Many of us think of influencer marketing as something that’s largely reserved for larger businesses. After all, top social media influencers like Kim Kardashian can charge tens of thousands of dollars for a single Instagram story. There’s no question that this kind of expenditure is too much for small businesses, and often even for medium-sized businesses. At the same time, social media is occupying an ever-larger segment of the marketing sector, and is becoming increasingly influential for most business markets. That’s why everyone should be using influencers as organic social media becomes more difficult for most businesses.
\r\nHere are some ways in which small businesses can level the playing field by leveraging influencers on a limited budget.
\r\nWhen deciding which social networks to use for your influencer marketing campaign, consider supply and demand.
\r\nThere’s no question that demand for social media content is everywhere. However, some platforms have more content available than others, and some places will help you get noticed better than others. For example, it can be really hard to get noticed on Facebook, because that’s where everyone seems to start. With that said, this platform can work really well if you’re a small business with mostly local clientele and the influencers you’re hoping to engage with have a large number of local followers.
\r\nIn addition to the possibility for engagement numbers, supply and demand helps regulate the cost of engagement.
\r\nThese days I tell my clients to look at Instagram or Pinterest for B2C and LinkedIn for B2B because these platforms are still able to deliver relatively high organic engagement to those content creators that use them.
\r\nSome influencers treat the business of influence more like a cash cow, while others consider it more of a public service that also enhances their income. Influencers who operate a cash cow are likely to \"sell\" you on \"buying\" a social media story, and then move on to the next person. However, influencers who are more public service minded will want to collaborate with you.
\r\nWhile transactional influencer stories have some value, you’ll get a better ROI when you partner with influencers as a collaborator. These influencers get to know you and your brand, and then take an interest in helping your business grow.
\r\nWhen you collaborate with the right influencer, you do so in hopes that you can convert the influencer into becoming your brand advocate. That's when the ROI of such a collaboration skyrockets because the influencer will begin to talk about you naturally above and beyond any contractual commitment that they might have with you.
\r\nEven if you could afford to go straight to the celebrity influencer, it wouldn’t do you as much good as choosing to stay local.
\r\nLet’s say you run a restaurant or an auto repair shop. In both cases, you’re reaching out to a local clientele: people won’t bring their car all the way across the country to let you work on it. And unless your chef is a celebrity, people won’t come from out of town just to eat at your restaurant. Therefore, you should start with people who have used your repair shop or really love dining at your restaurant. As word spreads locally, the number of customers should increase. Who knows, you may be able to open a second shop or become a local restaurant chain.
\r\nOnce you master the local influencer network, where you have a chance to actually meet these people in person and even invite them to your shop, then you can think about expanding your geographic reach.
\r\nFor your influencers, that is.
\r\nWhen you have a local influencer with a smaller following, the engagement rate becomes much more important. Partially, this is because those smaller followings tend to be more interested in what an influencer has to say than large ones. One example might be the local food critic, who mostly writes for the local paper and websites. People who follow someone like that love food and generally live nearby. You’re getting access to plenty of people with interest in your products or services even though the pool is smaller to start. As your business grows larger, you might move up to influencers with larger followings, but lower rates of engagement. So long as they still give you access to more potential customers than you had before an acceptable ROI is possible.
\r\nDo the math: Don't even look at the number of followers they have. Look at their engagement!
\r\nDon’t choose influencers in another industry than yours just because they’re local and influential. You want to make sure that content produced is something that’s interesting to their audiences, or you won’t get an effective ROI.
\r\nFor example, if you follow my social media closely enough, you know what kind of car I drive and why. But the people who follow me are interested in my insights on marketing and social media. They don’t really care what car I drive, generally speaking. I’m therefore not a good choice for someone trying to sell cars.
\r\nFrom the brands that have pitched me on representing products and services that are completely irrelevant to my community, I can safely say that a lot of marketing budget is wasted on simply working with the wrong influencers.
\r\nThis is just like buying any other kind of advertising, because you never want to overpay for exposure.
\r\nGetting name recognition is worthless if it doesn’t turn into sales leads. Even worse, spending your marketing money the wrong way means you don’t have it available to pay for better options. Not only that, but not every influencer is equally effective. Cost per action helps you know who to consider for your influencer marketing campaigns. Create an affiliate marketing program for your influencers for an even higher ROI.
\r\nRemember, you’re ultimately trying for a mutually beneficial relationship.
\r\nThere’s no question it takes time to find the right influencers. But, if it’s taking too many tries then chances are you’re not reaching influencers with your message or you have an image problem. Not everyone is good at pitches to influencers. You need to diagnose the problem, and address it effectively. For example, your business might have really bad Yelp reviews so that influencers don’t want to be associated with you. Or, you might have trouble articulating why you’re different from your competition. Either way, this needs to be addressed.
