This month, we learned that although 65% of brands participate in influencer marketing, just 10% of total digital marketing spend goes to social, which includes influencer marketing. Some have cried, don’t people see the opportunity? Why aren’t they spending on influencers!
Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report shared the above insight, as well as the fact that a mere 6% of social spend is allotted to marketing to influencers. This doesn’t signal a problem to me at all. In fact, it’s an indication that while influencer marketing is recognized as a valuable piece of the online marketing puzzle and many practice it, it doesn’t require a great deal of budget to accomplish. That, friends, is what we call an opportunity.
That’s not to say influencer outreach is easy, but that an array of low-cost tools are available to help marketers better identify, understand and connect with industry influencers. These social tools enable us to automate much of the research, to weed through a mass of data and identify trends or common characteristics among the people who can positively impact our business with a tweet, a blog post, or a thoughtful comment.
Check out these social tools for brand marketers looking to more easily and inexpensively measure and act on influence in their industry.
Commun.it – Twitter Community Management
Commun.it is a Twitter-specific dashboard for managing relationships and identifying/engaging influencers. In addition to serving as a dashboard, it serves up handy reports on new followers, unfollows, total reach, and more. It integrates seamlessly with Twitter, allowing you to interact from within the dashboard. This tool allows for multiple users and multiple Twitter accounts (with a paid package) and is used by the likes of Dell, Sony and Cisco, among others. As you complete the signup process, you can choose to follow specific keywords or hashtags, in order to identify new engagement opportunities. Commun.it is a freemium product, with a free basic service and three upgraded options starting at 6.99 a month.
GaggleAMP – Leverage Your Internal Influencers
What could it mean to your company if you were able to effectively leverage the influence of your employees across social channels? GaggleAMP allows brands to create “gaggles” (think a group of geese) of users around specific content, each of whom receive an alert when new social content goes out. They can then choose to share it with their own networks (or not). It encourages social amplification while allowing users to retain control.
Cyfe – Monitor Everything
No, literally… everything, from Facebook and WordPress, to Google Analytics, MailChimp and even Salesforce. Cyfe has a variety of pre-built widgets, but also allows users to add custom widgets or API for custom data sources. Get real-time reports, see historical data and download reports in PNG, JPEG, PDF or CSV formats. Cyfe’s premium version gives users access to unlimited dashboards and widgets for as little as $14 per month.
BlogDash – Over 100,000 Bloggers Listed
BlogDash categorizes thousands of bloggers, leaving them searchable by gender, industry, location, Klout score, keywords and more. Use this tool to find, engage and even pitch bloggers all from within the platform. With just 15 categories, you might find yourself relying heavily on keywords to drill down to the most relevant results for your business, however the insights make it worth it. BlogDash offers a 7-day trial, with plans starting at $44.99/month.
Traackr – Enterprise-level Influencer Engagement
Possibly the best known solution on this list, Traackr helps marketers identify and engage influencers using three core algorithms to measure reach, relevance and resonance. Users have access to dynamic lists that update in real-time, share of voice reporting, sentiment analysis, real-time listening and many more features. Starting at $1,795 a month, it’s definitely one of the pricier options on the list but has the power and depth for enterprise-level insight and engagement.
mPact – A Different Take on Influence
Popularity does not mean influence and sometimes, the people with the power to influence your buyers may not be all that popular. mPact looks beyond common popularity indicators to identify the people who actually influence your market. Their algorithm considers topical relevance, authority and social capital, but also the frequency and consistency by which people influence the market. Users can start with a topic they’d like to dig into, or look into specific voices to see what influence they may have. A 14-day free trial is available.
Social Snap was a personal favorite, though they’ve just closed their doors for good. Founder and CEO Nan Dawkins shared their reasoning for getting out of the SaaS business in a recent blog post, if you’d like to learn more.
In the meantime, I hope you’ve discovered a few alternative tools for social listening, monitoring and influencer engagement. Did I miss any? Share your tips and tools in the comments!
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
