How to Build Relationships with Influencers

 

Building relationships or strategic partnerships with industry influencers or thought leaders in your niche will help generate targeted traffic, and build powerful organic links and social signals to your website. It also allows you to build a reputation as an authority figure yourself in the proces. As you do so however, don’t make the mistake of ignoring everybody else. Everyone in your niche can add value in one form or another to your business.

 

Who Is An Influencer Or Thought Leader?

As Andre Hospidales, who offers SEO services through his website, SEOSocialGeek.com put it, “a thought leader is someone who is widely recognized and respected as a leading authority or expert in his niche industry”. A great example of a thought leader is Neil Patel of Quicksprout. Neil is one of the most influential people in the digital marketing industry, and any one of his blog posts can generate thousands of readers within hours of release.”

Thought leaders are extremely active on social networks, especially Twitter and Google+, and spend a lot of time blogging and curating high quality content.

By interacting and communicating with a thought leader you are:

• developing a mutually beneficial relationship with a highly influential entity. By interacting with them you are increasing your credibility and reputation.
• you are obtaining expert insight into your chosen field.
• you are able to obtain a professional opinion into your product and will be able to make changes to your product or business for the better.
• they will have contacts that they will undoubtedly wish to share with you, if you make it worthwhile for them.

Within any social network, influencers and thought leaders hold the key to accessing a large group of people (typically their followers and connections) or as connectors (allowing you to connect to people who matter and whose followers will significantly amplify your message). Social influence is determined by a wide variety of engagement factors, including likes, retweets, number of followers, mentions and quality of followers. Thought leaders can also help your content be discovered by other influential people, who then share it with their followers. Leveraging thought leaders in this way helps to amplify your website’s “social signal,” which will make it easier to index and rank in Google’s search index.

It is critical for you as a business to be able to first of all identify what type of influencers you have in your network and second what their area of interest is. Engaging with thought leaders can make the difference between your content being seen by a few people, and truly going viral.

 

How to Find Influencers

Ultimately, the goal is to find individual influencers and the online sites where they are spending their time. Start off by identifying the most popular pieces of content in your niche that has been shared on the major social networks. One of the quickest ways to do this is by using a free tool by socialcrawlytics.com.

Social Crawlytics is a free tool that allows you to identify top content (based on social shares across the major networks) related to any particular niche. Essentially, you can use this tool to dig through leading industry blogs or competitors to find which content has been shared the most.

Behind the top performing content you are able to gather are the influencers that are getting their curated content seen by others within the industry. They are the people you should be building relationships with.

Topsy:

A quick way of identifying thought leaders is by using another great free tool, Topsy. Topsy is a social search tool that you can use to find exactly who has shared any given URL via Twitter (and Google Plus). You can also take a look at ‘influential users’.

Alltop:

Another great place to start looking for online influencers is by using the Alltop tool. Alltop aggregates the top blogs on a number of different topics. Top bloggers from most niches can be found using this free service.

LinkedIn Groups:

For some industries, LinkedIn groups is a great place to hunt for influencers. You’ll find that the organizers and active members within these groups are often influential.

Here are a few ways to build relationships with influencers:

• Start the process by listening to the conversations that the influencers you are targeting are creating and contributing to. Your goal should be to become part of those conversations.
• Look for every opportunity to provide assistance to an influencer. For example, promote their content, cause and products. When you provide assistance, you build credibility, trust and social capital.
• For every six pieces of content shared through your social media channels, four should be pieces of content from your influencer target that are also relevant to your target audience. This means that 67 percent of the time you are sharing content that is not yours, and calling attention to content from your influencer group. One of the pieces of content you share should be original, informative content that you have created. When you share influencer content, they notice. And since you are sharing this content without asking for anything in return, those influencers may reciprocate by doing the same for you some day.
• Engage with influencers by making sensible and meaningful comments on their content. Make sure that your comments demonstrate your knowledge and add real value to the post. Contribute to their Facebook pages and LinkedIn Groups
• Share relevant content directly to the social influencers to increase the likelihood of it being picked up by and featured on major sites.
• Message them when appropriate.
• Create content for them.

 

 

 

THE EASIEST EVER PERSONAL ALARM FOR SENIORS

Crowdfunding the Easiest Personal Alarm for Seniors

With the push of a button or a simple voice-command, seniors can now extend their ability to live independently by 2 to 5 years or more with a new device called “The Q Watch”.

Designed for the 21st century, The Q technology takes the “help I’ve message” into the future, by providing an easy, worry-free solution to active seniors who choose to remain in their homes. It’s a computer, cell phone, video camera, GPS, and digital storage device, allowing the wearer to be connected 24 hours a day, anywhere they travel. Each device is programmed to the senior’s specific needs, with emergency assistance available through a medically trained support center. In case of a fall when the wearer can’t respond, the device is programmed to call the  Q Watch owner’s  contacts, sends an ambulance, and instantly can transfer the wearer’s medical records to the hospital’s emergency room.

