5 Tools for finding the influencers your customers are listening to

Your customers don’t want to hear about you from you. According to a Forbes and Elite Daily report, 33 percent of millennials rely mostly on blogs before they make a purchase, compared to fewer than 3 percent for TV news, magazines and books. They look to social media for an authentic look at what’s going on in the world, especially content written by their peers, whom they trust.

There’s no question that companies, including technology and B2B companies, need to make influencers like bloggers and vloggers part of their marketing plans. But, with so many out there, it can be overwhelming to try to find the right fit for your product or company and — with fiercely loyal readers and viewers — finding the right fit is paramount for both your brand and the influencer. Want to know more about being an influencer?

While you can’t fully automate influencer relationships, here are a few resources and emerging platforms to make your life easier when faced with this daunting task:

• GroupHigh: Focusing on blogs, GroupHigh allows you to search through 15 million active blogs based on content, reach, location or social following. Create lists, segment and organize blogs, all while accessing fresh, up-to-date data with a fraction of the research and elbow grease.
• Cision: Cision also allows you to search keywords, like “cloud computing,” and then use social media filters to find which influencers are on which platforms before quickly scrolling through to see how many followers they have.
• BuzzSumo: With an entire tab dedicated to influencers, BuzzSumo has so many ways to filter your search, from searching bios to content shared to retweet ratio to number of followers, that you will feel like a kid in a candy store. Once you have found someone (or 10 someones) who looks interesting, you can add them to a list, look at links they have shared, or easily tweet them with a simple click of a built-in button.
• Traackr: With big name customers like Forbes and Hewlett Packard, Traackr’s platform helps you manage your influencer strategies by organizing and tracking existing relationships, identifying new ones, and making data-driven decisions about how to best engage in relevant conversations. It also lets you create projects and assign influencer ownership, streamlining workflow and teamwork.
• Keyhole: With a focus on monitoring hashtags, Keyhole allows you to track surface content and influencers, view conversations and top content, and also gives you some basic info about influencers. Best of all, they offer a robust free version that is definitely worth a spin.

Want to help your brand connect with its audience? Check out our e-book on building an influencer program.

This post was originally published on the Metis Communications blog.