Top 5 Tips to Become an Industry Influencer

As an industry influencer, you can get much more impact from your marketing campaigns.

You will be seen as an expert, and when you publish content, people will sit up and take notice. They will click on the articles you share, and they will be more likely to share them with their own audiences. You’ll get more exposure for your brand, and you’ll get more leads and conversions.

To understand the impact that industry influencers make, just look at what happens every time Search Marketing Land or Moz shares new content. It gets heavy user engagement and it gets shared widely. Wouldn’t you love the same thing to happen with your content or other aspects of your marketing?

Here are top 5 tips to become an industry influencer yourself:

1. Create Quality Content

To be an industry influencer, you need to establish yourself as an authority, and one of the best ways to do that is to create in-depth, knowledgeable content.

Explore a topic in depth when you write. Don’t just skim the surface. That means writing about multiple angles of a topic, backing up your information with examples and statistics, and providing actionable information. All of that usually means writing longer pieces of content, but not always.

If you don’t want to create longer, exhaustive pieces of content, you can still write in-depth about a topic by writing multiple articles around the topic. Your blog itself can be the exhaustive resource that your audience needs.

2. Offer Unique Perspectives

Industry influencers don’t just regurgitate information — they create information. That means offering unique perspectives and opinions.

For example, when writing about content marketing, Derek Halpern of Social Triggers challenged the “content is king” status quo and wrote about how “design is king.” He argued that before your users ever read a word of what you write, they decide if they want to stay on your site based on the way it looks and how it’s designed.

Of course, Halpern’s article was cited and shared widely, and many people have referenced it in their own articles or written rebuttal pieces. What new insights can you bring to your niche? What opinions or suggestions can you share that your competitors haven’t already?

3. Nurture Relationships

Power comes from the connections you have. Powerful people don’t often become powerful on their own. They become powerful based on the partnerships they forge and the people they know.

To gain industry influence, you need to nurture relationships in your own niche, as well. You can easily do this by writing guest blogs regularly for a site, by encouraging guest content on your own site, or even by creating special products with partners, such as ebooks or online courses.

To start creating those relationships, you need to start doing things like sharing other people’s content, starting conversations on social media, or sharing items of interest with the brand.

4. Build Your Social Media Following

These days, you can’t get anywhere without a large social media following. Most people can’t even get a writing gig or marketing job if they can’t show that they already have a fan base. The number of followers on your social media is an indication of your influence. The more followers you have, the more people you can reach with your content and ideas.

Building your followers takes time and consistency, and there are dozens of things you can do to attract them. Primarily, you will need to share quality content on a consistent basis. However, other tactics include engaging with users on other profiles and pages, hosting contests, running PPC campaigns, creating scarcity and so on.

5. Go Offline

Industry influence isn’t limited to the online sphere. If you want to be a true influencer, you’ll need to go offline, as well.

One of the best ways to gain influence through offline activities is to be a speaker at an industry event, such as a conference or seminar. Treat your presentation the same way you would the online content you create — make sure that it is authoritative, in-depth and offers unique perspectives.

You can also build influential industry relationships by networking at these events. Even if you are not a presenter, you can meet and greet the other attendees and start laying the foundation for what can become influential relationships.

Finally, you can publish content in local newspapers and magazines, or you can publish items in print for your customers, such as pamphlets, small books and brochures.

By building your influence through online and offline activities, you can get more attention for all your activities in the future. When you have something to say, people will pay attention and you will get the results you want. That will help you get a bigger ROI on your marketing and start meeting your sales goals.

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