\r\nBefore engaging with influencers, you need to figure out if it’s best to pay in cash, products or experiences.
\r\nOften giving out experiences results in better content, because the influencer gets to see every angle that a regular customer does. On the other hand, products frequently need to be used more than once to get the full sense of how they work. Decide what you can afford to give away, and stick with it. Sending out unsolicited freebies? Follow up with your influencer to see if they have any questions or need help. If you’re paying cash, then you really have more of a transactional relationship. These can work out OK, but proceed with caution.
\r\nI hope these tips are helpful for you and your business. Any more that you'd like to add? Need any clarifications on the above content? Please chime in in the comments below.
\n","docType":"article","guid":"articles_70d061715f9665fe08a7c2d450bb8400","lastModified":"2020-02-26T19:44:00.000Z","published":"2020-02-26T19:44:00.000Z","structuredData":null,"subtitle":"Influencer marketing leverages the social media audiences of others to promote your business far and wide. Here's how to conduct influencer marketing effectively.","template":"v1","title":"8 Influencer Marketing Tips for Small Businesses","type":"article","author":{"avatar":null,"bio":"Neal Schaffer is a leading authority on helping businesses through their digital transformation of sales and marketing through consulting, training, and helping enterprises large and small develop and execute on social media marketing strategy, influencer marketing, and social selling initiatives. President of the social media agency PDCA Social, Neal also teaches digital media to executives at Rutgers University, the Irish Management Institute (Ireland), and the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland). Fluent in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, Neal is a popular keynote speaker and has been invited to speak about digital media on four continents in a dozen countries. He is also the author of 3 books on social media, including Maximize Your Social (Wiley), and in March of 2020 will publish his 4th book, The Age of Influence (HarperCollins, on educating the market on the why and how every business should leverage the potential of influencer marketing. Neal resides in Irvine, California but also frequently travels to Japan.","name":"Neal Schaffer","image":null,"slug":null,"social":{"facebook":"https://facebook.com/nealschaffer","linkedin":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/nealschaffer","twitter":"https://twitter.com/nealschaffer","website":"https://nealschaffer.com"},"status":"enabled","title":null,"type":"New BDC Member","user":{"imagePath":"https://staging.business.com/images/uploads/user/profile/a5f5c7d4a2fc09ae1fe2be8fc81123846c385.jpg","profile":{"company":"PDCA Social","jobTitle":"President","website":"https://nealschaffer.com"}}},"breadcrumbs":null,"channels":{"primary":{"name":"Marketing","slug":"marketing"},"sub":{"name":"Social Media","slug":"social-media"}},"meta":{"robots":"index, follow","description":"Influencers are social media users with large or dedicated audiences. Leveraging the right ones can help make your business a success.","title":"How Influencer Marketing Can Grow Your Business - business.com"},"parsedContent":{"toc":[{"id":"consider-supply-and-demand","title":"Consider supply and demand"},{"id":"aim-for-collaboration","title":"Aim for collaboration"},{"id":"start-locally","title":"Start locally"},{"id":"go-with-high-engagement-rates","title":"Go with high engagement rates"},{"id":"watch-their-industry","title":"Watch their industry"},{"id":"consider-cost-per-action","title":"Consider cost per action"},{"id":"make-a-great-pitch","title":"Make a great pitch"},{"id":"price-it-right","title":"Price it right"}],"json":[{"component":"p","children":["Many of us think of influencer marketing as something that’s largely reserved for larger businesses. After all, ",{"component":"a","props":{"href":"https://nealschaffer.com/how-top-social-media-influencers-want-to-work-with-brands/","target":"_blank","rel":"nofollow"},"children":["top social media influencers"]}," like Kim Kardashian can charge tens of thousands of dollars for a single Instagram story. There’s no question that this kind of expenditure is too much for small businesses, and often even for medium-sized businesses. At the same time, social media is occupying an ever-larger segment of the marketing sector, and is becoming increasingly influential for most business markets. That’s why everyone should be using influencers as organic social media becomes more difficult for most businesses."]},{"component":"p","children":["Here are some ways in which small businesses can level the playing field by ",{"component":"Link","props":{"href":"https://www.business.com/articles/influencer-marketing-on-a-budget/","target":"_blank"},"children":["leveraging influencers on a limited budget"]},"."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"consider-supply-and-demand"},"children":["Consider supply and demand"]},{"component":"p","children":["When deciding which social networks to use for your influencer marketing campaign, consider supply and demand."]},{"component":"p","children":["There’s no question that demand for social media content is everywhere. However, some platforms have more content available than others, and some places will help you get noticed better than others. For example, it can be really hard to get noticed on Facebook, because that’s where everyone seems to start. With that said, this platform can work really well if you’re a small business with mostly local clientele and the influencers you’re hoping to engage with have a large number of local followers."]},{"component":"p","children":["In addition to the possibility for engagement numbers, supply and demand helps regulate the cost of engagement."]},{"component":"p","children":["These days I tell my clients to look at Instagram or Pinterest for B2C and LinkedIn for B2B because these platforms are still able to deliver relatively high organic engagement to those content creators that use them."