Influence is when you try to inspire other people while not possessing actual control over a positive outcome. You too can build up influence and even measure influence, although achieving positive outcomes requires a lot of effort and a proper plan.
Here are important tips on how to plan and build social influence.
You must firstly understand that influence needs to be built on a foundation of trust. You must thus know all about your own standing by indicating your beliefs before you expect others to join you in your cause. Just like other brands have done in the past, you too should publicly propagate your core values as well as unique value proposition to establish your own unique identity in the market.
You must also comprehend that influence is not the same as popularity. An influencer does however, have the power to drive action through his or her popularity. You need to formulate a specific strategy as well as identify goals that can be monitored and achieved. This is the only way you can build social influence and decipher the results of your efforts.
You can leverage influence by using emerging technologies. The 2012 American elections is one such example of how technology that included social media platforms helped President Obama influence voters towards voting for him. Mobile devices too have a large role to play in today’s fast-moving world and if you need to build social influence, you certainly need to embrace emerging technologies to achieve your aim.
In fact, you should now note that what was previously outbound marketing has turned into a hybrid form of inbound marketing since you cannot control the way people engage and what type of information is shared in today’s digital world.
While keeping up with technology may no longer be an option, you also need to seek out innovative ways to build influence. You need to take that calculated risk and venture into untested digital waters to reach out much faster than your competition.
You also need to personalize your marketing campaign to reach out on a personal level rather than seeming that you have merely implemented a mass marketing campaign. There are several affordable relationship management and marketing tools that can help you engage your target audience on a personal level. Do not be afraid to use them since such campaigns will definitely influence a larger share of your audience.
Care should also be given to the technological platform used for your campaign. You need to customize any tool that you utilize to suit your strategy and should be allowed to monitor conversations, extract vital data from such communications, and customize further communication in a bid to influence your audience and inspire action. Each individual involved in your campaign should feel that he or she has a meaningful role to play in the campaign even as you analyze all collected date to take appropriate action to reach towards your pre-determined goal.
You must also be ready to face disappointment along the way and accept that you may make mistakes as you venture into unchartered territory. However, you need to keep an eye on your ultimate goals and take corrective action before your campaign derails. You also need to collect high quality data from your campaign and analyze it using interpretation tools to check if you have achieved success.
Finally, you must understand that building social influence is a continuous process that cannot be stopped. You need to continually create and nurture new and old relationships even as you explore new technologies to take your campaign to the next level.