Social media is evolving. Brands need to do more today than just have active profiles on different marketing channels.
Successful businesses are increasing their presence by leveraging relationships with social influencers to create brand awareness.
We’re seeing an increase in the use of micro influencers, which made my list of the top marketing trends to look for in 2018. So for those of you who haven’t implemented this strategy yet, it’s time to get your feet wet.
You may be surprised to hear how big of an impact influencer marketing campaigns can have on your company. In fact, 30% of people say they are more likely to buy a product if a non-celebrity influencer recommends it to them.
The results will vary by generation.
For example, if you are marketing to Generation Z, you’ll need to know that 70% of this group say they can relate to YouTube creators more than to traditional celebrities.
This means you don’t have to find pop culture icons like Kanye West or Shaquille O’Neal to promote your brand. It’s great news because this will obviously be more cost-effective for your marketing budget.
But since influencer marketing at this scale is relatively new for most businesses, it can feel as if you’re entering uncharted waters.
Where do you find social influencers? How much should they be paid? Do they have enough followers to have an impact on your business?
Fortunately, there are online platforms to help you get connected with social influencers. I’ve narrowed down the top 10 platforms for managing these relationships.
Review my list to see which ones fit the needs of your brand before you decide.
1. Klear
When it comes to getting connected with social influencers, Klear is a top choice for you to consider.
That’s because their software allows you to fully customize the profile of an influencer you’re looking for based on a variety of factors.
You’ll get to decide which social channels you want to promote on, such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, or even blogs.
Then you can select which type of influence you want people to have. This ranges from novices all the way up to celebrities.
Once you click on a prospective influencer’s profile, you’ll get to see insights based on their audience. This will help ensure their reach matches your goals.
Just because an influencer fits your target market doesn’t mean their followers do too. Klear helps you distinguish between these factors.
The dashboard of this software makes it easy for you to manage your campaigns and relationships with multiple influencers at the same time.
You’ll also get detailed reports for each campaign you run to see if you’re getting the results you need to get a high ROI.
Now, you can easily track your success and continue relationships with your best influencers. On the flip side, these analytics can give you a data-driven reason to cut ties with influencers who aren’t helping your cause.
2. TweetReach
Depending on your business and marketing campaigns, you may be looking for tools to help you with specific marketing channels.
The TweetReach software can help you get connected with the top social influencers on Twitter:
Here’s how it works. To find influencers, you’ll need to manually search for a topic related to your brand.
Simply input a keyword or hashtag into the query to see which tweets have the highest engagement.
If you find some people who have a big following and powerful voice within your industry, you can reach out to them directly and work out a deal for them to promote your brand via Twitter.
Furthermore, you can use TweetReach to search for specific accounts. You may have some influencers in mind, but you want to see some analytics before contacting them.
TweetReach provides you with exposure information based on your search terms in specific locations as well. This is useful if you want to get connected with influencers in a certain geographic market area.
3. Buzzsumo
I like Buzzsumo because they have a wide range of marketing solutions for businesses.
They have tools for things such as competitor analysis, brand monitoring, and content discovery. But they also have specific tools for your influencer marketing goals.
Their platform helps connect you with the right influencers. You can find an influencer based on topics or locations.
Once you have an initial list of influencers, you can filter those results based on things such as engagement, reach, influence, and authority. This gives you the ability to pick the most qualified people for your marketing goals.
You will also have reports based on the type of content and domains these influencers share the most.
Most influencers won’t work for one brand exclusively. This information is vital to making sure your influencers aren’t doing anything that may negatively affect the reputation of your company.
All the analytics, data, and reports from Buzzsumo can easily be exported as CSV or Excel files.
This makes it easy for you to manage your results on platforms you feel comfortable with. You can also combine this exported data with information from other software for comparison purposes.
4. Brandwatch Audiences
The Audiences research feature from Brandwatch gives you access to a huge database of social influencers.
The reason why this tool is so helpful is because it ranks influencers based on factors that matter the most, such as the ability to drive conversions.
This is much more important than their number of followers and reach. The software connects you with influencers based on niche markets as well.
If someone has an authoritative voice on a particular topic or within a certain industry, Brandwatch can help you find them.
It’s a great tool to use if you prefer working with up and coming influencers, such as micro influencers, as opposed to people who are nearing celebrity status on social media.
5. BuzzStream
BuzzStream is another great option to consider because their platform can help you get connected with bloggers in addition to social media users.
