Twitter Influencer Research Made Easy

A quick look at just how cool MentionMapp.com can be for people trying to build a following on Twitter.

One of the biggest and most common roadblocks encountered by people publishing content and wanting to build up a following on Twitter and other social platforms is, without doubt, the research.

Most people don’t do any research at all beyond looking into what #hashtags they should be using, let alone influencer/community research. This means there’s a tonne of publishers generating content and not getting the traction their content deserves.

Let’s get it right out in the open, research can be tedious, boring, dull, frustrating and time consuming, right? What other adjectives have I missed off?

It’s hard to believe I’ve not come across this little tool before, but MentionMapp is a phenomenal addition to my armoury and I suggest you consider using it too.

You often find that influencers will talk to other influencers and so once you have identified a couple of influencers, it’s usually a good bet to analyse their accounts and see who’s talking to who… This is the bit that can take a long time if you’re working blind — scrolling through reams of tweets.

Twitter visualisation tools can be a great way to shed some light on the task at hand and accelerate the whole process.

You can start by mapping your own (and other people’s) interactions on the social network when planning your inbound strategy, especially when it comes to finding people that are specifically interested in sharing and talking about your content.

MentionMapp, effectively organises people by their interactions – by simply inputting a Twitter handle, you can see how often that person has interacted with other users or specific hashtags, in a neat spider web format.

Using data from the Twitter API MentionMapp loads each user’s Twitter updates and finds all of their interactions and hashtag mentions. Clicking a user displays their network of mentions as well as details from their profile. The lines drawn between nodes become thicker the more users mention each other.

You can literally start with one Twitter handle and embark on a journey of discovery through a web of conversations and interactions that will provide tonnes of new relevant influencers and the people they listen and engage with the most.

How to use MentionMapp effectively

Not just a pretty interface, you can (and should be) using MentionMapp for the following:

1. Discover who your followers are talking to

Although you can only view one user at a time using MentionMapp, you could pick some of your most active followers and input their handles in MentionMapp to see who else they interact with besides yourself. By doing so, you can uncover new influencers who are active within your follower base and also measure whether your key followers interact with your competition – and how often.

2. Find out what your key influencers are sharing

Your influencers are crucial to getting your message across. You should be regularly checking what kind of content they are sharing and which hashtags they are using to inform the kind of content you ask them to share. Using MentionMapp, you can find out what they’re interested in in real time and identify any patterns in their sharing/engaging habits.

3. Get to know who your influencers are interacting with

Equally as important as understanding what it is that your influencers are sharing, you need to know who they’re talking to. Just as understanding who your followers are interacting with is important, it’s equally as important that you understand the same about your influencers. If you can identify trends in the people they are regularly speaking to and engaging with, you can more carefully craft content which will fit their needs – making them more likely to share.

4. Analyse where your strongest relationships are

In the beginning, you may have mapped out a large number of key users and influencers to interact with – but how many of them are you still regularly engaging with now? MentionMapp can help you assess which of your relationships are strongest and where you need to improve – for example, a thin line between you and one of your key influencers indicates that you are engaging, but perhaps not enough.

5. Find key hashtags that your followers/influencers are using

If you’re not keeping up with what your followers are talking about on social media, your content and messages can quickly become obsolete. Use MentionMapp to uncover exactly which hashtags they’re using and make sure you’re using them too! Usually, if an industry expert or influencer is using a specific set of hashtags, you can bet that’s for a very good reason. Using the right hashtags can generate a significant amount of additional targeted engagement with people interested in the same subject…. If you’re feeling really energetic, you can also note what time of the day they tweet too – this will be another indicator of what time your audience are the most responsive to content. If you can quickly learn from the experts, it will save you valuable time to help you get more marginal gains on your competition.

6. Uncover links with new influencers

By tracking and following some of your key follower’s engagements, you can see if there are any new influencers that you need to target. If many of your followers are regularly interacting with an influencer that isn’t included in your strategy – you need to act on this! The same rule applies when turned on its head – if you’re regularly interacting with a key influencer, but none of your followers are – you should perhaps be rethinking why you’re spending so much time building a relationship with this influencer.

7. Find potential discussions and interesting topical debates

Much like finding relevant hashtags, MentionMapp can help you understand what it is your followers and influencers are talking about, opening doors for you to get involved with new topics/debates around this subject. Finding out this information can also help you to craft content which is on target for your followers and influencers.

Industry influencers are usually the first to break news or write about timely and topical issues first. If you’re quick enough to react, you can also ride the crest of a new ‘wave’ and news-jack your community by being one of the first to share the best and greatest content in your sector.

If you’re not already using MentionMapp, you should start now! It’s free to sign up, what’s stopping you?

Got a question about MentionMapp? Or anything else ‘digital’? Head over to twitter @phcreative or @bryan_phc and tweet us using #AskPh – we answer your questions every Friday!

#Twitter #content #mentionmapp #socialmedia #research