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Consistently Creating New Content Is Officially Overrated

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It’s been a while since I last published a blog post. While I’ve been consistent with the podcast, it’s been almost two months since I last published a blog post.

There are a few reasons that happened. I’m in the middle of writing a book, growing my podcast, attracting clients, building relationships, and doing other things.

But I noticed something, and an interview with Kevan Lee helped me put it together.

As mentioned before, I hadn’t blogged for about two months. The last blog post I wrote before this one was published on April 23rd. It doesn’t take too long to put that into perspective.

So you’d think my blog traffic would crater with that level of inactivity. Actually, my blog traffic remained the same, hence this blog post about how consistently creating new content is overrated.

In fact, my blog traffic is set to go up this month. That’s because I’ll go back to using Twitter as I was before Meet Edgar came out with its article about Twitter’s new rules.

I thought this would change the way people used Twitter, and people tweeting in evergreen cycles would stop. It turns out not too much changed.

Twitter mainly rolled out those changes because of the drama with the U.S. Election, but perhaps marketers can continue tweeting in evergreen cycles and be fine.

I’m not ready to use an automated evergreen cycle in case Twitter takes a strong stance on marketers doing this in the future, but I am ready to return to HootSuite’s Bulk Scheduler and get hundreds of additional visitors to my site every day.

And I can do all of that even if I never published another blog post here again.

What a scary thought…this being the last post I ever write on this blog.

No, this won’t be the last blog post I publish on this blog. I love creating content and providing you with value. I won’t suddenly give up on my mission, but fewer blog posts means I can provide value in different and perhaps more impactful ways.

In the event I stopped blogging completely, there’s over 1,500 blog posts on this blog. That doesn’t include guest posts, YouTube videos, podcast interviews, books, virtual summits, courses, and my other content.

You can get a solid education on digital marketing and productivity just by consuming my existing content.

So why create content consistently? Why create content at all once you have a deep enough library?

Some content creators thrive without deep libraries of content. Brian Dean doesn’t create as much content as most people, but he spends most of his time marketing. Tim Ferriss pretty much publishes content whenever he feels like it while Gary Vaynerchuk publishes content every day.

Once you have a deep enough library of content (50-100 pieces of content) it’s no longer necessary to consistently create new content. Try not publishing a blog post on your blog for one month. Chances are your traffic will barely be affected.

What does matter is stretching your existing content and ideas. Updating the old blog post to link to more of your blog posts. Republishing your older content on places like Medium to drive additional exposure. Writing guest posts on other blogs and appearing as a guest on podcasts.

Spreading yourself beyond your existing platform. That’s what matters now.

Will I go back to weekly blog posts? Maybe. The one thing that comes with publishing more content is more opportunities to promote new content on social media. However, you can do just the same with an updated blog post most of your readers forgot about or didn’t get a chance to read the first time.

 

Why Do We Consistently Create Content?

I’ll go back to Gary Vaynerchuk because he’s the best example of consistent content creation. It definitely works for him because he would have stopped creating content each day if it didn’t work.

Daily content allows him to consistently remain in the minds of his readers. If you go to YouTube or Medium, there’s a chance you see one of his blog posts or videos because of how often he posts new content.

However, even Gary’s most diehard fans aren’t consuming everything he puts out. I enjoy reading Gary’s content, but at the same time, it’s been over a month since I last consumed his content. I’m not the only one, but if I go back to his blog, I know I may binge for a while.

We create new content consistently because we believe that will get us noticed. Some of us create new content consistently just for the sake of honing our craft, but in the content marketing landscape, it’s viewed as getting more exposure.

Updating old blog posts does the trick. Stretch your existing content. You can just as easily promote existing content as you can create a new blog post on a very similar topic as one that’s already in your content library.

Let’s get deeper and ask why we want to get traffic in the first place. The answer is to boost revenue and spread our message. So what if we could get those same results without spending hours each week creating additional content?

Ask yourself that questions and answers will gradually bubble up your mind. You can use LinkedIn to get clients. You can use paid advertising to drive traffic to your landing page. You can leverage your existing content to get more SEO traffic and point that to your landing page. You can get involved in partnerships.

This is stuff you can’t do if you’re creating new content all of the time. At first, my blogging drought was a result of final exams and getting comfortable. Now I know I stumbled into something good.

