Update: Dave no longer runs NinjaOutreach, but can be found at lesschurn.io and daveschneider.me.
We have blogged before about the importance of social media influencers and reaching out to the right people to share your content. The number of followers you have and the number of people sharing your content means little if it isn’t the right people. Recently, Sendible brought you an in-depth metric to understand the trust value and real credibility of influencers in your industry, which goes deeper than Klout.
This week, we bring you an interview we did with Dave Schneider, Co-founder of NinjaOutreach, a platform that focuses on blogger outreach and how to get in front of the influential ones. Dave truly understands the value of finding the right influencers to improve your lead generation. So we asked him a few questions, and this is what he had to say.
A short introduction and how you got started in social media
My name is Dave and I am a co-founder of NinjaOutreach. NinjaOutreach is a blogger outreach software for content marketers, that helps you find and connect with bloggers in your niche. I would say I primarily got started with social media out of business needs. If it were just me I wouldn’t have any social media accounts except Facebook and LinkedIn. I’m generally a private person in this regard. However in order to grow your audience and your personal brand you need to be out there, so I am more active on places like Twitter.
What do you believe are the benefits of using social media for business?
Some people just respond better on social media. I’ve sent tweets to people that were answered when emails were not. If you want to be able to engage with your customers, you simply have to have a social media presence.
Additionally, social media serves other purposes such as customer support, and content promotion. It’s very multifaceted in this regard and if you don’t have a presence you are missing out on many things, not just one.
What do you think are common mistakes business owners make when building brand awareness on social media?
Common mistakes are trying to rush it and implementing spam software to try to grow your following. Another mistake is growing a large following but not engaging with them and allowing that asset to deteriorate.
How do business owners know if their social media campaign is working?
If you’re running a social media campaign you can track the metrics like follower increases, traffic, and signups. Ask yourself what are the key metrics you want to increase as part of your campaign and measure the results.
Describe a social media campaign that went really well.
A general, ongoing social media campaign we have going is to give all of our employees a social media presence like Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, which they can use for networking purposes. This helps us engage with influencers in our space and promote their content. It also helps us brand NinjaOutreach as an organization and not just a tool. Lastly it's a way for employees to build a personal brand and feel more connected to the team.
How do you see social media evolving over the next 5 years …what do you hope to see?
I think social media is going to get more and more personal, live, and focused on video. This is what we are seeing now with periscope where it’s live video streaming. Social media is becoming a way for people to broadcast to their audience whenever they want and however they want. I can’t say I’m a huge fan, but that’s how I see it going.
If you could share one best practice about using social media to grow a business, what would it be?
Be personal. Social media is a very personal thing. It was intended originally for “regular” people to use to engage with each other. Which means that if you are a business and you want to fit in, you have to be personal as well.
Invest in tools like Sendible to help better streamline the process of growing your following and managing your accounts in one place.
Once again, you heard it from the experts. We hope you found Dave's insights as an entrepreneur and someone in the social space helpful. We would love to hear your comments and thoughts, so let us know what you think!
