How to Connect with Top Influencers via Your Blogs – Even if you are a Nobody

When I started my webpreneurial career, I’m virtually a nobody. I just started to learn blogging and website building, and, to say the least, I’m a noob in many ways.

Entering the 8th year of my career, I still consider myself a “nobody” in the online business arena — there are so many successful online entrepreneurship, and I’m just someone who wants to grab my piece of pie in a lucrative online business market.

However, I have this awesome opportunity to connect, even not in person, with top business figures and influencers — directly or indirectly. I’ve connected with experts in small business niche — Anita Campbell (Founder of SmallBizTrends.com), Paul Segreto (franchising expert,) Joel Libava (The Franchise King) and other prolific figure in small business. In social media niche, I’ve connected with Martin Lindeskrog (social media evangelist,) Gail Gardner (GrowMap,) David Leonhardt (content marketing and social media expert,) Ann Smarty (SEO expert) and other awesome people in social media, blogging and inbound marketing. I’ve also connected with public figures through our little partnership with my sites — Eben Pagan, Robert Kiyosaki and other great business leaders and CEO’s (next — Gary Vaynerchuk!)

Mentioning the names above, I don’t mean to brag or whatnot Instead, I want to show you that even a nobody like me can connect with some of the most awesome people in business.

The next question would be: Why?

Why is it important to connect with influencers

The answer is pretty simple: More impact, more opportunities.

Connecting with influencers mean that I can reach more people and add more value to their lives. I believe that, no matter how big or small your current reach, you can always impact people’s life.

If you blog with good intention, you can impact others — even if you don’t have much traffic to your blog. Even if your blog post is read by only 50 people, you need to keep in mind that you have potentially impacted the life of 50 people.

Influencers help you amplify your message — if they think you offer value. Here’s a simple example: If your blog post is shared by an influencer with 100,000 followers, your post is potentially reaching 100,000 people.

Not only impacting others, connecting with influencers can offer you more business opportunities, especially if your business/work is personally recommended by them.

I have partnered with a couple of influencers which have given me nice deals. Not stopping there, I have an opportunity to partner with those in their network.

How to connect with top influencers with your blog

My Noobpreneur.com is my “gateway” to connect with the influencers. I am humbled by the fact that the site has helped entrepreneurs and business people in their journey in one way or another.

But how did I do that?

1. Build brand and reputation (via your content)

I have shared in another post that I have tried using SEO for growing my Noobpreneur.com — and failed miserably with the Google penalties. Going back to basic with brand and reputation building has helped my Noobpreneur.com recover and continue to make an impact.

With that said, you need to build your blog’s brand and reputation. How? First and foremost: Create useful blog posts.

You should create blog posts that reward readers’ time spent on your blog. Being authoritative with your blog posts is great, but uniquely being you in your blog post also attracts people — and give that intangible benefits on your overall brand.

Don’t publish negative stuffs like criticizing other brands, ranting, whining, gossiping, etc. Yes, those can attract traffic, but you want to be useful in putting things in a positive light.

Being likable helps. A lot.

2. Be your own brand evangelist

“Just build it and they will come” just won’t work for most of us. We need to actively creating and promoting content using various channels, mainly social networks.

Submit your blog post on social bookmarking sites. Promote your blog post on content sharing platform like Justretweet. Build your audience – not only on popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but also on emerging social media platforms like Tsu.co to enjoy the early adopter beneftis. Offer your blog post as the answer to people’s question on forums and groups.

Here’s an important must-do: Mention the people you want to connect with. If you tweet about something related to a public figure, include his/her Twitter handle in it. If you share an expert’s article, make sure to mention his name as the source to your audience. Chances are, the influencers – and their fans and follower – will eventually notice your mentions and will follow/recommend you, your posts or your status updates.

There are two goals in doing the above: Acquiring traffic from social media platforms and raising blog brand awareness.

3. Other people’s credential

Many said guest posts are dead. But to me, UNINSPIRING guest posts are dead — the rest — the authoritative and epic posts — are not only alive and well, they are also making a difference when published on your blog.

Always look for guest posts that are better than your own blog posts. Also, look for guest posts that offer different voices to your blog, adding value to the overall culture of your blog.

Most importantly, you need to think beyond content: You need to focus on who’s writing — or at least “signing” the blog post by having his/her name in the byline.

Typically, bloggers only feature other bloggers. This is good, but if you want to be more influential, look for guest posts from prolific and well-known CEOs, top execs, public figures, and business leaders.

I build my blog’s brand based on the notion that the visitors not only read blog posts, but they want to learn more about the Author, as well. Having big names in the business world featured in your blog as the Author will boost your brand.

And the interesting thing is this: The more you feature great leaders in your blog, the more leaders, PR agencies and companies will contact you for getting featured in your blog. Yes, they have done their research, looking for worthy-enough blogs to connect with; having CEOs, leaders and public figures’ posts published on your blog shows a positive sign.

But how to connect with the big names? There’s one way: Connect with PR agencies. Read this for more details.

Takeaway

You learn from the above that it takes a lot of work in order to get to where you want to be. But that’s given. If you don’t have the leverage (e.g. You are not a public figure yourself or have the marketing budget) you need to create your own leverage, starting by building your brand image ground up — and hustling, word by word, content by content, share by share.

Remember, one is better than zero. If you want to get there, work on it. Plain and simple.