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"aim-for-collaboration"},"children":["Aim for collaboration"]},{"component":"p","children":["Some influencers treat the business of influence more like a cash cow, while others consider it more of a public service that also enhances their income. Influencers who operate a cash cow are likely to \"sell\" you on \"buying\" a social media story, and then move on to the next person. However, influencers who are more public service minded will want to collaborate with you."]},{"component":"p","children":["While transactional influencer stories have some value, you’ll get a better ROI when you ",{"component":"Link","props":{"href":"https://www.business.com/articles/partnering-with-influencers-getting-started/","target":"_blank"},"children":["partner with influencers"]}," as a collaborator. These influencers get to know you and your brand, and then take an interest in helping your business grow."]},{"component":"p","children":["When you collaborate with the right influencer, you do so in hopes that you can convert the influencer into becoming your brand advocate. That's when the ROI of such a collaboration skyrockets because the influencer will begin to talk about you naturally above and beyond any contractual commitment that they might have with you."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"start-locally"},"children":["Start locally"]},{"component":"p","children":["Even if you could afford to go straight to the celebrity influencer, it wouldn’t do you as much good as choosing to stay local."]},{"component":"p","children":["Let’s say you run a restaurant or an auto repair shop. In both cases, you’re reaching out to a local clientele: people won’t bring their car all the way across the country to let you work on it. And unless your chef is a celebrity, people won’t come from out of town just to eat at your restaurant. Therefore, you should start with people who have used your repair shop or really love dining at your restaurant. As word spreads locally, the number of customers should increase. Who knows, you may be able to open a second shop or become a local restaurant chain."]},{"component":"p","children":["Once you master the local influencer network, where you have a chance to actually meet these people in person and even invite them to your shop, then you can think about expanding your geographic reach."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"go-with-high-engagement-rates"},"children":["Go with high engagement rates"]},{"component":"p","children":["For your influencers, that is."]},{"component":"p","children":["When you have a local influencer with a smaller following, the engagement rate becomes much more important. Partially, this is because those smaller followings tend to be more interested in what an influencer has to say than large ones. One example might be the local food critic, who mostly writes for the local paper and websites. People who follow someone like that love food and generally live nearby. You’re getting access to plenty of people with interest in your products or services even though the pool is smaller to start. As your business grows larger, you might move up to influencers with larger followings, but lower rates of engagement. So long as they still give you access to more potential customers than you had before an acceptable ROI is possible."]},{"component":"p","children":["Do the math: Don't even look at the number of followers they have. Look at their engagement!"]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"watch-their-industry"},"children":["Watch their industry"]},{"component":"p","children":["Don’t choose influencers in another industry than yours just because they’re local and influential. You want to make sure that content produced is something that’s interesting to their audiences, or you won’t get an effective ROI."]},{"component":"p","children":["For example, if you follow my social media closely enough, you know what kind of car I drive and why. But the people who follow me are interested in my insights on marketing and social media. They don’t really care what car I drive, generally speaking. I’m therefore not a good choice for someone trying to sell cars."]},{"component":"p","children":["From the brands that have pitched me on representing products and services that are completely irrelevant to my community, I can safely say that a lot of marketing budget is wasted on simply working with the wrong influencers."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"consider-cost-per-action"},"children":["Consider cost per action"]},{"component":"p","children":["This is just like buying any other kind of advertising, because you never want to overpay for exposure."]},{"component":"p","children":["Getting name recognition is worthless if it doesn’t turn into sales leads. Even worse, spending your marketing money the wrong way means you don’t have it available to pay for better options. Not only that, but not every influencer is equally effective. Cost per action helps you know who to consider for your influencer marketing campaigns. ",{"component":"a","props":{"href":"https://nealschaffer.com/instagram-affiliate-marketing/","target":"_blank","rel":"nofollow"},"children":["Create an affiliate marketing program for your influencers"]}," for an even higher ROI."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"make-a-great-pitch"},"children":["Make a great pitch"]},{"component":"p","children":["Remember, you’re ultimately trying for a mutually beneficial relationship."]},{"component":"p","children":["There’s no question it takes time to find the right influencers. But, if it’s taking too many tries then chances are you’re not reaching influencers with your message or you have an image problem. Not everyone is good at pitches to influencers. You need to diagnose the problem, and address it effectively. For example, your business might have really bad Yelp reviews so that influencers don’t want to be associated with you. Or, you might have trouble articulating why you’re different from your competition. Either way, this needs to be addressed."]