I’m looking for influencers who have a well-engaged audience and who are frequent publishers and sharers of content on the topic, so I look at retweet levels and view content they’ve authored and shared too.

Write a post that highlights each influencer, and includes a short overview: what their specific angle or focus is, a link to a recent post of theirs, links to their social profiles.

Promote the post to the influencers, sharing on social and mentioning them to let them know you’ve included them in the post. I usually send a direct message on Twitter and/or LinkedIn to do this.

Connect with influencers and continue to share their content, as it is key part of building relationships with influencers.

These posts are relatively quick to compile if you use tools to accelerate your research. What’s great about them is they have a double whammy in terms of reach – most influencers you include will share it with their followers, and your audience shares it too as it’s a good baseline for people new to the domain and experts looking to check who’s worth following.

Stephen used this approach with his “25 Social Selling Gurus You Should Be Tracking.”

It’s had 1.2k shares in its first 6 weeks, more than a lot of content that took longer to create, and it’s helped us build deeper relationships with Social Selling influencers on the list. So there’s a lesson in there… tap into other experts and leverage their network and expertise.

BONUS Next Level Round-Up Tip:

Ann Smarty recommends structuring posts thematically because that style is easier for readers to follow than a long list with no imposed framework.

For more on creating advanced round ups, see Ann’s execellent post “How to Collaborate: Example, Tips & Tools for the Ultimate Influencer-Sourced Content Asset”.

Director of Agency Marketing at TopRank Marketing

Fill the middle of your funnel by talking to customers and answering questions with content

Ashley recommends going directly to the customer in a one-on-one conversations or with a customer surveys. Both can be a great way to gather information about your customers needs and pain points, she says.

See how it’s done:

This can be as easy as taking a look at your inbox. For example, I did a quick search and found this,

“I’m wondering if there is any recording of a webinar you’ve done for digital content specialists or any resources I can share with the broader group?”

We have overview webinars, but none that were scripted and recorded for this particular job focus.

I also found this,

“The searches we set up for home based businesses keeps bringing up results for corporate jobs you can work from home, not home based businesses that are worked by the owner. Can you help?”

I quickly fixed the search for the customer, and could easily describe the steps in a post that would help other users.

Bonus Repurposing Tips:

Use the webinar script as the outline for a blog post. Slides from the webinar can be shared on social as individual posts. Customers who are happy with their saved searches and getting useful results are great case study candidates.

Content Strategist

Use customer issues and language for posts that resonate

Brittany recommends shadowing the sales and support teams, going through their motions along with them on a regular basis. Reading through the customer support mailbox, or listening into sales calls in real-time are other great ways to get insight into real issues coming up in the buying process.

Take careful notice about questions customers ask, then work with the customer support or sales team to “pinpoint the most viable” solutions. Plug those ideas into your content calendar, Brittany says.

Her post 9 Advanced Monitoring Tips For Pro Mention Users was created in collaboration with sales and support teams. It highlights features that new customers typically don’t notice when they purchase Mention.

See How It’s Done:

During a session at Content Marketing World, Gini Dietrich described a process for matching prospects’ exact language with marketing materials.

She used text analysis tools to isolate the phrases most used in a survey about business topics. Then, used those phrases in marketing materials developed after the survey.

I wanted to try combining Gini’s tip with Brittany’s, substituting a very small group of survey responses from a questionnaire for input from our customer support teams.

Here are the phrases that stood out to me from the surveys, along with some first draft headline ideas that match the language.