6 Tips for Building Relationships With Influencers on Twitter

You’re probably familiar with a few influencers across social media and within your industry. These are people who are great at showing up consistently and delivering high-quality, valuable content to their community. Overall, they’re a trustworthy source of information within their field. And you can frequently find them engaging with other people online.

There’s no denying that building relationships with influencers and collaborating with them can bring some major buzz to your brand. After all, it can help you boost your exposure significantly when done right. But what’s the secret to actually getting these influencers to notice you and connect with you? Well, that’s what I want to help you with in this post!

But Wait! What’s so Great About Working With Influencers?

As I mentioned above, these kinds of collaborations can definitely generate some major buzz for your brand. We all know that it takes time to build a loyal, engaged community. This just isn’t something that happens overnight. By collaborating with those who have an audience you’re targeting, you’ll generate a ton more exposure with just a single post.

Because influencers have already built an audience that trusts them, having them vouch for you really says a lot about your brand overall. This can begin building the same level of trust for you, which would otherwise take a long time. It doesn’t matter if they’re larger or micro-influencers, if their community is highly engaged, they’ll take notice. (By the way, this article from SproutSocial all about influencer marketing is a great resource!)

6 Tips for Building Relationships With Influencers on Twitter

Once you have a few influencers in mind that you’d like to establish a relationship with, it can feel a little scary to actually reach out. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be hard to grab their attention. Just follow these six tips:

1. First, Create a Twitter List for Your Favorite Influencers

Getting organized definitely has its perks and it’ll really come in handy when building relationships with influencers. When you have a Twitter List of the people who stand out in your industry, you can easily refer to it whenever you want.

This list will allow you to see just their latest updates, cutting down on the noise from your primary feed. Plus, you’ll be able to easily track what they’re up to and what they’re working on. Keep an eye on their content to get to know them better before you start reaching out about potential collaborations or anything of the sort.

(If you’re not familiar with this feature, read my guide to Twitter Lists.)

2. Begin Engaging With Their Content

We all want to feel like people appreciate our content, right? Well, influencers are exactly the same way! And if you want to show some love on the tweets they share, make sure you’re liking and retweeting what you genuinely enjoy and know your audience would love. You can even take it up a notch by replying to their tweets with your own thoughts. Or you can share their content to your page, which is sure to grab some attention!

3. Make Sure Your Profile is Complete & Keep it Updated

If you’re going to be putting yourself out there to establish new relationships with influencers, you want them to have a great first impression of you. That means you want your profile to be enticing. So, go ahead and take a look at your Twitter profile right now.

Is it complete? Meaning, have you filled out important aspects like your name, bio, location, website link, and profile header? If so, great. Now, does your profile actually communicate who you are and what you do? If not, you’ll need to make some changes. People should clearly see what you’re all about from visiting your profile so they can decide if they want to follow you.

For more tips, make sure you read my post that shares 11 ways to make your Twitter profile stand out. This will be beneficial not just for influencers, but everyone who discovers you!

And another aspect of an enticing Twitter account is one that’s active. There’s no bigger turn-off in the social media world than when someone visits your profile to see you haven’t posted at all recently. Keep your page updated by posting regularly.

4. Know What You Bring to the Table

Yes, working with influencers can provide some tremendous growth for your brand… But you wouldn’t want someone to take advantage of you for your community, would you? Definitely not! That’s why you shouldn’t just collaborate with an influencer for your own gain. You want to make sure you’re bringing something to the table and that they are getting something out of this as well.

Could it be that you have your own engaged community to offer? Maybe you can offer access to a product you’re offering for free? Whatever it may be, if you want to build relationships with influencers, there should be something in it for them too. Ask yourself what you can add that would give you some extra edge when finding people to collaborate with.

5. Remember That Influencers Are Only Human

As you dive into creating relationships with influencers, one of the most important things to remember is that they’re people just like you and me. They want to be treated with kindness and respect. So, make sure you’re remembering the golden rule here… Treat others the way you would want to be treated!

6. And Make Sure You’re Avoiding Some of the Biggest Influencer Marketing Mistakes

There are actually a number of things that can go wrong with working with influencers, but don’t let that scare you away. Just keep this list in mind and you’ll be good to go:

• Work with influencers that are aligned with your brand’s mission and values.
• Also, work with those you know would resonate with your own community.
• Never pitch someone cold. Instead, use the tips in this post to establish relationships with influencers beforehand so they can get to know you.
• Consider the needs of the influencer you’re reaching out to and how you can be of service.
• And finally, always research someone and get to know them before sending a message.