directly to your audience and can echo the voice of your market influencer, contact Filament to see how we can help.
