You do have a blog, don’t you?
If you don’t have a blog, then go create one right now. I’ll wait 
Blogging has countless of benefits for businesses of all types and sizes. It’ll help you generate more traffic which will convert into customers. It’ll help you understand your audience better. It’ll help you connect better with your prospects. I’ll help you gain that “EXPERT” status that prospects are looking for to buy from you…etc.
Point is, blogging has been proven hundreds of times to be super effective when it comes to getting new customers as well as keeping existing ones!
Source: MarketingCharts.com
Let’s assume that you have a blog.
The next step in the process would be getting prospects to read that blog so you can convert them into paying customers, right?
Ryan Deiss always says that business is always about traffic + conversion!
If you generate targeted traffic and then drive it through the right conversion funnel, you’ll be getting more customers. That’s for sure.
Creating great content will get you traffic on the long run, but what if you don’t want to wait for search engines to index your content, evaluate its weight, rank it and then put it on their search engine result pages?
Although SEO can be a great long term traffic generation strategy, many businesses need that instant traffic to help them maintain their businesses and generate more customers.
And what is better than social media to achieve that task?
If you create great content, then social media will help you generate instant traffic, but only if used correctly.
Many businesses write great pieces of content to realize that they’ve gone unnoticed on social media.
You don’t want that to happen to you, do you?
You don’t want to spend hours crafting a wonderful piece only to realize that 10 people have read it!
In order to prevent that from happening to you, here is the strategy that will help flood your blog with traffic, leads and customers!
The gate I’m talking about here is the one that separates you from all the traffic your blog needs to generate more customers!
Some people call them influencers, others call them reporters, but for the sake of this article, I’m just going to call them GATEKEEPERS!
Targeting gatekeepers is probably the most important strategy that you can leverage to get loads of traffic back to your blog!
Did you hear about businesses that got flooded with traffic and customers just because one of their posts got picked by a major blog?
You might think that this only happens by chance, but not according to many people who have intentionally landed their business appearance on a major blog or media outlet.
Surely, there are some businesses that publish a new piece of content, and within a few days, they’ll be contacted by a major blog asking them to give them permission to syndicate their post.
However, you can’t really rely on chance if you’re starting out.
You know why?
Because almost every industry is very crowded today! Almost everyone is creating content these days, and some of that content is considered great, but never see daylight!
Would you rather publish content regularly and wait for it to get picked by a major blog?
That is not a bad idea, but keep in mind that you might wait forever in order for that to happen!
Steve kamb published a post on his blog NerdFitness.com and within an hour he got contacted by an editor at Gizmodo asking for his permission to syndicate it on their website.
That same article has been viewed 330,000 times on Gizmodo and sent him over 42,000 visitors to his website NerdFitness.com.
While Steve didn’t do anything unusual to get that blog post on Gizmodo, he attributes this success to writing great content that is super useful, entertaining and that solves a particular problem.
Gregory Ciotti got similar results from a guest post he wrote. However, this time it was purposeful!
He strategically landed a guest post on the Bufferapp blog and then emailed Lifehacker if they would be interested in his article. Within a week, his article was accepted!
As you saw in the previous examples, writing super useful content can land you a major appearance on a big blog or magazine. However, I would go the extra mile and promote the heck of every great piece of content I create.
While this might seem counter intuitive to many, Derek Halpern always says that you should spend 20% of your time writing great content and 80% promoting the heck out of it!
Now that you know the importance of creating great content as well as promoting it, here is the strategy that will get you tons of traffic back to your blog!
I don’t only mean influencers who have popular blogs, but also reporters who write for magazines or newspapers about your particular industry.
Just to give you an idea, I recently wrote a follow up blog post entitled “Why Social Media Isn’t Working For Small Businesses, And What You Can Do About It!” to a USAToday.com article.
Once I published it, I contacted everyone who was mentioned in that article including the reporter.
The reporter ended up promoting it on his social profiles and I got 3 client requests because of that!
What I usually do is to compile a list of 30-50 people including their emails and Twitter handles. I also add new people constantly to that list who meet certain criteria. I set up a Google Alert with keywords I’m interested in targeting, and identify people who write about my industry. If I see that their websites are popular and receive a good amount of traffic, then I’ll go ahead and add them to my initial list. You can learn more about the popularity of the blog by looking at the number of shares, the number of followers, the Alexa rank…etc.