},{"component":"h2","props":{"id":"price-it-right"},"children":["Price it right"]},{"component":"p","children":["Before engaging with influencers, you need to figure out if it’s best to pay in cash, products or experiences."]},{"component":"p","children":["Often giving out experiences results in better content, because the influencer gets to see every angle that a regular customer does. On the other hand, products frequently need to be used more than once to get the full sense of how they work. Decide what you can afford to give away, and stick with it. Sending out unsolicited freebies? Follow up with your influencer to see if they have any questions or need help. If you’re paying cash, then you really have more of a transactional relationship. These can work out OK, but proceed with caution."]},{"component":"p","children":["I hope these tips are helpful for you and your business. Any more that you'd like to add? Need any clarifications on the above content? Please chime in in the comments below."]}]},"resource":null,"sponsorship":null,"thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/content/5e5/6a02a7b4374f2348b4569/1500-0-","caption":"Alessandro Biascioli/Getty","isBlurred":false},"bestPicks":{"title":"The Best Social Media Management and Monitoring Tools of 2020","widgetSection":{"__typename":"SectionWidget","widget":{"widgetId":"10121"}},"bestPicksSection":{"__typename":"SectionBestPicks","bestpicks":[{"fullTitle":"Best for Multi Media Creation","bullets":null,"isFeaturedBestPick":false,"isJumpLink":false,"tabTitle":"Best for Multi Media Creation","review":{"isReview":true,"adsense":false,"canonical":"https://staging.business.com/reviews/webimax-social-media-management-monitoring-tools/","review":{"fullReview":"WebiMax has dedicated account managers who take as much control over your social media marketing strategy as you need. This social media marketing service can help you design your business profile on each social media outlet, develop a specific strategy, create content or manage the everyday upkeep of your online presence.
\r\nYour account manager works to ensure you have the right audience following you and that you are using the best keywords. They can also help you create a marketing strategy that increases your revenue by tapping into the social media networks that are best for your company.
\r\nOnce you have a clear map of where your company can go and how to get there, you can decide what content you want WebiMax to create for each social media site, such as videos, infographics, memes or informational articles. You can upload this content yourself or put your account manager in control of ensuring it is published online so you can focus your attention on your customers.
\r\nWebiMax's social media marketing services includes geo-specific targeting. This is local research and outreach to make sure the audience you are building is in the best position to use your services. WebiMax can help you with link building, or backlinking. This connects all of your social media pages with your business website, helping you rank higher in search engine results.
\r\nPart of creating and using social media marketing companies' services is being able to see the results. WebiMax uses analytical information to show how your campaigns are increasing your brand recognition, causing buzz within your online communities, growing your viewership and targeting the right audience. The company audits your sites often and provides ROI reports so you can see how successful your social marketing efforts are or areas that may need some improvement. WebiMax also monitors include your business reputation, community growth and reaching of targeted audiences.
\r\nWith any business service, it is important to be able to contact your account manager quickly. WebiMax has both telephone and email services available and a live chat feature on its website. The FAQs section is helpful, as are the blogs, articles and tutorials on the company’s website. You can also see samples of the content WebiMax has created in the past and the amount of traffic it has garnered for other clients on its website.
\r\nWebiMax starts your social media marketing at the beginning by identifying your audience and creating a social media marketing plan. After setup, it continues to help you with content creation, including video production and geo-specific targeting. You have the option of publishing your own content or allowing your dedicated account manager to take care of every aspect of your social media campaign.
"},"url":"http://www.webimax.com/","docType":"service","title":"WebiMax","thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/rev/prod/ce/54188-webimax-box.jpg"},"pricing":{"isCapped":false,"isFeatured":true,"primary":true,"selected":"affiliate","widgetId":null,"widget":null,"affiliate":{"cta":"Visit Site","link":"https://businesscom.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=321&aff_id=1000&source=social-media-management-tools&aff_sub4=revenue|Sponsorship&aff_sub3=deal|Webimax&url_id=1","name":"Sponsorship"}}}},{"fullTitle":"Best for Enterprise","bullets":null,"isFeaturedBestPick":false,"isJumpLink":false,"tabTitle":"Best for Enterprise","review":{"isReview":true,"adsense":false,"canonical":"https://staging.business.com/reviews/oracle-social-cloud/","review":{"fullReview":"Oracle is a large company with social media monitoring and engagement packages priced for businesses looking for a way to get their fingers on the pulse of the internet. Its social relationship management program, Oracle Social Cloud, provides comprehensive social listening and analysis, plus a full range of back-office and social engagement features. Combined with a full suite of support options that include professional forums, this service is pricier than most social media monitoring software but well suited for enterprise-level businesses.