 

In Conclusion

Some of you may wonder when you’ll read the next blog post from me. For now, my strategy is to update some of the older evergreen content and occasionally write new content. Performance Reports will continue coming out each month and Breakthrough Success will keep rolling with five episodes each week.

You’ll probably see more of me on guest blogs than you see me on my own blog. That’s not a problem. That’s marketing while still providing value.

But still, I enjoy writing content. This blog post was such a joy for me to write, and I have no plans on giving it up…ever.

Who knows. I might decide to follow the Netflix Model Kevan recommends on his blog. Release a bunch of blog posts all at once to create the binge factor.

What are your thoughts on this change? Do you have any questions for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Find More Time For Content Marketing

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Many content creators have no problem with creating new content. They create blog posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, and other forms of content. The problems for these individuals lie within content marketing.

It’s common for content creators to see marketing as a necessary but mundane task to perform in order to keep their content brands afloat. Even though content creators understand how important it is to market their content, few find the time to promote their content. Most content creators are just too busy creating.

There is a difference between being busy and being productive. Creating content is a productive activity because all content brands need content to survive. However, excessive content creation can turn into busy work.

A content brand is successful when it has a constant flow of content that is constantly getting promoted. In this blog post, you’ll discover how to find the time for content marketing.

 

Change Your Mindset

Before we talk about finding more time in your day to promote your content, we need to talk about the mindset. Many content creators view marketing as a necessary evil. These same people view content marketing as something that takes them away from creating new content.

Instead of viewing content marketing as something that takes you away from creating new content, view content marketing as a way of increasing the impact of your existing content. View content marketing as the avenue for spreading your message.

Changing your mindset to make content marketing enjoyable and fun will allow you to more easily implement the tactics I’ll discuss now.

 

Make Sacrifices

During Episode 77 of the Breakthrough Success Podcast, Dave Jackson talked about making sacrifices to maintain and grow his podcast while spending more time with his family. His solution was to make sacrifices in his existing schedule so he could repurpose some of the time in his day.

As the Cleveland Browns weren’t doing very well at the time of the interview (and at this blog post’s publication), he stopped watching football on Sundays. This was normally a Sunday tradition, but now he had an extra three hours in his day.

Sacrifices like these add up. I recommend looking at your current media consumption (TV and the web) and reducing the amount of time you spend consuming other people’s content. You can use this time to promote your content instead.

 

Establish A Routine

Content marketing is vast and filled with options. You can promote your content using social media, and that subset of content marketing also contains many options. Even when you pick a single social network, there are still plenty of tactics to choose from. For instance, Facebook presents its users with paid advertising, groups, organic reach, messenger, and more.

And that doesn’t even include things like influencer outreach, getting on podcasts, writing guest posts, collaborations, and growing your email list.

You need to choose which content marketing tactics you’ll implement. Then you need to establish a routine that allows you to habitually perform the tactics you choose to focus on.

Here are some ways you can establish a routine:

Choose a time each day to perform individual content marketing tasks.

Stack a bunch of tasks together and always do them in the same order.

Batch the entire work in 2-3 days of the week so you have the other days free.

Integrate content marketing into your content creation (i.e. reach out to influencers and ask them for opinions/resources that you can then include in your content).

 

Maintain A High Level Of Energy

Your energy determines how effective and efficient you are with promoting your content (and performing any task in general). If you stay seated too long, you’ll get tired, and the energy lag will hurt your ability to promote your content and pursue more challenging tasks.

Every 25 minutes, I get up and walk around for five minutes. I don’t look at any screens during this time. After the five minutes, I’m back to content marketing. This timeframe is based on the Pomodoro technique which provides a five minute break for every 25 minutes of deep, concentrated work.

I prefer to walk around during these breaks as this allows me to refresh and have energy when I sit back down.

Some of the simpler ways to maintain a high energy level are to eat the right foods and get enough sleep. If you feel tired, take a 10-15 minute nap. Naps help you feel more refreshed which will make it easier for you to tackle bigger challenges.

In the end, you’ll have the most energy if you’re doing work that you love doing. However, you need to keep your bodily needs in check to ensure you’re not burning yourself out, and as a result, not performing at your best.

 

Delegate More Tasks In Your Business

Chances are you perform a variety of mundane tasks. Even if they are necessary for your business to grow, they are mundane nevertheless.

Some people would fit content marketing into that category, and if you do, then delegate it by all means. However, there are certain parts of content marketing (i.e. relationship building) that should not be delegated to others.

