Author: Daniel Knowlton / Source: Content Marketing Institute Have you tried putting together a list of top industry influencers? Curatin
Have you tried putting together a list of top industry influencers?
Curating and publishing this type of list, while reaching out to featured influencers, is proven to create a large amount of exposure for your blog from a highly targeted audience.
This tutorial will walk you through the process. Though I focused on social media influencers, the process can work for just about any industry.
How is this different from every other influencer list strategy?
First off, this strategy uses a proven process that has delivered significant exposure to my content more than once. In addition, this strategy ensures that the list is completely credible. An external tool is used to calculate and rank the top influencers on the topic of your choice.
1. Choose a topic to focus on
One of the simplest ways to choose an influencer list topic is to just focus on your industry, for example “farming,” “manufacturing” or “technology.” However, consider narrowing your topic to research popular themes related to your industry. You could use your keyword research to help in this process.
2. Identify the top 100 influencers on that topic
Various identification tools can identify influencers, just search for “influencer identification tools” on Google. In this process, I used BuzzSumo.
Head over to the influencers tab, type in your chosen topic, and hit Search. Use the filter tab on the left to narrow the list to the types of users you’d like to rank. For example, I untick “companies” when I create influencer lists focused on people.
3. Export the data into a spreadsheet
If you have a paid account, simply click the Export button.
If you are using a free trial, you need to put in a bit more effort to export and format this data onto a spreadsheet:
- Highlight the first page. Copy everything from the first person on the list’s name (top left) all the way down to the last “average retweets” piece of data for the last influencer at the bottom of the page (bottom right).
- Paste this information into a Notepad file.
- Go back to the list and click on the second page. Repeat the process until you have 100 influencers’ information pasted into a Notepad file.
The only information in the Notepad file is the influencer’s name, Twitter handle, and however many pieces of ranking data you want. I include four:
TIP: To reduce your manual-deletion efforts to remove unnecessary data to achieve your final format, use the find-and-replace function. Simply click Edit, then Replace. Type in frequently mentioned unnecessary words in the “Find what:” box, leave the “Replace with:” box blank. Click “Replace All.” Repeat the process until all chosen words are deleted. Then, delete the remaining extraneous words manually.
- Copy and paste the 100 influencers’ information into a spreadsheet and label each column. I use the following: rank, Twitter (handle), name, page authority, domain authority, Twitter followers, RT ratio (retweet ratio – the percentage of each user’s tweets that are retweets).
4. Reach out to top influencers for quotes
Getting quotes from the featured influencers will:
- Increase the credibility of the list
- Increase the number of influencers and people who share the list
- Add more depth to the piece of content
I’ve found that the best way to contact influencers is to send them a personal email.
TIP: To find an influencer’s email address, do a Google search for “(influencer’s name) email address.” Or read their Twitter bio and visit the Contact Us section on their website. As a last resort, use the contact form on their website.
Influencer outreach email template
To ensure that your outreach email works, use this proven template I have used to email the top 10 to 15 featured influencers. You only need a few to respond to include in the list post.
Subject: Top 100 [topic] Influencers in [year/month]
Hey [Influencer first name],
I’ve used BuzzSumo to find the Top 100 Most Influential [topic] Influencers in the World in [year/month] (you were # [insert number where influencer was ranked]!).
I’m creating a list post including the top 100 and I’m including one “[topic + year/month]”-related paragraph from…
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