\r\nOracle Social Cloud's social media monitoring system listens to over 40 million sites a day in over 28 languages across the globe. These include blogs and news sites, social media networks, and video and image sites. It combines Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and its own proprietary algorithms to augment your keywords when picking out slang. According to Oracle, LSA has an accuracy of up to 94% in judging the emotion behind a statement, while NLP has 64% accuracy. Combined with its own algorithms, it claims a conservative 70 to 80 percent accuracy based on in-house testing.
\r\nThis software has excellent social analytics. It can read cues for profession and education as well as identify the usual demographics, and it can integrate with several third-party analytic tools. It maintains all your data in an archive so you can track trends.
\r\nOracle has a full social engagement arm. It emails you if there is a spike in activity, and you can set rules for prioritizing posts you see in your stream or for forwarding certain posts to other departments. The software is mobile responsive. You can post individual replies from the software, plus schedule posts across some or all of your social media platforms. You can assign and collaborate with others to respond to people who have posted complaints, kudos or items of interest.
\r\nIntegration drives Oracle's mission. It has prebuilt connectivity with all its own customer service products, including marketing, service and commerce, making it an excellent all-in-one solution. It also has application interface programming to integrate Oracle Social Cloud data to outside web analytics software.
\r\nYour dedicated account manager is matched to your business to give you personalized service. The website has a great deal of information, such as FAQs, white papers, a blog and specialized training. Topics and training aren't limited to the software or social media monitoring. There are forum communities for users in different areas of expertise, developers who use the software and community leaders.
\r\nOracle offers a multitude of social media management and commerce solutions, including a social relationship management cloud. As a result, you can find not only excellent monitoring and analysis tools, but also a strong social engagement arm and integration with other features, both within the Oracle suite and outside it.
"},"url":"http://www.oracle.com","docType":"service","title":"Oracle","thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/rev/prod/ce/52912-collective-intellect-box.jpg"},"pricing":{"isCapped":false,"isFeatured":false,"primary":true,"selected":"widget","widgetId":"10746","widget":{"id":"10746","cta":"Compare Quotes","isExclusive":false},"affiliate":{"cta":"Visit Site","link":"http://www.oracle.com","name":""}}}},{"fullTitle":"Best of International Business: Sysomos ","bullets":null,"isFeaturedBestPick":false,"isJumpLink":false,"tabTitle":"International Business","review":{"isReview":true,"adsense":false,"canonical":"https://staging.business.com/reviews/sysomos/","review":{"fullReview":"If your company has a global reach, then Sysomos social media monitoring software can help you keep an eye on how people view your company, who the key influences are, what they’re saying and how well your campaigns are faring. It monitors 186 languages in 189 countries, looking at popular social media like Facebook and Twitter, plus blogs and traditional media. Its easy-to-use and comprehensive package includes sentiment analysis and reporting, making it an excellent choice for social listening and analysis.
\r\nSysomos monitors over two dozen different platforms, including the big players like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, but also video sites and more. Further, it tracks news and blog sites. This social media monitoring software is as worldwide as the internet, understanding slang and intent in addition to 186 languages.
\r\nThe software filters superfluous posts by first removing those from known spam sources. Then, it identifies advertising, suspicious links and gibberish. Finally, it uses proven analysis tools to identify spam communities and artificial link-boosting activities.
\r\nSysomos boasts 86% accuracy in judging positive or negative sentiment. This is on the high end, as human understanding of sentiment averages between 73 and 85 percent. The company has a third party test its sentiment analysis accuracy.
\r\nSysomos can identify key influencers – people who have a large following or a strong internet reputation in your area of interest. It can also identify potential leads and people who may be ready to buy your products, including those who are dissatisfied with your competitor or looking for a product you sell.
\r\nIt offers some excellent social media analytics tools, such as access to up to two years of historical data for trend analysis. It also integrates with Google Analytics to give you additional traffic analysis of your sites. The drag-and-drop capability lets you fully customize reports with ease.
\r\nThis software lets you manage all your social media accounts in one area, so you can both schedule posts across your accounts and respond to individual posts. It allows you to route posts with particular keywords to the department that would best use the data, like customer service or public relations. Sysomos' software sends you email alerts and has a mobile-responsive interface, so whether you are at home or out for coffee, you can respond quickly. It also integrates with customer relationship management software and has API-development ability so you can integrate Sysomos with your other company software.
\r\nIn addition to email and telephone support, you get a dedicated account manager. Your account manager not only gives you one-on-one training on the software but can help you throughout your time as a client.
\r\nSysomos is a potent social media monitoring service with powerful tools. The ability to understand 186 languages and slang makes it the best choice for international businesses that need social media listening, analysis and response.