To determine what you need to delegate, write a list of all of the things you want to do for your business. After you write that list, write a list of all of the things that you actually do for your business. Delegate all of the task that aren’t on both lists. If you have a tight budget, delegate the one task that takes the most time and is the easiest for you to explain to a freelancer.

 

In Conclusion

Content marketing is critical for the success of any content brand. We all know it, but our actions speak differently. Some content creators enjoy creating the content but see marketing as a necessary evil.

By finding more time in your day to promote your content, you’ll reap the rewards of added exposure and traffic to your content.

What were your thoughts on these tactics for finding more time to engage in content marketing? Do you have any time saving tactics for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

Reddit vs Quora: Lead Generation Outlook

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reddit vs quora

This is a guest contribution from Olivia Ryan

If you wish to draw leads to your online business, online traffic should be your number one priority. Most online marketers focus on sources like search engines, well-known websites, and social media channels in order to get their leads.  Taking this road is great but have you ever thought about how a Q&A website may influence your leads?

Through the means of a Q&A platform you can easily reach a lot of people, and more importantly, you will be able to engage with your target audience, which happens to be a very specific group. Q&A sites can improve your SEO, help you develop your business brand, and get you a lot of blog traffic.

The writer’s team from Aussiewritings.com made the following differentiation between these two awesome Q&A platforms:

 

What is Reddit?

Reddit is a platform dedicated to social sharing and entertainment where people can upvote (approve) or downvote (disprove), and comment on different threads. Reddit is alsoa community where people can talk about every subject from advanced topics like science and philosophy to silly topics like cute cats and dogs.

 

Generating Leads with Reddit

Reddit members expect any advertiser to be extremely transparent and authentic whenever he wishes to promote or sell something on Reddit. Using hard selling tactics is definitely not tolerated, and you will only damage your brand’s reputation if you try doing so.

No matter how fascinating your content is, you can’t use the same approach on Reddit as you would use on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. If you fail to do that you might even get banned or your site blacklisted, so make sure you learn the basics.

You should know that the engagement takes place in subreddits. Subreddits are groups of people that are passionate about a certain subject.

In order to generate leads with Reddit, you should focus on supporting the subreddits that are relevant to your business instead of promoting or selling to them. You can even create your own subreddit.

 

Build Your Karma

Building karma is vital if you wish to develop a good reputation over time. The great thing about karma is that it allows you to post threads and links. Imagine posting your own thread and being able to ask over 150k entrepreneurs just about anything. You might even find new customers so make sure your threads are well-thought-out.

 

Pros of using Reddit:

•    It’s easy to sign up for.

•    Sub-Reddits are incredibly useful.

•    In case you get banned you can create a new account and start over.

•    By submitting links you get ranked in search engines.

 

Cons of using Reddit:

•    If you want to submit more than one link you must wait 9 minutes before doing so.

•    You won’t be able to post for a while if too many people will downvote your links.

•    Extremely long hubs.

What is Quora?

Quora is a great Q&A site where anyone can get their desired answers. Nowadays, Quora is a major Q&A platform, as its monthly visitors exceed 100 million. Quora’s mission is to offer you first-hand knowledge of people that really know what they are talking about like doctors, military personnel, economists and other highly efficient professionals.

Generating Leads with Quora

Using Quora as a leads generator might really turn your business around. With a well-throughout strategy, you may generate thousands of leads per month. More than that, Quora will serve as a means to generate organic views while building a massive online community.

In order to achieve these objectives, you must know exactly how to identify the right questions and answer them in such a way that people will wish to follow you. Your number one priority is to create a massive online community, and Quora is exactly the platform that can assist you in doing so.

Write an Effective Bio

Having an excellent bio on Quora is an extremely important factor that will generate a decent amount of leads. A poorly written bio might be good enough for an amateur writer, but for someone who wishes to grow a business it’s definitely not enough. In order to generate business value from Quora, you must own a well-written bio. If not, the time you invest into answering questions might not generate a single lead.

 

Focus on Your Niche

Most amateur users ask questions that are related to topics like lifestyle and politics only to get more views and attention.  Doing this might make a bit more popular but it will definitely not help you generate more meaningful leads. In order to get your desired results, you should focus on your particular niche. If you don’t, you will only low quality traffic which doesn’t really improve your business performance.

So, remember to search for all your business related keywords and answer only the questions that are related to that. Don’t waste your time on topics that are completely irrelevant to your business!

