On Tuesday, June 9th, Fission and Attentive.ly co-hosted a Lunch & Learn event at Impact HUB DC on connecting with influencers.

We had a great time talking with you all about influencer strategy at our Lunch & Learn w/ @attentive_ly yesterday! pic.twitter.com/CwarrCYtTK

— Fission Strategy (@fissionstrategy) June 10, 2015

In case you missed it, here is some of what we covered!

Why influencers are important

They’ll get your message out there like no one else! A report by BzzAgent found that influencers are 70% more likely to be seen as a trusted source and 75% more likely to share great experiences about organizations online, creating twice as much content as non-influencers.

How to identify your existing influencers

You know influencers are important, but do you know which influencers are already following your organization? Attentive.ly found that the average nonprofit has a reach of 40M people based off their contacts and the top 5% of those contacts make up 85% of that reach!

There are many ways to spot an influencer, including contacts with high Klout scores, lots of connections, and to be useful to you, should be discussing topics on their social media relevant to your campaign. Attentive.ly is built for this very purpose, allowing you to filter your contact list to find those influencers!

The 3 Types of Influencers
 

The Citizen Influencer is often overlooked, but can be incredibly powerful when leveraged as a group because they are by far the largest in your network. These are your supporters who have a modest amount of social media connections (500+) and a Klout score of 40+.

The Professional Influencer might be the founder of a company or a member of the media, someone with social media influences comparable to their career success.

The VIP Influencer is tough one to hook, but the most rewarding - these are celebrities, athletes, movement leaders, even Vine stars.

Approaching influencers and the best calls to action

Reaching out to influencers, whether they’re Citizen Influencers or VIPs, is all about building a relationship. VIPs are a high-touch, long-tail program which can take months to bear fruit, but it’s definitely worth it. Chances are, you aren’t the only organization or agency fighting for the attention of a celebrity or VIP. And as mentioned, social media has changed the game in terms of who may actually be a VIP for your audience which makes having VIP support much more accessible than before.

Reaching out to an influencer depends on many factors including what interactions if any you’ve had with them before. There are some basic rules one should keep in mind when reaching out, however.

• Explain your campaign simply and succinctly

• Make them feel important, which is especially consequential if they aren’t a celebrity

• Make a very clear and very simple ask, such as sharing a facebook post or prewritten tweet.