Don’t underestimate the power of a blogger’s voice and the positive impact it can have on your branding strategy.
All you need to do is search for a specific topic through this platform. You’ll see a list of prospective bloggers that fit your brand or industry.
You’ll have access to reports about their websites and social media pages. This snapshot will tell you exactly how many followers they have on each platform as well as their posting frequency and activity level.
BuzzStream also provides you with engagement statistics for each prospective influencer.
In addition to managing your relationships with influencers, the BuzzStream software specializes in digital PR, link building, and content promotion. All of these features can be used to complement your social influencer campaigns.
6. Kred
This platform is a bit different from all the other options on our list so far.
That’s because Kred is designed for influencers as opposed to brands looking to get connected with influencers.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t still use this platform to your advantage. There are plenty of ways you can go about this.
First of all, if your business is tied to your personal brand, you definitely need to use Kred. Working with other brands can be an easy way for you to build credibility for your company.
For example, let’s say you’re in the modeling business. Rather than looking for social influencers to promote your brand, you should be getting connected with brands to promote their products.
That way, you can earn some extra cash while increasing the exposure for your personal brand and business at the same time.
Kred is also great because it helps connect influencers with other influencers.
Businesses can use these tools to their advantage to discover their Kred score, which is basically a report of how strong their online influence and outreach is on various channels.
7. GroupHigh
GroupHigh is another top choice for brands looking to connect with social influencers and bloggers.
They have a database with over 15 million influencer profiles.
You can search for influencers based on different reach metrics, location, and social presence. GroupHigh also has an option for finding influencers based on their expertise in niche topics or industries.
If you are managing social influencers on multiple platforms, GroupHigh can help you stay organized.
That’s because the software allows you to import all the information regarding other influencer relationships into their system. Now you can manage everything from one location. It’s easy to contact your influencers with just a click once you import their info.
There are lots of different communication options with influencers based on the preferred method of both parties.
You can also see reports on all your social mentions to give you a better understanding of your ROI from different influencer marketing campaigns.
8. Followerwonk
Followerwonk is software offered by Moz. It’s an influencer marketing tool specific to Twitter.
Unlike the majority of options on our list, Followerwonk has a free version you can take advantage of.
This tool helps you search for keywords found in users’ Twitter bios. You’ll get to see information pulled from their profiles, such as the number of followers, account age, tweets, and social authority scores.
In addition to using this tool to help you find new influencers, you can use it to track your existing relationships.
You want to make sure the influencers representing your brand on Twitter still have a strong authority. Otherwise, you may be wasting money on a marketing campaign that won’t work.
9. Onalytica
If you’re looking for a platform that helps you connect with new influencers and manage them at the same time, Onalytica is a viable option to consider.
You have several options to search for new influencers. Onalytica lets you search based on categories, so you can get connected with people who specialize in specific fields.
You can also find influencers based on their demographics.
If you’re looking to market your brand to a specific audience, it makes sense to work with influencers who fit that demographic as well.
But what really makes Onalytica one of the top influencer marketing platforms is the option to search for influencers based on topic and content. You can find people who use similar language to that of your recently published content.
All you have to do is upload something you created, such as a newsletter or blog post, and the Onalytica content matching tool will provide you with a list of prospective influencers.
10. Traackr
Last on my list, but certainly not least, is Traackr.
This platform has a wide range of solutions to help businesses manage their influencer marketing campaigns.
They make it easy for you to communicate with influencers on a daily basis so that you can effectively get your message out to the consumer.
You can also upload influencer lists from other platforms to this software to help you manage everything in one centralized location. That way, it’ll be easier for you to track and compare your conversions, helping validate the success of specific campaigns.
Traackr also has tools to help compare your brand’s total social influence compared to that of your competitors. It also tracks your improvement over time.
All this information is helpful when it comes to measuring your reach and ROI.
Conclusion
For your business to survive and prosper in today’s digital age, you need to increase your social media presence.
To do this effectively, you’ve got to develop relationships with social influencers on multiple distribution channels.
Rather than just blindly scrolling through your follower lists to try to come up with a qualified candidate, you can use online tools to discover, manage, and analyze your influencers.
Refer to my list above to help you find what you’re looking for. Some of the options are more platform-specific, helping you connect with either bloggers, for example, or influencers on Twitter.
It all depends on your marketing goals.
But one thing is for certain, you need to get on the social influencer train now before your competition beats you to the punch.
What types of platforms does your company use to manage relationships with social influencers?