You should not put more than 10-15 people inside one Twitter list though, because that will make it messy!
If they happen to have newsletters, then go ahead and use a separate email to subscribe for those as well. Email is more personable, noticeable and less crowded and it will represent a huge opportunity for you to build meaningful relationships with them
You should help them promote anything valuable they publish, or any offer you find suitable for your audience.
For examples, you should dedicate 15-20 minutes each day (or more if you have time) into looking at those Twitter lists and retweeting their valuable content.
You noticed that I said that you should be unique in your interaction with them, because how else are you expecting them to notice you while hundreds of other people are probably promoting their content as well.
You should put a small comment on every retweet you publish. Be the first to comment on their blogs when they publish great content. Reply to their newsletter thanking them about the great content they share or asking them questions…etc.
One person who does a great job at this is John Lee Dumas from EntrepreneurOnFire.com.
He’s always among the first ones who comment on valuable content on popular blogs.
Source: SocialMediaExaminer.com
Source: SocialMediaExaminer.com
When it comes to connecting with influencers and building relationships with them, John is the man. The proof is that he was able to interview more than 350 of the top influencers in the entrepreneurship world so far, including those who you usually pay a lot of money to talk with
Since they know you because of your constant interaction with them, like you because you’ve been so nice and generous helping them promote their content AND trust you because of your honest feedback, they’ll be more than happy to help you!
This strategy will not only get your blog widely read, but will also give you the “Authority” status that you gain from these influencers promoting your content and recommending your products.
If there was an ultimate strategy that will help transform your business, it would definitely be influencer outreach. Sure it takes lots of time, but how much time do you think it would take you to build a big audience if you take the old route and try to do everything yourself?
Now your thoughts!
Did you try this strategy before?
If yes, then what are the results so far?
Image Credit: LeWeb13
Blogging has countless of benefits for businesses of all types and sizes. It’ll help you generate more traffic which will convert into customers. It’ll help you understand your audience better. It’ll help you connect better with your prospects. I’ll help you gain that “EXPERT” status that prospects are looking for to buy from you…etc.
Point is, blogging has been proven hundreds of times to be super effective when it comes to getting new customers as well as keeping existing ones!
Source: MarketingCharts.comLet’s assume that you have a blog.
The next step in the process would be getting prospects to read that blog so you can convert them into paying customers, right?
Ryan Deiss always says that business is always about traffic + conversion!
If you generate targeted traffic and then drive it through the right conversion funnel, you’ll be getting more customers. That’s for sure.
Creating great content will get you traffic on the long run, but what if you don’t want to wait for search engines to index your content, evaluate its weight, rank it and then put it on their search engine result pages?
Although SEO can be a great long term traffic generation strategy, many businesses need that instant traffic to help them maintain their businesses and generate more customers.
And what is better than social media to achieve that task?
If you create great content, then social media will help you generate instant traffic, but only if used correctly.
Many businesses write great pieces of content to realize that they’ve gone unnoticed on social media.
You don’t want that to happen to you, do you?
You don’t want to spend hours crafting a wonderful piece only to realize that 10 people have read it!
In order to prevent that from happening to you, here is the strategy that will help flood your blog with traffic, leads and customers!
Targeting Gatekeepers!
What?!?The gate I’m talking about here is the one that separates you from all the traffic your blog needs to generate more customers!
Some people call them influencers, others call them reporters, but for the sake of this article, I’m just going to call them GATEKEEPERS!
Targeting gatekeepers is probably the most important strategy that you can leverage to get loads of traffic back to your blog!
Did you hear about businesses that got flooded with traffic and customers just because one of their posts got picked by a major blog?
You might think that this only happens by chance, but not according to many people who have intentionally landed their business appearance on a major blog or media outlet.
Surely, there are some businesses that publish a new piece of content, and within a few days, they’ll be contacted by a major blog asking them to give them permission to syndicate their post.
However, you can’t really rely on chance if you’re starting out.
You know why?
Because almost every industry is very crowded today! Almost everyone is creating content these days, and some of that content is considered great, but never see daylight!
Would you rather publish content regularly and wait for it to get picked by a major blog?
That is not a bad idea, but keep in mind that you might wait forever in order for that to happen!
Steve kamb published a post on his blog NerdFitness.com and within an hour he got contacted by an editor at Gizmodo asking for his permission to syndicate it on their website.
