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The following excerpt is from Jason R. Rich’s book Ultimate Guide to YouTube for Business. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound
Many companies have achieved success when it comes to creating an audience for their content by reaching out to established online influencers—people who are extremely active on social media, online personalities, bloggers, and YouTubers—and encouraging them to share details about their company, product/service, or YouTube content, in exchange for free products or payment.
“Influencer marketing” can take many forms and has become an extremely popular way for companies to tap the popularity of social media and YouTube, and reach vast audiences, without having to build their own viewers, subscribers, and/or followers. In fact, many independent companies have been launched that specialize in influencer marketing and match companies with online influencers who target to the same audience.
Identify online influencers
As you build your social media following and YouTube channel, it’s easy to analyze your existing followers, viewers, and subscribers using free analytics tools and other fee-based, third-party resources to learn how many online friends, followers, viewers, or subscribers each has. Identify people following your company’s social media accounts or who are subscribed to your YouTube channel who are highly active on social media and have the biggest following. These are influencers.
Using a bit of creativity and negotiation, reach out to these influencers and request that they share your YouTube videos, or post messages on their social media accounts that promote or endorse your company and/or its products/services. By doing this, you’re generating word-of-mouth promotion using people who already have a large and dedicated following of people who fit into your target audience.
In exchange for these influencers helping you to promote your company, products/services, and/or YouTube content, offer them a reward, free products, or a financial incentive, based on the size of their following and what the influencer does to help you. Because most online influencers have their own loyal following, when they recommend…
