There are many tools you can utilize to increase your social shares and followers however it’s important to leverage them correctly. Topsy.com and buzzsumo.com are “2†awesome tools that breakdown social statistics into essential elements like total shares, filter by date, format of content, etc. However, recently I discovered another awesome way to use these tools to directly connect with niche relevant people to contact and present your content increasing your overall engagement. Right now the tools are great to find content with the highest social shares and trending over a specific period of time however let’s leverage this same information to do more.
Here’s a quick strategy I use to find relevant people through Buzzsumo.com and how I increase my traffic and social following quickly. The awesome thing about this technique is you can use existing content already published on your blog. Make sure it meets the following prerequisites.
- High quality in-depth content
- Already published
- Solves a common problem
- Keyword targeted
- Relevant to your niche
Let’s get started…
Content Writing Process
I have a lot of content published targeting different keywords however this might not be the case for many of you. If you are looking to make use of Buzzsumo.com leveraging the full benefits then I suggest doing the following. First, head over to Buzzsumo.com and type in your keyword within the search field. Here’s an example using the keyword phrase “content marketingâ€. Filter the options to…
- Date=All Time
- Country= Default
- Format=Article
The tool will list the highest shared content based around your keyword. I recommend skimming through the top “3†results then writing something better. Why? If the highest shared content has 50,000 shares than writing something better will definitely create a larger buzz than your competition. Here are some important things I look for and add when writing better content…
- If there’s images
- If there’s videos
- Infographics
- Content length
The objective should be to beat the top results in all of those elements.
Next,
Once you’ve created your content, publish it on your blog. It’s time to use my advanced strategy to get your content in front of relevant people quickly by leveraging Buzzsumo.com.
Stealing Your Competitors “Sharesâ€
The great thing about Buzzsumo.com is they provide a list of the people who shared the content. If I click “View Sharers†next to the top 1-2 results in Buzzsumo.com I’ll get a list of people in Twitter.com who “shared†this content and a direct link to their profile. If I click on their Twitter link I’ll be directed to their account and will see if they have a blog and/or email address.
Why is this information important to me?
From this information I can learn the following
First, I know they’re going to link to the content I’ve produced because they shared and followed my competitor’s content which was based around the same keywords/topic. Next, I have a direct line of communication to these people by visiting their blog and sending them a quick message. I can find out their authority by visiting their Twitter.com profile looking for # of followers and profiles of the people following them. For example,
The first guy I visited on the list has 144,000 followers and pretty impressive content published on their blog.
Contact These People
I’ll skim through the first several pages of the Buzzsumo.com list and find authority people in my niche. I’ve pulled these people by visiting other relevant content they’ve “sharedâ€. You learned how to do this in the previous step. By now, I should have the following…
- My content completed
- List of high authority people that shared related content. (Narrowed list using Buzzumo.com)
- If possible visit each blog and write down their email address
The next step is NOT difficult at all.
Simply shoot them a quick message letting them know you enjoy their work and were hoping to get some feedback on the content you’ve written. If they enjoy your work ask them for a quick “share†as it will help you build much needed momentum. You can let them know they shared similar content and you tweaked yours to be better adding some of the elements your competition was missing. Try different ways of contacting each of these people and be genuine in your approach. However, here are a few things to avoid…
- Don’t send them low quality content because not only will they avoid sharing it’ll hurt your future outreach with them.
- Be genuine in your approach and DON’T harass them to share. You might want to spread out how often you follow-up with the bloggers.
- In some cases you might want to avoid sending them your content before you ask for their permission.
- Don’t target bloggers with low twitter followers because this is a very slow way to build momentum.