Network With Elites In Your Niche To Leapfrog Over Your Competition.

If you read my recent article on influence marketing, you probably know that links and referrals from the elites in your niche are essential for your blogging success. Networking with the elites in your niche is the fastest way to get traffic, build up your brand and leapfrog over your competition.

Let me give you a scenario here – You have been rigorously working on your blog for months but you hardly get any traffic, let alone regular comments on it. You want more visitors, readers and commenters in your blog. Who wouldn’t, Right?

But, how can this be done? How can you effectively promote your brand online; get more traffic, comments and increase your blog’s exposure?

Well, we all know that in order for this to happen, first thing you need is great contents in your blog. Other things you can do include commenting on other blogs, guest posting and so on; which can be tedious and time consuming with a very little conversion.

And then we have influence marketing. This is one of the techniques that smart bloggers often use to build bigger audience quickly.

One BIG delusion..

One big misconception that prevails among bloggers is that we often tend to look at elites as unreachable.

Photo Credit: Antifan-Real

We forget that they are humans just like us – with emotions and all. So there is no doubt that they are going to act positively to the ones that want to befriend them. Wouldn’t you if you were the leader in your niche?

Maybe you have already tried connecting to the elites in your niche. Maybe you even wrote an email pitching for help while trying to promote your blog but they simply ignore you. No matter how many times you try, it doesn’t seem to work. Hey, I have been there so I know how it feels (O:

One thing for sure; if you know the blogger on a personal level or if you are friends with him/her, this is going to be a lot easier on you.

How do you pitch to the elites and get positive response?

So, how do you actually get an A-lister to listen to you if you don’t know them personally or have never connected with them? Just by sending one email, couple of tweets of their posts and occasionally leaving comments in their blog; the chances of having them refer you to their followers is next to nothing.

What you really need is a strategic plan to target them effectively. To be able to get any kind of feedback, you need to have them get to know you better and build some kind of trust. The key here is to make the elites like you, trust you and befriend you. Otherwise, they are just going to view you as a competition, an enemy not a friend.

Networking with the elites, however, can be a pain and the process can be a lot easier if you focus on one person at a time.

This can be a nerve racking process if you don’t have a plan. First thing you are going to do is look for the probable prospects that you think are likely to reciprocate with you and list them. Their power, how much influence they have in the niche are some important factors to consider while making a list. Your main priority should be to target the ones that can send you targeted traffic and build up your brand.

So, what do you do? Focus on a few that are likely to reciprocate but are active and have some kind of impact in the community.

Blogging communities like blogcatalog, Technorati, mybloglog, blokube etc. are some awesome place to find some big dogs in your niche.

Why you need a list?

The main reason why you need a list is so that you can gradually work on getting the blogger in question reciprocate or else you can move on to the next prospect on the list.

Reciprocation is really the key for cross promotion around the web. If the blogger doesn’t want to reciprocate then you have to move on. Flattery works wonders while reciprocating. I mean, our whole society is based on reciprocation – doing favors for somebody that does favors for you – we always tend to do favors for somebody in hopes of getting favor back. It is in our nature.

A list also helps you enable to allot the time you are going to spend with each prospect, depending on what kind of favor you are wanting from them.

Here are some of the things you can do to enhance the relationship to see if they reciprocate:

And start organizing the list in terms of how they reciprocate. Now one thing for sure; you have to do favors before asking for one.

This is when the list comes in real handy – write down what favors you do for them and what they do to you in return.

Another benefit of keeping a list is that it comes in real handy when befriending a blogger and turn them into a long term assets.

Taking Action is the most important part of the whole process.

You should really work on building awesome relationships – take it to the next step where you are not just their regular readers or followers – you are their supporters in everything they do.

Ok, you made a list of prospects but if you don’t take action in following them, tracking them and further building the relationship; it isn’t going to work. Is it?

You could either stay as a lurker that just read the contents or you could really be active in leaving comments, promoting; all that good stuff (O: You can also use this as a foundation to voice your opinions and connect with others in a personal level. It is also okay to disagree at times and voice your thoughts, however.

It all boils down to basic things like being visible, taking advantage of the situation, making as many friends as possible and very few enemies. (of course, you can’t please everyone).

Besides all these, also avoid doing things that can really ruin your reputation like lying about how much money you are making online in order to be influential as these bum marketing techniques can really kill a brand; which we often see prevailing in the blogosphere.

Please feel free to comment down below and add to the above conversation. Plus, if you like this article Tweet it, share it in Facebook or your favorite social media outlets.

Here’s to your successful blogging endeavor!

-Adam Paudyal.

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