Getting people to share your content on social media is tricky business. This is especially true if you have few followers.

Fortunately, there are a special group of people who can give your content a big boost on social media. These people are called influencers.

What is an influencer and how do I get their attention?

An influencer is an individual (or organization) with an active social media following. An influencer can change minds with a single tweet or snap, which is why marketers love it when influencers retweet their products, services and opinions.

The best way to grab an influencer’s attention on social media is by creating positive content about them. I know this from experience, as my highest-performing articles on social media were all about specific individuals and organization, who in turn shared my content with their many followers.

Below are the 3 steps I follow when developing content for influencers to share on on social media:

1. Influencer Discovery

First, you must find an influencer to write/ talk about.

You should look for the following traits when searching for your influencer:

• The influencer is well known and respected in your community.
• This individual has an active social media following on at least one of the major social sharing networks, most notably Facebook and Twitter.
• They are very likely to retweet/ share your content, or at least their fans are likely to do this.

2. Content Creation

There are many ways you can profile an influencer, whether you’re a blogger, YouTuber or podcaster.

Consider using one of the following content formats:

• Event coverage
• Interview or Q&A piece
• Top 10 list (e.g. an influencer’s top achievements)
• Opinion piece about the influencer
• News item about the influencer

Avoid being overly critical of the influencer if you want them to share your content. (In other words, cover someone you like.)

3. Social media marketing

Now that you’ve created your content, it’s time to move on to the next step: marketing your content on social media.

Market your content as you normally would, but this time include the following actions:

• Let the influencer know about your content, either in person or by mentioning them in your social media posts.
• Create excitement amongst your social media community by including the influencer in your post’s headline and accompanying imagery, and by using appropriate hashtags.

By performing these two actions you’re encouraging the influencer and your community to both view and share your content. And if you’re content is good, it could go viral.

So there you have it: A simpler way to get more shares and clicks on social media. I wish you the very best in your social media marketing efforts!

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