Search Concepts

Posted by Search Concepts on June 3rd, 2010 View Comments
Posted in Miscellaneous |

It has become a big dilemma for people who have blogs or business websites to promote their content effectively. A site owner may have so much in store for their audience: the site may have abundant high-quality content, smooth site structure, pleasant layout, and acceptable loading speeds. But many still have failed to push their campaigns to their target audience, especially if they are promoting their content through major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, and Propeller.

Influence is Important

Always remember that nowadays, high-quality content is not the only important thing to consider in social media marketing. The influence of social media power users who can help you disseminate your ideas to target users has become a critical factor in today’s online world. These power users or influencers have acted as the glue that bonds social media users together and have become bridges that drive messages from myriad sources to other people. Seeking the help of power users can be your best weapon for getting you high-quality content to a much wider audience. Their influence can turn your ideas and marketing promotions into popular content in top social media sites.

Social Media Power Users

The so-called power user is a user of a social media site who has greater influence or effect on the community than any average user. Power users may have a huge number of following, friends, ratings, note-worthy site awards, and most importantly, contributions for the site. Usually, they would gain this social status in the online community with their high involvement in the sites. They invest so much time in using the site to develop a wide network of contacts, and more importantly, in submitting tons of content for the site. They actively participate in sites by sharing tons of interesting content and by getting personally engage in discussions very often. In doing such, power users actively or passively develop prominent social influence within the community, driving a lot of users into making them as contacts or friends and following the content they submit.

Power Users Can Make or Break Your Content

Social media power users can make or break your story for a blog or you marketing campaign for a business website. What’s the use of your high-quality content if you don’t have the audience to begin with? As hyper-connectors of the web, power users provide the network that you need to disseminate your message to. They can spread your content to a massive network of followers or contacts. And, the social status that is identified with their usernames or real names has the capacity to drive traffic to the links they post. If a power user likes the message that you want to promote, they can spread the word about it to other influential users, and over time, they can help you build the cumulative awareness that you need for your content.

Searching for Power Users

Looking for power users is relatively easy; they are in all social sites. You just have to use the right tools to and find the right lists, and locating them will be a breeze.

1. Digg has stopped using its own list of Top Diggers a couple of years ago, but you can use two different resources to locate Digg power users. Socialblade.com collects data on all the content that reach home page and on the Digg users that submit them. It provides stats on top Digg users and the stats behind what it takes for a story to become popular in a Top 100 Diggers list. On the other hand, Di66.net presents a list the top Digg members that you can filter by the following time periods: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and all-time.
2. StumbleUpon has a list of Top Stumblers; they are most active members in this social media site. These Stumblers contribute and recommend great content. Stumbler power users have a large network of contacts that they can spread content to, giving them the capacity of making a story popular. Clicking on any category tag at the tag cloud page will allow you to check the most active members in that specific category and ask these users to spread your content to the targeted audience.
3. Mixx has its own list, the Mixx Lounge, which presents top users in the last 24 hours. It lists down the users that gained the most karma for the day. The Mixx Lounge also lists down users that received specialty awards such as Most Opinionated and Top Submitter.
4. Propeller maintains two distinct lists of power users: the top submitters page and the overall most active members page.
5. Twitter There are a variety of tools that you can use to check out the power users and their data in Twitter. Twitterholic produces a list of top Twitter users according to the number of followers. This tool also allows you to check your own rankings in Twitter. Twellow or the “Twitter Yellow Pages” is a detailed Twitter directory that has around forty categories, with sub-categories within each. You can find users in every category based on the nature of their public profiles. WeFollow is another Twitter directory that is divided into different categories wherein you can find the top power users based on following and niche. And finally, Retweetist presents a list of the top Twitter users who have the most unique retweets over the past 24 hours. You can also use this tool to check your own retweet percentage.
6. Facebook In Facebook, you won’t find any list of power users, but instead, you will find robust communities, which can promote your site. You can check out relevant Facebook Groups, which are typically non-branded and mostly cause-related. Be sure to get involved in the groups by interacting with their members or sharing good content that are relevant to effectively reach a wide audience that share a specific interest. On the other hand, you can also look for Facebook Pages that are mostly corporate. Some pages are also based around non-branded objects. Make sure that you find groups pages with numerous members that are related to your company or to the content you’re planning to share. Search for any influential members within the groups or pages, like the users who started them, preferably ones whose interests match your ideas.

Looking for the RIGHT Power Users

Power users are everywhere and are easy to find, but keep in mind that looking for the RIGHT power users whom you can connect and convince to help you can be a lot challenging. Take note that power users are always bombarded with a lot of press releases and pitches. Therefore, you can’t afford to waste their time; power users won’t just consider spreading from some unknown user if it’s not interesting and relevant to begin with. You have to prove to them the worthiness of your content. More importantly, you have to build positive and mutually beneficial relationships with these users if you want them to lend you a hand. To make this possible, you may need to do the following:

1. Reach Power Users on Various Social Media Sites Power users may have multiple accounts. They can be found in Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Mixx at the same time. It is wise to connect with them through as many social media sites they are in as possible to make yourself more recognizable to them. Having multiple avenues to connect with power users gives you more opportunities to follow and engage with their content and deliver your own content to them at the same time. Just make sure to use the same account details like username and avatar as much as possible when you register on different social media sites to become more consistent across different social network and more recognizable to people.
2. Follow Their Content Frequently It is important to get a glimpse for what the powers users are doing. Read their contributions and interact with their content. By doing so, you can observe how power users spread information and what kind of content they deliver successfully. Their pages can be a source of inspiration for your own content. More importantly, by interacting with their content regularly, you can make yourself more recognizable to them. You can interact with their content through different ways, depending on the nature of the social site. You can give comments on their status updates in Facebook, write reviews about their Digg contributions, or retweet their posts in Twitter.
3. Engage in Discussions and Stand Out Be active in social sites that encourage commentary or discussions. It would be more impressive to give opinions and ask questions that stand out from the status quo. You can courteously ask questions about their content, challenge the power users’ position and get involved in a healthy discussion about an issue. You will surely be noticed by power users who regard you as unique, daring, and engaging.
4. Talk to Them Personally It would help deepen your relationship with power users if you initiate personal communication or request for an interview. Connect with them through the social sites you frequently use and ask for an interview. By making yourself more familiar to them, you enhance you credibility and the more likely they will promote your story or marketing campaigns in the future.
5. Advertise If you are still not part of the power user’s network in social sites, you can try posting an ad on online classifieds like eBay Classifieds. In the ad, you will need to offer compensation for the power user to spread your content. This is a more direct approach than trying to become a contact of the power user in a social media site.
6. Push Your Content Out Effectively No matter how creative your ideas are, you can still go unnoticed if you do not have the right connections. Connecting with power users is an effective way to disseminate your message to a larger audience. They have the right tools and amount of influence to reach a lot of people. Establish positive and mutually beneficent relationships with the most influential users of social media sites using the tips above. You can be sure to become credible enough to ask help from them. Good things come to those who ask.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.