There was one particular question that stood out that I've decided to answer in this post.
Great question Tom.
Let's take this question one step back, so that these tips are applicable to everyone. How do you discover those you either would like to get to know, or wish to attract? First, you want to make sure you have a clear understanding your audience. What sites do they read or comment on? What topics do they search for online? What social networks do they use?
Once you have that, there are many different ways you could answer a question similar to Tom's. Here are a few ways I would take to discover these folks:
Do a Twellow Search
Doing a Twellow search is a excellent way to find like-minded individuals or a specific market. In this scenario, I've done a search for the keyword "curated" and it displayed over 2300 search results. Of course you will have to screen through some of these, but this is a great start.
Also, you may want to target your search by region. Twellow give you the ability to view other individuals on Twitter in your area, and follow them directly from the tool.
Do a Keyword Search on Listorious
Listorious has the some of the best folks on Twitter. So you can find anyone by topic, region or profession. In this case, I've done a search for "Digital Curators" and have come up with a list of individuals that say in their bio that they are a digital curator. From here, you can follow these folks, and put them in your own Twitter list.
Identify the Tools They Use
Find out what tools they are using. In the case for curators, tools they may use could be Summify, Storify, Paper.li, Keepstream,etc. Follow how active they are, and see if they are gaining traction using those tools (ex: how many views do they have, do they share good quality information, etc)
Do a Quora Search
Quora is becoming quite popular, and is an amazing resource to not only find out answers to difficult questions, but also to discover knowledgeable people within your industry.
I've done a search for content curation, and discover 846 people are following a content curation topic. Chances are that some of these individuals may be curators themselves.
I hope these help you discover those individuals your are looking for. What ways do you use to find your target market or audience?
Really helpful - thanks so much for posting!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it Jill! :)
ReplyDeleteGood post; good list.
ReplyDeleteI've used Keepstream. With some issues during high volume hours. But I know of the people who are developing it, and know some of their supporters. I think we have some groovy ninja tricks coming from them soon to make things more interesting.
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic and very well thought out answer to my question. Thank you very much. I am sure many will find your deep insight and expertise here very helpful, I know I have. Simply put, I am glad I asked the right man, the right question. I shared this on our site. http://bit.ly/mTqa6o
Glad I could help Tom. It was a great question, one that was definitely worthy of an answer. I hope these tips are useful to you.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to test out Keepstream. I think I'll check it out this week :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dave. You've give us some excellent tips here. Much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Michele. Glad it was helpful :)
ReplyDeleteHi Dave,
ReplyDeleteI love how you list tools as there are some in here that I have yet to hear about!! And I intend to check out.
Thanx!!
Hello Dave - Thanks for the very helpful tips and well-written suggestions. My colleagues and I are looking forward to deploying some of these web-based apps for our respective web TV series.
ReplyDeleteCurious if you have written (or will write in the near future) about optimum hours for posting content to particular social networking sites. This is the topic of the an upcoming workshop I'll be mediating in Southern California.
Thanks again for the info!
--Victor
Thanks for the comment Laurinda. I've got a large list of tools, so if you're ever trying to find something specific, shoot me a message and I'll be glad to help!
ReplyDeleteHi Victor,
ReplyDeleteI haven't written about this in the past. When it comes to social media statistics such as this, I very often turn to Dan Zarella and Hubspot for their insight. (@danzarella:twitter & @hubspot:twitter ) . I could do a post about it though. Let me look into it. :)
Thanks for the comment!
I usually visit Quora when I'm searching for answers (obviously) but it never occurred to me to use it to find followers and leads. This is a great tip, thanks for bringing it up! :)
ReplyDeleteWow Dave - You really did write a whole blog post for this guy! Awesome of you. I like the real clean, easy approach to finding who you're looking for through using these tools. The question is, what do you say to them thereafter? How is it that you get them to spread your content around?
ReplyDeleteFrom my own standpoint, I'd say actually getting into their lives. Talking it up, following what they're doing (if you align with it, or it's exciting) and becoming a pretty integral part of their online conversations. I suppose you could ask people to share your information across their networks, but that's a bit invasive.. and kind of.. puts people in uncomfortable situations. Hate when solid trained, business educated marketers do that crap. No sensibility!
But really the win is in pulling them to you because you're awesome, right? Creating cool content, videos perhaps (or other) that when you tweet it (at this point they're connected with you and could, depending on if they're monitoring, come across that tweet), they share it (if they like it and it fits).
Really interesting conversation. It's making me think about all of this a bit deeper because there definitely has to be a process that you use to make connections based on relevance. In other words, what are these people already spreading out? What content do they curate? Finding the people that already share content similar to yours could totally be part of the filter process.
Lots of analysis and careful selection, I think.
Excuse my brain vomit - but hey, I always say if a blogger gets you thinking, he's doing his job!! Great GREAT post man.
Thanks for the comment Ryan! And no worries, I enjoy your brain vomit. (that sounds really disgusting though..lol)
ReplyDelete