Today’s guest post is courtesy of Murray Newlands, the founder of Influence People and author of a recent book on Social Media Monitoring

 

The last time Technorati published numbers, there were well over 200 million active blogs, and the number is only growing bigger everyday.

As a brand or SME looking to connect with relevant bloggers, it can be intimidating- trying to find the right bloggers to contact about a product launch or to build community can easily feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Blogger outreach is a big part of the work I do at Influence People, and social media monitoring is a dynamic tool that helps my work tremendously.

During a typical blogger outreach campaign, part of my work is to identify relevant bloggers, learn more about their writing, then monitor and track results during a campaign.

At every step along the way, social media monitoring can augment and enhance what I’m able to do and reduce the time it takes to do it- both of which make those needles easier to find so I can spend my time sewing together more articles.

1. Research

Using social media monitoring gives my outreach two big advantages- staying current and starting conversation.

If I’m working with a retailer to launch a new line of their shoes, I will need to connect with fashion, shoe and trend bloggers around keywords like “shoe fashion”.

While a Google search will bring up some related blogs, doing the same keyword search with social media monitoring will tell me who is talking about “shoe fashion” TODAY, and who is tweeting about the article they published a few hours ago.

Starting conversation is another way of using that same information. If I find 200 results from conversations about “new shoes,” I can scan those results and figure out the 5 or 10 that relate to meet and start talking and making connections with bloggers who can easily become advocates for my clients.

2. Ongoing Research

Once a campaign is off the ground, social media monitoring lets me keep up with new developments and incorporate them into the campaign. As I monitor a term like “new shoes” I will pick up on new conversations happening everyday.

I am able to reach out to any new bloggers I see and let them know about the campaign and offer them a chance to be involved. And because there are so many amazing projects happening around the web all the time, when I focus on a particular keyword I feel like I discover a new outreach opportunity everyday.

3. Campaign Red Bull

I don’t drink it but it’s like my campaigns when I use social media monitoring to supercharge the outreach. If I’ve got 10 bloggers writing about “new shoes” over the course of the week, every conversation I find through my monitoring is a chance to share the link to the blog post(s) from my team.

For example, if I notice a Twitter conversation about “new shoes” I can join in and tweet a link to a post one of my blogger team published just that morning. This helps me get involved in current conversations with something relevant to offer and furthers the exposure of my client.

4. Tracking my Team

Most blogger outreach campaigns focus on a keyword of their own, and social media monitoring is the ideal tool to keep tabs on when my own team is publishing.

If I’m asking bloggers to use certain keywords, I will be able to check on where everyone is at with social media monitoring, rather than relying completely on getting an email back from each individual blogger. I also have a one-stop-shop for looking at the comments and shares that the blog posts get once they do go up.

5. Long Tail Results

Finally, I can monitor keywords, blog posts and resultant chatter for weeks after a campaign is done on my end to show results to my clients. It’s a great way for me to see the long-tail impact of a campaign and instantly turn that learning into a visual aid I can send on to my client.

Those are just a few of the ways social media monitoring helps with my blogger outreach campaigns. It’s all about finding the needles and doing the sewing.

There are more ways to use Social Media Monitoring for blogger outreach and other projects, and I welcome you to learn more with my Social Media Monitoring book, available for free.