The device is the invention of Dr. Richard Walters, an emergency medical specialist who’s spent 30 years caring for the elderly. Dr. Richards explains, “Typically, on one hand you have an aging parent determined to remain independent, pitted against the children who fear their loved one might not be safe living alone. Falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries to seniors, and we knew if we could address that specific need with an immediate response, no matter where someone fell or what their condition, we were on the way,” states Dr. Walters. Walters’ team then moved on to developing software that would capture, retain and transfer individual medical records, which, in an emergency room admission, can save 7-10 minutes in allowing medical staff to immediately attend to the needs of the patient.

“The idea, says Walters, is to have our device provide a constant connection between the wearer, the family and their medical professionals. The owner can’t lose it and can’t forget it somewhere, which is the assurance the wearer is completely protected, allowing them to feel safe while carrying on with their lifestyle.” The Q-Watch also features a “geo-fence” option as a safeguard for people with memory issues, and the company is  in the process of adding a  video camera for even closer monitoring.

What is also different about the Q-Watch is that the company doesn’t allow owners to program their own devices. Walters believes that accurate programming is critical to the success of the product. “Whenever I see a device that states it’s ‘easy to program’, I guarantee it either won’t be done properly or won’t be up-to-date, which makes the product useless.”

Walters adds, “As a doctor who has worked with the elderly for 30 years, I see their resistance to complicated technology. Many seniors will not embrace technology with big learning curves, and that’s why our startup is more than a product. It’s also a service, and we take pride in the fact the Q, virtually, is foolproof; therefore ‘instantly usable’.”

According to Dr. Walters, the alpha version about to be introduced is a first generation product to incorporate the primary medical needs of seniors. Already in planning is a second generation device which will add a complete suite of “concierge” services – from transportation to house-call medical attention, home repairs and ala carte services to assist seniors in every area of their independent living needs.

You can support this project here: http://www.igg.me/at/theqwatch

 

Radical or Revolution? A New Wave of Digital Currency

Summary: One question many ask about digital currency is if it’s legitimate. Most have already heard of Bitcoin, the first frontrunner in a new revolution of online currency. Yes, it stirred a rather large pot amongst the elite and governments; however, it started a chain reaction that in effect is still changing the way we spend money online today. It also started a brand new trend in MLM (Multi Level Marketing) circles, with many gaining traction then simply vanishing. So, when all is said and done, we must now ask if there is indeed a future for digital currency.

Is Bitcoin Dead?
For those not quite in the know about digital currency, here is the 411:
The technical definition says:
“Digital currency or digital money is an Internet-based medium of exchange distinct from physical (such as banknotes and coins) that exhibits properties similar to physical currencies, but allows for instantaneous transactions and borderless transfer-of-ownership.”

In more laymen terms, digital currency is a form of money only spent online. It’s something you’ll never hold in your hand or exchange in any brick and mortar store front.

One thing is also very certain with digital currency, it started a revolution like no other, and the future is anyone’s guess. As for Bitcoin, this was the first digital currency really put to the test, and the back story is even a bit amusing.

The Legend
In 2007, a person named Satoshi Nakamoto, developed an algorithm that would forever change the online world and how we make a purchase. Except, no one really knows who or where Satoshi Nakamoto is. More than likely, this isn’t even a real name. The name itself even has a direct translation:
“Satoshi” means “clear thinking, quick witted; wise”. “Naka” can mean “medium, inside, or relationship”. “Moto” can mean “origin”, or “foundation”

While we may not know who he (or she) was, we know what he did. He was the inventor of the bitcoin protocol, publishing a paper via the Cryptography Mailing List in November 2008.

He then released the first version of the bitcoin software client in 2009, and participated with others on the project via mailing lists, until he finally began to fade from the community toward the end of 2010.

He worked with people on the open-source team, but took care never to reveal anything personal about himself, and the last anyone heard from him was in the spring of 2011, when he said that he had “moved on to other things”.

So you see, the legend is very real, and it’s a mystery that may never be solved.

But, what really was the impact of Nakamoto’s digital currency?

The Digital Currency Revolution Begins
Bitcoin today is under attack. Many critics are claiming that Bitcoin might in fact be dying a slow death. While others of course consider bitcoin a work in progress. But one thing Bitcoin did accomplish was a revolutionary idea, and since its launch over 6 years ago, many new digital currencies have hit the market. It spawned something like no other online, and the revolution only continues.

We have to look at digital currency from a specific perspective, like any young technology, digital currencies everywhere are a work in progress, and we simply can’t deny the fact that some forms of digital currency is ground-breaking. The core software program involved with the algo is constantly being improved, it is an open-source and copyright-free coin, and accessible to anyone.

The Wave of MLM
MLM shouldn’t be a bad word, after all many success stories have indeed risen from MLMs. Avon, Herbalife, Tupperware – these and many more are all successful MLMs as you well know. Today however, many MLMs are taking advantage of digital currency and with good reason. It’s a form of winning and winning big. Of course many have fizzled out and very quickly, but others like Crypto888 for example are taking the world by storm. Crypto888 is a young MLM dealing in digital currency and sports arbitrage. Every day, over 2000 members are signed on.

And the list continues on for digital currencies gaining traction. Bitcoin is the one that kicked it all off, and by the looks of things, it looks like it won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Therefore, we think it’s safe to say that the revolution continues, and a new dawn of digital currency is waiting.

Safe Bitcoin Casinos

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