"},"url":"http://www.sysomos.com","docType":"service","title":"Sysomos","thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/rev/prod/ce/52320-sysomos-box.jpg"},"pricing":{"isCapped":false,"isFeatured":false,"primary":true,"selected":"widget","widgetId":"10746","widget":{"id":"10746","cta":"Compare Quotes","isExclusive":false},"affiliate":{"cta":"Visit Site","link":"http://www.sysomos.com","name":""}}}},{"fullTitle":"Best Service for Competitor Analysis: Portent ","bullets":null,"isFeaturedBestPick":false,"isJumpLink":false,"tabTitle":"Competitor Analysis","review":{"isReview":true,"adsense":false,"canonical":"https://staging.business.com/reviews/portent/","review":{"fullReview":"Portent has a team dedicated to social media strategy and marketing with experience in branding, reputation monitoring and online content promotion. It is one of the few in our buying guide that offers an analysis of your competition as part of the initial research phase. It will also help you identify your target audience and determine trends in your geographical area to help create an effective campaign. Portent works with companies of all sizes and now has a small business hub, where it focuses on social media marketing for small businesses at cost-effective prices.
\r\nOnce you have your social media business plan in place, Portent assists you in creating content to help promote your brand and gain more recognition in the social media world. This includes video production and podcast creation. Of course, if you prefer to create content yourself, Portent will help distribute it on the most pertinent social networks. You have to create your social media profile yourself, but Portent will take over from there and manage your sites for you.
\r\nPortent has social media tools for tracking the success of your social media and business campaigns. It will audit your sites to offer social media tips for business and see where there may be any gaps, after which it provides an analysis and suggestions of how to close those gaps.
\r\nIt will monitor and manage your online reputation to ensure any negative feedback is promptly dealt with to ensure your image remains intact. This service will also provide you with an ROI report.
\r\nThis service has both email and telephone support available. Portent doesn't have specific training tools or materials available. However, its blog has some interesting articles about online marketing plus a video tutorial that explains more about what Portent does. It also has a few case studies so you can see how it has managed other social media campaigns.
\r\nThis social media company offers some of the best tools for promoting your business using social media networks. It can help you establish a strong marketing strategy, taking into account local trends, your target audience, and the strength and weaknesses of the competition.
\r\nPortent manages the promotion of your online content while monitoring your campaigns throughout the process. While there are not a lot of extra support features available, such as training materials, Portent does have several case studies on its website so you can gauge its success with other clients before committing to its service.
"},"url":"http://www.portent.com/","docType":"service","title":"Portent","thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/rev/prod/ce/62916-portent-box.jpg"},"pricing":{"isCapped":false,"isFeatured":false,"primary":true,"selected":"widget","widgetId":"10746","widget":{"id":"10746","cta":"Compare Quotes","isExclusive":false},"affiliate":{"cta":"Visit Site","link":"http://www.portent.com/","name":""}}}},{"fullTitle":"Best Service for Geotargeting Ads: OrangeSoda ","bullets":null,"isFeaturedBestPick":false,"isJumpLink":false,"tabTitle":"Geotargeting Ads","review":{"isReview":true,"adsense":false,"canonical":"https://staging.business.com/reviews/orangesoda/","review":{"fullReview":"OrangeSoda has a team of experts dedicated to creating and managing social media campaigns. When you become a client, you are assigned an account manager who oversees the entire process of auditing your current website(s) and social media profiles to promoting unique and compelling content for your target market.
\r\nThis social media marketing service offers different kinds of social media marketing services, including some that are unique. For instance, it can help you launch a sweepstakes and even create coupons you can promote across your social media channels.
\r\nOne other beneficial feature of this social media marketing service is that it targets potential customers in your geographical area. OrangeSoda researches keywords and analyzes audience trends so you get more traffic coming to your sites from locals, rather than attracting viewers who might not ever make a purchase. This geotargeting feature is especially helpful for location-based businesses like restaurants.
\r\nHowever, one thing that OrangeSoda won't do for you is create your social media profiles for you. You have to create those profiles yourself, but once you do, OrangeSoda manages each step of your social media campaign from creating and promoting content to monitoring your campaigns.
\r\nOrangeSoda will link your profiles and business pages, which also helps with your rankings in search engines, such as Google. It promotes content you create on your different social media pages, or it can help you create content. OrangeSoda doesn't create videos, but it will promote video content you provide.
\r\nOnce your social media marketing campaign has been implemented, OrangeSoda monitor its success and sends you progress reports. This social media marketing service also monitors your online reputation and addresses any negative exposure or comments.
\r\nYou can connect with your dedicated account manager by phone or through email. This service offers some extended telephone support beyond the typical 9 to 5 business hours and is even available on Saturdays. You won't find FAQs or a live-chat feature on the company's web site, but there is a blog and articles about social media and business marketing.
\r\nOrangeSoda is a good resource if you need help creating and managing a social media marketing campaign. Your dedicated account manager helps you through each step of the process, such as creating an effective strategy, creating and promoting appealing content, and monitoring the success of your campaign.