 

Develop a Strategy and Stick to it

Usually, most marketers tend to answer questions randomly. This goes on for a while, and then they disappear. In order to generate leads effectively, you must develop a well-thought-out strategy. The strategy should incorporate the type of questions you answer, the style of your answers, and the time needed to answer the questions.

So, after you’ve developed your strategy, simply stick to it. For example, you may bookmark all the relevant questions and answer them every Friday morning.

 

Pros of using Quora: 

•    You will meet many like-minded people

•    Your answers and comments are appreciated by the community

•    You will become a really open-minded person

•    You will learn something new every day

•    You get to meet famous people

 

Cons of using Quora:

•    Lack of diversity (sometimes)

•    Unanswered questions

•    Quora might become addictive

In Conclusion

Both Reddit and Quora are great Q&A platforms that can assist you in generating more leads to your website. Investing time in creating massive online communities on both platforms will definitely make a great impact on the development of your brand. So what are you waiting for? Start answering questions!

olivia ryan

Olivia Ryan is a journalist who always tries to see the bright side of things. She likes to inspire people in her writings and to enjoy a mysterious beauty of twilight. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

The Top 4 Email List Building Strategies

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email list growth

Email list building is one of the most important areas of your brand. You’ll get a dramatically more effective response when you send an email to 10,000 people than when you send a tweet (or any social media post) to 10,000 people.

There are plenty of ways to build an email list. You don’t want to master the wrong strategies, but you also don’t want to rely on one method.

For a very long time, I solely relied on Twitter to grow my email list. My efforts paid off as over 10,000 content creators joined my list, but I knew that to achieve monumental growth, I needed additional email list streams.

We understand the concept of having multiple income streams, but we need to understand just as well the concept of having multiple email list growth streams.

I wrote a blog post earlier containing 50 tactics to grow your email list. While the tactics will help you grow your email list, the best tactics boil down to these four strategies.

 

#1: Evergreen Your Social Media Promotion

I don’t manually send tweets about my landing pages anymore. I use ViralTag to put all of my tweets in a cycle.

To not make myself too dependent on Twitter, I also created a posting cycle for Pinterest. This posting cycle was a bit more complicated as I have to account for several boards, but it was well worth the effort.

As a side note, I also delegate my social media growth to other freelancers. That way, I can focus on implementing other strategies and creating more content.

 

#2: Optimize Your Site For Maximum Conversions

optimization

If you get hundreds of thousands of visitors, but you have no method of converting them, then you won’t grow your email list. This email list building strategy is a focus on the visitor’s experience and getting them to subscribe.

As soon as visitors come on the blog, they are greeted by a welcome mat designed to get more opt-ins for a free offer. Pop-ups, the sidebar, and the blog posts  themselves get even more opt-ins.

I use ThriveLeads to optimize my blog for generating more leads. It allows me to utilize all of the capabilities I just mentioned and more. AppSumo is another great option as well.

 

#3: Create An Affiliate Program

I am an affiliate for Michael Hyatt’s Best Year Ever Course. Michael Hyatt has impacted a lot of people, including some of the top players in various niches. When it came time to promote the course, many affiliates jumped on board.

The result?

In less than two weeks, all of the affiliates combined brought in over 80,000 opt-ins. You read that correctly, and I did not type in an extra zero.

That’s roughly 8,000 new subscribers every DAY. Many people would be very happy if that was their month.

Michael Hyatt was able to do it in one day.

I’m not saying that all affiliate programs lead to these types of results, but they will have a big impact on your business.

I grew my email list by over 25% by hosting the Content Marketing Success Summit and Productivity Virtual Summit. CMSS got me past 10,000 subscribers. When you get a team of people to promote your offers, you can reach out to far more people than you could have ever reached out to on your own.

You can use a service like SamCart to create your own affiliate program. When you recruit affiliates, it’s essential to communicate with them through a custom email list and a Facebook Group Page. These two communication platforms will be more than enough to keep your affiliates on the same page for what to promote and when.

Michael Hyatt’s course promotion was a launch which means there was a beginning date and an end date. In addition to running a launch style product launch, you can also run an evergreen promotion so affiliates can set their social media posts in a continuous cycle and constantly promote your landing pages.

 

#4: Use Facebook Ads 

facebook ads

I recommend trying the other three before you give Facebook ads a try. The reason is that you don’t know how well your landing page converts until it gets enough visibility. You don’t want to use Facebook ads for a landing page that doesn’t convert.

