Research has demonstrated that less than 3% of the people participating in an online conversation generate 90% of the impact. This staggering statistic is even more powerful when you consider that the people actively engaging in an online discussion are actually part of a much larger audience that includes those just passively ‘listening.’

These findings show that one of the keys to making sure that your blog gains the maximum level of impact that it can is to tap into this pool of online influencers.

Most people are sceptical of a brand’s self-promotion. It stands to reason that a brand would brag about all of the things that it does well and maybe gloss over its shortcomings. This means that people are not quick to trust this kind of promotion. However, if a third party who is well respected in the field recommends a brand then people are more likely to sit up and pay attention.

So, all of you diligent members of the blogosphere, now that you know what an influencer is and the power that they can wield over the success or failure of a brand, I’m sure that you would like some tips on how to make them work for you? Look no further then as we provide our guide to doing just that.

Identify and Engage

The first thing that you are going to want to do is identify who the key influencers in your field are. Do some research online to help to find them and then look through their social profiles to gain a better understanding of their likes and dislikes, and perhaps more importantly, the sorts of things that they share regularly.

Seeing as you have researched these influencers and identified them as being involved in the same field as yourself, you should now have no problem creating content that will appeal to them.

Once you have crafted your article, mention their handle when you tweet it, or tag them in your Facebook post to let them know about it. This can lead to a retweet (especially if the post is specifically about them) and a retweet from a key influencer can increase the exposure of your blog into the tens or hundreds of thousands.

We all have a bit of an ego and this is true of influencers as well. Write an article listing the top five (or any number) key influencers in your field. List based articles are very popular anyway, but by massaging the egos of your influencers by including their names in yours, you will be far more likely to get noticed and shared.

Invite Them Over

Not to your house or anything you understand? Well, maybe, but that may be pushing things at this stage in the proceedings.

Invite them to submit a guest post for your blog. Not only will this give you great content for your blog, but will increase the likelihood that they will share it enthusiastically. It will also increase the credibility with which your blog is viewed by the general public. After all, if such and influential figure is writing for you, you must be doing something right.

However, you are going to want to do everything that you can to limit the amount of actual work that your influencer is going to need to do. They are typically very busy people and if you are going to convince them to create something for you then you need to make it as easy as possible for them. A great way to achieve this is through an interview with the influencer.

Interview them about the subject that you want the post to be about and then write the article for yourself. Record the audio and take lots of notes. This means that you can easily generate an 800-1000 word post and the influencer need only take 10-15 minutes out of their day for it. Thanks to video calling services being so popular and readily available (and free), this becomes even easier and it is a simple matter to fit it in around your influencer’s schedule.

Another way to get an influencer to benefit your profile is to host a question and answer session on Twitter for them. It should only take about 30 minutes and the work that they will have to do will be minimal. They will often promote the session across their networks and all you need do is come up with a decent hashtag for the event. This will once again massage the ego of you influencer and will likely draw many of their fans over to your Twitter profile.

There are some of our top tips for making influencers work for you and your blog. Please share some of your own suggestions if you have any and let us know the influencers that you look to in your own field. Oh, and if you happen to be an influencer, then please feel free to share this post as much as you like.

Have fun