"},"url":"http://www.orangesoda.com/","docType":"service","title":"OrangeSoda","thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/rev/prod/ce/62917-orangesoda-box.jpg"},"pricing":{"isCapped":false,"isFeatured":false,"primary":true,"selected":"widget","widgetId":"10746","widget":{"id":"10746","cta":"Compare Quotes","isExclusive":false},"affiliate":{"cta":"Visit Site","link":"http://www.orangesoda.com/","name":""}}}},{"fullTitle":"Best for Market Research: DataSift ","bullets":null,"isFeaturedBestPick":false,"isJumpLink":false,"tabTitle":"Market Research","review":{"isReview":true,"adsense":false,"canonical":"https://staging.business.com/reviews/datasift/","review":{"fullReview":"DataSift focuses on social media monitoring and analysis. This company doesn't just ask questions and seek answers; it considers what questions to ask first. As such, it supplies other social media monitoring software services with the data they can also pass directly to you. Because it focuses on monitoring, it lacks social media engagement tools, but it is nonetheless an excellent choice for businesses needing in-depth social analytics of their companies, products, online presence or potential markets.
\r\nThis company monitors over 1.5 billion interactions a day across dozens of social media platforms, as well as news sites, forums, blogs and more. It not only notes when a link is posted, but examines that link in relation to the post to see if it applies to your research. If it's on the internet and public, DataSift's social media monitoring system can look at it. It also looks at non-public sources like Facebook, mining it for demographic information as well as posts.
\r\nIt archives around 2TB of data daily, so it maintains a huge historical database, giving you a vast field of past and present information to search. In addition to spam filtering to remove useless data, this software employs 300 standard search fields such as language and demographics. Of course, you can add your own filters through keywords to refine your search. Your filters can work across historical as well as present data, and you can even teach the software to find the information you want.
\r\nSentiment analysis is a key element of social media monitoring, as people are eager to share how they feel about an issue, company or product by posting on social media networks. DataSift uses a number of techniques to determine if sentiment toward your brand is positive, negative or neutral.
\r\nBecause of DataSift's focus, you won't find reporting or social media management tools to let you create reports or send response posts right from the platform. However, it offers several programming interfaces that allow you to integrate the data with other sources:
\r\nVEDO can tag topics in interactions, such as to identify product mentions, attach emotion or flag purchase intent, and extract metadata to better classify content.
PYLON helps you use social media to create content campaigns, analyze your audience and determine sentiment.
STREAM analyzes posts from 19 sources, including Facebook and blogs, filtering and classifying so you can use the data for analysis.
DataSift boasts a huge virtual ear tuned into conversations on the internet and the ability to sort through all the noise to get you the information you need. It doesn't build reports or let you post to social networks, but it integrates with other programs that do. Therefore, it's excellent social media monitoring software for midsize and large companies looking for in-depth, comprehensive research.
"},"url":"http://datasift.com","docType":"service","title":"DataSift","thumbnail":{"path":"https://staging.business.com/images/rev/prod/ce/60236-datasift-box.jpg"},"pricing":{"isCapped":false,"isFeatured":false,"primary":true,"selected":"widget","widgetId":"10746","widget":{"id":"10746","cta":"Compare Quotes","isExclusive":false},"affiliate":{"cta":"Visit Site","link":"http://datasift.com","name":""}}}}]}}},"related":{"relatedArticles":[{"title":"How to Determine Who to Follow Back on Social Media","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/advice-for-following-back-on-social-media/","slug":"advice-for-following-back-on-social-media","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5d0/3d5449c658af7648b4574/1500-0-","dek":"When you're building a brand on social media, not everyone who follows you is worth following back. Here's how to tell who you should (and shouldn't) follow.","lastModified":"2020-02-26T13:30:00Z","published":"2018-03-27T12:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"What is Influencer Marketing and How Does it Drive Sales?","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/influencer-marketing-strategy-tips/","slug":"influencer-marketing-strategy-tips","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5ac/6384151ee47ee7f8b457f/1500-0-","dek":"Influencer marketing is word-of-mouth for the social media age. Here's how to use it.","lastModified":"2018-04-05T15:08:00Z","published":"2018-04-05T15:08:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"6 Social Media Weapons to Boost Your Branding and Marketing","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/social-media-marketing-secret-weapons/","slug":"social-media-marketing-secret-weapons","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5b8/406bd1039eb0c6e8b45a2/1500-0-","dek":"Don't hinder your growth by ignoring social media.","lastModified":"2018-08-27T14:30:00Z","published":"2018-08-27T14:30:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"10 Ways Content from Influencers Helps Your Business Grow","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/influencers-and-branding/","slug":"influencers-and-branding","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5d1/131a95a215ecf708b4588/1500-0-","dek":"Influencers can play a crucial role in your marketing