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A good way to build your brand is to reach the influencers.
What is an influencer? That’s a pretty difficult question that I don’t always know how to answer myself.
There are a number of sites which help you define who is influencing or who is cool in a space.
There is Klout, for example, where you go and it gives a score to people and some brands, like ***, for example.
That’s one way to do it.
I really advise you to take your space, tourism…sports…kite surfing… and define who is a voice.
Just talk to them. Don’t be annoying in any way. Don’t be spammy. Don’t be too aggressive.
Influencers in the tech industry, like my friend Robert Scoble, always like to discover new stuff.
You actually have a pretty high chance of reaching him and getting a video from him or
a tweet if it’s something he finds interesting. If it’s something new.
If you don’t try, for sure you won’t get anything.
When you have identified those influencers, I would try to meet them.
Again, there’s nothing better than a glass of wine or a drink. Just meet them. Introduce yourself.
Don’t be too pushy but, it’s good to try and make good friends.
Then, when you do something around their space, something interesting for them,
say when we’re doing a lot of things with Seesmic around mobile.
We know we have a number of writers, authors, bloggers who write about iPhone, for example.
When we do something new about iPhone we will tell them and they may or may not write about it or talk about it.
You can also go to events where they gather. There are a number of them. One of which I organize, Le Web.
It’s really important to talk to them, reach them, maintain a contact with them only with things which you think are interesting.
Don’t do it the way many, many PR agencies do, spam the whole thing by email.
Whatever they want or like they just send it. I’m getting a lot of those myself. I can’t stand them.
If you do it more personalized and if you think it’s interesting then it’s going to work.
Another trick regarding the influencers is when you identify something which is interesting for them
just keep reminding them. They don’t mind. For example,
with me, I like to help causes like helping fight against Malaria.
I have friends who have an action around that and they keep reminding me. I’m committed to do 1 tweet per month, that’s nothing.
They remind me. Every month they send me a mail. We’re like a group, which is another trick.
If you find enough cool people to help you then others will come.
Don’t do it too much of course, because your feed becomes spammy.
It’s really good to remind them and keep in touch with the influencers, whomever they can be.