Networking has always been an important part of building your business and increasing your credibility within your industry. With the onslaught of social media platforms, like YouTube and LinkedIn, industry experts are able to create solid followings and offer insight to those they influence. As both a social media creator and user, it’s important for you to identify and engage with your industry experts.
If you’re on the hunt for the experts in your industry, here are three things you can do to help get you started.
Use Available Resources
When it comes to identifying your industry’s experts, there are some resources that make it incredibly easy. Followerwonk is a tool to help you find those making waves in your industry. This tool allows you to grow your social networks, but also connect with influencers and visualize your own social influence with graphs and charts.
By utilizing the reports and graphs tools within Followerwonk, you’re able to optimize your social networks to engage with those in your industry, including the experts and your competitors. You can track your own Twitter accounts or those of your competitors (with an upgrade to the Pro version). You can also explore what your followers are doing and how they are interacting with you and your brand.
Monitor Social Media Hashtags
In addition to using a valuable tool like Followerwonk, you can also monitor hashtags within Twitter to identify what your industry—and more importantly your industry experts—are communicating. You can join in the conversation by using the same trending hashtag.
Several tools are on the market to be used within social media to track hashtags and monitor their buzz. Hashatit.com and hashtagify.me are just two of the resources available to monitor trending hashtags. BrandMentions also provides a free hashtag tracker. By using hashtags to your advantage, you will be able to not only identify your industry experts, but also engage with them through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Find Industry Organization and Associations
If you’re looking to connect with the experts in your industry offline, an easy way is to engage with them through industry organizations and associations. Through a quick search, especially on LinkedIn, you’ll be able to see what organizations your experts are associated with and how they interact with their peers in person. You, too, can become members of those organizations and participate in the events and networking socials they hold.
Meeting people face to face can have a significant impact on their engagement with you. Since so much of our lives are online, it is important to create an online and offline relationship with those who are industry experts.
Connecting and engaging with the experts in your industry is an important part of your brand strategy. Experts can help grow your business, and professionally interacting with them can help boost your brand and your industry credibility.
If you’d like to find out who your industry experts are or how you can start interacting with them, let us here at Seapoint Digital help. We specialize in all things social, including helping you find your industry experts and the best ways to engage with them.
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