success.","lastModified":"2018-07-04T07:00:00Z","published":"2018-07-04T07:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Storytelling Can Make or Break Your Brand","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/storytelling-builds-brands/","slug":"storytelling-builds-brands","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5b2/a8bfd51ee478d228b456f/1500-0-","dek":"If you're a direct-to-consumer business, your marketing campaigns need to tell a story.","lastModified":"2018-06-20T16:17:00Z","published":"2018-06-20T16:17:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"7 Instagram Mistakes Newbie Influencers Make","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/instagram-influencer-mistakes/","slug":"instagram-influencer-mistakes","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5b3/e49531039ebad038b458e/1500-0-","dek":"Avoid these common and often damaging mistakes newbie influencers make.","lastModified":"2018-07-05T15:35:00Z","published":"2018-07-05T15:35:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Is Social Media Marketing Still Worth It?","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/is-social-media-marketing-still-worth-it/","slug":"is-social-media-marketing-still-worth-it","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5e6/00e0f5a215e54378b456a/1500-0-","dek":"It used to be all the rage, but is social media marketing still worth the effort?","lastModified":"2020-03-04T23:23:00Z","published":"2020-03-04T23:23:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Why and How to Create Video Content to Help Your Business","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/video-content-marketing-for-business/","slug":"video-content-marketing-for-business","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5e0/698359c658a464e8b456e/1500-0-","dek":"Find out why viewers respond to video content marketing and how it can help your business.","lastModified":"2020-07-23T17:48:00Z","published":"2019-12-30T13:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"5 Strategies for Building Brand Trust Through Video","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/build-trust-with-video-marketing/","slug":"build-trust-with-video-marketing","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5b2/ab19251ee47f83f8b4576/1500-0-","dek":"Video marketing is about more than gaining product exposure.","lastModified":"2018-06-20T19:20:00Z","published":"2018-06-20T19:20:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Facebook for Business: 25 Tips and Tricks to Supercharge Your Business","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/facebook-for-business-tips-and-tricks/","slug":"facebook-for-business-tips-and-tricks","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5d1/4bf325a215e7c3b8b4567/1500-0-","dek":"Master social media and reap the rewards for your business.","lastModified":"2019-06-27T15:00:00Z","published":"2019-06-27T15:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Consider These 3 Things Before Investing in Video Marketing","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/consider-these-three-things-before-investing-in-video/","slug":"consider-these-three-things-before-investing-in-video","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5a4/ea0981039eb0a5c8b4578/1500-0-","dek":"Follow these three tips to create a compelling, successful brand video.","lastModified":"2018-01-04T08:00:00Z","published":"2018-01-04T08:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"7 Questions to Ask Before Connecting With Your Audience on Social Media.","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/questions-before-connecting-audience-on-social-media/","slug":"questions-before-connecting-audience-on-social-media","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5f3/2b6459c658add188b4567/1500-0-","dek":"Before competing with other businesses on social media, ask yourself these questions to help you craft a brand voice that sells.","lastModified":"2020-08-11T20:41:00Z","published":"2020-08-11T20:41:00Z","sponsored":false}],"relatedReviews":[{"doc_type":"category","thumbnail":"https://staging.business.com/images/rz/5b99633151ee47a8528b4582/Call_center_bbernard.jpg","canonical":"https://staging.business.com/categories/call-center-services/","title":"The Best Call Center Services for 2021","dek":"Our team has compared the best call center services for 2021. See up-to-date reviews for the top-rated answering services.","slug":"call-center-services","lastModified":"2021-02-26T14:22:00Z"},{"doc_type":"category","thumbnail":"https://staging.business.com/images/rz/5df7b1b69c658a61728b4567/Answering_Service_scyther5_Getty.jpg","canonical":"https://staging.business.com/categories/best-answering-services/","title":"The Best Answering Services of 2021","dek":"Our teams have compared the best answering services for 2020. See up-to-date reviews and prices for these top-rated services.","slug":"best-answering-services","lastModified":"2021-02-26T14:18:00Z"},{"doc_type":"category","thumbnail":"https://staging.business.com/images/rz/5d4c65367b43741a258b4572/Laptop_Sfio_Cracho.png","canonical":"https://staging.business.com/categories/crm-software/","title":"The Best CRM Software of 2021","dek":"Looking for the best CRM software? We have easy-to-read, expert unbiased reviews and feature comparisons of the best and cheapest programs.","slug":"crm-software","lastModified":"2021-02-24T14:09:00Z"}],"relatedSponsoredArticles":null}},"pageContext":{"displayModified":"2020-02-26T19:44:00.000Z","template":"v1","title":"8 Influencer Marketing Tips for Small Businesses","meta":{"robots":"index, follow"},"docType":"articles","slug":"influencer-marketing-tips-for-small-businesses","canonical":"https://staging.business.com/articles/influencer-marketing-tips-for-small-businesses/","skipTOC":false}},"staticQueryHashes":[]}