You also don’t want to use Facebook ads for a landing page that converts well for getting opt-ins, but the autoresponder doesn’t bring in any sales. Then you’re losing money in the short-term even though you are growing your email list.

With that said, Facebook ads are the dominant player in the social media space. There are plenty of ways to optimize your Facebook ads, but I’ll give you the basic math you need to run a successful Facebook ad.

You’ll need to pick a Facebook ad that is measured by the cost per conversion. Before you run your Facebook ad, you should know how much a conversion is worth to you.

Let’s say you have a landing page with an effective autoresponder. Based on your past results, you know that the average subscriber spends $5 in the autoresponder. If you can convert subscribers at $2 per conversion with the Facebook ad, you make a $3 profit for each new subscriber you get from the Facebook ad.

These are the ads that become successful. It’s not just about optimizing your ad for Facebook standards, but it’s also about optimizing your autoresponder so Facebook optimization is a worthwhile effort.

To take this strategy a step further, you can focus on promoting a webinar. Webinars tend to convert very well from opt-in and sales generation standpoints. When you have a webinar that converts really well, you can even make it evergreen so you don’t have to continuously perform the same presentation.

 

In Conclusion

Email list building strategies are all around us. The only ones that will work are the ones that you meaningfully implement. Of all of these strategies, evergreen social media posts is the easiest to implement. It’s an easy one-off task where you occasionally have to look at your posts to see what’s still working.

Optimizing your site for maximum conversions is similar but can involve more time and continuous testing to get better conversion rates.

Creating and growing your own affiliate program is much more involved, especially in the long-term. However, this approach can yield incredible results. With the exception of affiliate program fees and having a team behind him, Michael Hyatt didn’t have to pay a penny to get those 80,000+ subscribers.

You can run a Facebook ad before you start your own affiliate program. But the affiliate program would help you paint a better picture of what cost per conversion would allow you to make a profit.

What are your thoughts on these email list building strategies? Do you have any strategies for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Choose The Best Blog Post Topics

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blog post topics

Each blog post you write involves a time investment. And as you continue along your journey, the time investment you put towards each blog post will most likely grow. To make your time worthwhile, you must choose the best blog post topics.

That way, your visitors love your blog and you love writing the content. To discover the best blog post topics, we’ll start with the basics and then expand upon that concept.

The Basics

First and foremost, choosing the best blog post topics come down to asking yourself this question:

“What do I enjoy?”

I have a strong passion for digital marketing which is why I can effortlessly write about the topic. I once allocated 15 minutes to write about digital marketing for the day but then became frustrated because I wanted to spend more than 15 minutes writing about digital marketing.

I was like the child who didn’t want recess to come to an end. That’s the mentality you must have when you’re writing your content and know that you’re running out of time to do so.

Obviously, we have a range of answers for that question, “What do I enjoy?” We need to narrow our focus on the few things that we can write about for many years to come and that will continue to provide value.

At one point, I enjoyed writing about LEGO Sets. I haven’t written about LEGOs for a very long time because I prefer writing about digital marketing and embracing that topic. It’s also a niche I can provide massive value for given my experience (years of experience means nothing to me. Results determine the quality of those years and if I should care. This is just a teen’s rant 🙂 ).

To determine if your content will thrive, you must finally ask the question, “Is this something people want?” I know people want this blog post because several of my subscribers asked me to specifically write a blog post on this topic.

I like coming up with my own ideas, but if my audience gives me some ideas, I’m more than happy to write about those topics as well.

Pay Attention To Your Audience

As your content attracts more visitors, your visitors will suggest more ideas. Some of them will be direct…“Write about THIS.” These visitors are rare.

The majority of your visitors will indirectly suggest new content ideas. Here are some of the signs you should pay attention to…

What questions do they ask you in the comments? I always invite my visitors to ask questions in the comments. That way, I can answer these questions and write out future blog posts (I copy and paste some comments together to form the skeleton of blog posts). If I see a lot of questions about, let’s say Pinterest, I know my audience wants a blog post about Pinterest.

What’s getting the most engagement. When I first started this blog, I wrote as many Twitter related blog posts as I could. These blog posts by far got the most engagement and each Twitter blog post worked like magic. Now I’ve slowed down on Twitter related blog posts due to the immense library of them on this blog and the over-saturation of “10 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers” type of blog posts. Engagement is like votes, and engagement can take the form of social signals, traffic, clicks, comments, and any other indicator.

