‘Growth Hacking’ is a popular buzz word on the web at the moment and for obvious reasons. The idea behind growth hacking is to ‘hack’ or ‘cheat’ the usual growth trajectory of any new blog and thereby get to the point where you’re bringing in thousands of hits a day long before you normally would. Growing a blog is a matter of following a set system and as with any system, there are ways to ‘game’ the process and shortcuts to be found.
A great example of this is ‘influencer marketing’. This is one of the most powerful tools available to any blogger which can help you to instantly communicate with a gigantic audience instead of feeling like you’re talking to an empty room for months…
What is Influencer Marketing?
So how does influencer marketing work?
The simple idea here is that you overcome the limitation of not having a huge audience by using someone else’s huge audience.
A simple way to do this is through a ‘solo ad’. Here, you pay someone to promote you to their mailing list, which could mean reaching thousands of followers.
The only problem with that strategy is that you get what you pay for. Reaching a worthwhile audience may cost more than you have to spare.
Instead, then, you might do better to focus on other ways to work with influencers – for instance getting them to retweet your messages on Twitter or to publish your post on their blog (this is called guest blogging).
How to ‘Hack’ Influencer Marketing
And guess what? Influencer marketing can be hacked too! In other words, there are ways you can reach the big influencers faster if you know how to go about it…
One example of this is to combine influencer marketing with real-world networking. In other words, if you can speak to an influencer in the real world, they’ll be far more likely to give you a shoutout. If you take a photo with them, you could even upload it to Instagram and tag you both in it!
Another tip is to aim at the right level of the influencer. Don’t go straight for Richard Branson – start small and then work your way up. The ideal influencer to work with is someone who is at a similar level to you but just slightly ahead. That way, you’ll still have something to offer them in return.