That same article has been viewed 330,000 times on Gizmodo and sent him over 42,000 visitors to his website NerdFitness.com.
While Steve didn’t do anything unusual to get that blog post on Gizmodo, he attributes this success to writing great content that is super useful, entertaining and that solves a particular problem.
Gregory Ciotti got similar results from a guest post he wrote. However, this time it was purposeful!
He strategically landed a guest post on the Bufferapp blog and then emailed Lifehacker if they would be interested in his article. Within a week, his article was accepted!
As you saw in the previous examples, writing super useful content can land you a major appearance on a big blog or magazine. However, I would go the extra mile and promote the heck of every great piece of content I create.
While this might seem counter intuitive to many, Derek Halpern always says that you should spend 20% of your time writing great content and 80% promoting the heck out of it!
Now that you know the importance of creating great content as well as promoting it, here is the strategy that will get you tons of traffic back to your blog!
1- Identify The Gatekeepers
What I want you to do right now is to start compiling a list of all the people who have access to lots of traffic in your industry.I don’t only mean influencers who have popular blogs, but also reporters who write for magazines or newspapers about your particular industry.
Just to give you an idea, I recently wrote a follow up blog post entitled “Why Social Media Isn’t Working For Small Businesses, And What You Can Do About It!” to a USAToday.com article.
Once I published it, I contacted everyone who was mentioned in that article including the reporter.
The reporter ended up promoting it on his social profiles and I got 3 client requests because of that!
What I usually do is to compile a list of 30-50 people including their emails and Twitter handles. I also add new people constantly to that list who meet certain criteria. I set up a Google Alert with keywords I’m interested in targeting, and identify people who write about my industry. If I see that their websites are popular and receive a good amount of traffic, then I’ll go ahead and add them to my initial list. You can learn more about the popularity of the blog by looking at the number of shares, the number of followers, the Alexa rank…etc.
2- Stalk Them On Social Media
What I do next is to add those people to Twitter lists according to their categories.You should not put more than 10-15 people inside one Twitter list though, because that will make it messy!
If they happen to have newsletters, then go ahead and use a separate email to subscribe for those as well. Email is more personable, noticeable and less crowded and it will represent a huge opportunity for you to build meaningful relationships with them
3- Be Unique
The next thing you should do is to start helping those people without asking for anything in return.You should help them promote anything valuable they publish, or any offer you find suitable for your audience.
For examples, you should dedicate 15-20 minutes each day (or more if you have time) into looking at those Twitter lists and retweeting their valuable content.
You noticed that I said that you should be unique in your interaction with them, because how else are you expecting them to notice you while hundreds of other people are probably promoting their content as well.
You should put a small comment on every retweet you publish. Be the first to comment on their blogs when they publish great content. Reply to their newsletter thanking them about the great content they share or asking them questions…etc.
One person who does a great job at this is John Lee Dumas from EntrepreneurOnFire.com.
He’s always among the first ones who comment on valuable content on popular blogs.
Source: SocialMediaExaminer.com Source: SocialMediaExaminer.comWhen it comes to connecting with influencers and building relationships with them, John is the man. The proof is that he was able to interview more than 350 of the top influencers in the entrepreneurship world so far, including those who you usually pay a lot of money to talk with
4- Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For Help
If you interact with those influencers and help them on a consistent basis, then there is no shame in asking them to help you if you feel like you have something valuable that can help their audiences, whether it’s a blog post you’ve written on your blog, a guest post you want to write on their blogs, a podcast interview you want to conduct with them, a product you feel will help their audience…etc.Since they know you because of your constant interaction with them, like you because you’ve been so nice and generous helping them promote their content AND trust you because of your honest feedback, they’ll be more than happy to help you!
This strategy will not only get your blog widely read, but will also give you the “Authority” status that you gain from these influencers promoting your content and recommending your products.
If there was an ultimate strategy that will help transform your business, it would definitely be influencer outreach. Sure it takes lots of time, but how much time do you think it would take you to build a big audience if you take the old route and try to do everything yourself?
Now your thoughts!
Did you try this strategy before?
If yes, then what are the results so far?
Image Credit: LeWeb13
Hi, I’m Houssem. I created hqsocialmedia.com for one single reason, which is helping small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs make more money from social media. Interested? Let’s talk!
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