Which of your posts are the top performers. Keep providing these types of posts and internally link them together so they each become top performers. You never know how long a post will retain its popularity, so you want to take action as quickly as possible. For instance, one of my most popular blog posts was a blog post about getting Vine followers. Now it’s not doing so well since Vine isn’t a social network anymore. When you’re content is popular, ride that wave. Hope to never see the shore but write as if that shore is coming and you want to capitalize on all of the growth you can get from the final part of the wave.

See What Your Audience Says Off Your Blog

Your visitors spread their time across multiple blogs and social networks. This is valuable knowledge for discovering what your audience wants. During this stage, we observe others and chime in.

Let me tell you a quick story.

One of the policies I adopted is that I will respond to the comments I get from my blog. I knew it would be a tedious process, but I do so anyway. In these comments, my visitors ask questions, share suggestions, and weigh in on the blog post.

I got inspired to respond to every comment because Neil Patel does it. It’s commonplace for Neil to get dozens or even hundreds of comments for each blog post he publishes. He goes through all of those comments to gather more content ideas and discover what his readers want.

If you’re a digital marketer, especially if SEO is your speciality, then why aren’t YOU going through the comments Neil gets? After you leave a comment (yes, you definitely should), look at all of the Qs and suggestions Neil gets. Each of his blog posts (comments alone) offers a treasure trove of ideas, but you’ll only access that treasure trove if you read each one.

I know. It’s tedious, and I don’t read all of the comments for each of his blog posts. However, when I do, I get many ideas from it.

You can take a similar approach via Quora, a social networking site which allows users to ask and answer questions. When people ask questions about social media and blogging, I make it a point to be one of the first people to answer the question.

Not only does the first answer tend to get the most views, but I can also use my answers as the starting points for future blog posts. Quora’s additional advantage is that as a big social network, it’s commonplace for me to find dozens of questions that I could answer in the form of high-demand blog posts.

Sites like Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and Wiki Answers are great for discovering more topics that your visitors want. I prefer Quora because I believe it’s the easiest to use, but the decision is up to you.

In Conclusion

When you choose a blog post topic and start writing, it involves a considerable amount of your time. Not only do you write the blog post from start to finish, but you also need to promote it so that blog post gains traction.

With so much of your time hinging on each idea, it’s important to choose the blog post topics that will resonate the most with your audience.

You can discover which topics work by observing your audience on and off your blog.

What are your thoughts on choosing the best blog post topic? Do you have any suggestions for discovering the best content ideas? Have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

5 Hacks For Connecting With Influencers

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influencersRelationships with influencers are critical to your content brand’s success: they help you expand your knowledge as well as open doors to new opportunities.

Some of my biggest successes are directly tied to the relationships I’ve built and fostered along my journey. However, reaching out to influencers and building relationships with new contacts can feel overwhelming.

You may feel uncertain about how to go about it, and even question whether you’ll get a response to your initial efforts.

I’ve been there, believe me.

That’s why I want to share five powerful hacks that helped me build relationships with some of the most influential content marketers and productivity experts on the planet.

#1: Interview Influencers On  Your Podcast

Both my Breakthrough Success Podcast and virtual summits have allowed me to interact with some of my niche’s top influencers. Interviews are a brilliant excuse for asking for an influencer’s time 🙂

Not only do you get to ask questions and interact with top influencers, you also get to provide your audience with valuable content.

Combine that with the fact that podcasting is a growing and less-tapped-into industry than blogging, and you’ll begin to wonder why more people aren’t doing it.

I currently publish an interview every week, but I am formulating a plan for daily episodes. And my knowledge stores will only grow as I interview more and more influencers –  it’s amazing what you can learn from a single interview with a top influencer.

#2: Collaborate With Influencers

As I plan my blog content, I consider which influencers can provide relevant advice, resources or opinions, and contact them well before the publication dates.

I often work on the copy first, and then copy and paste submissions into the post to craft a more engaging article. Once the post is published, many of the influencers I mentioned will end up sharing the blog post to their own audiences, expanding my reach.

If you’re pressed for time, you can simply mention the influencers by name while you’re writing the post, and then let them know you’ve included them in the post once you publish it (and be sure to provide a link).

Some will share it and others won’t, but having at least some influencers share your content is a thousand times better than having no influencers share your content.

#3: Do The Influencer A Favor

The more you give someone, the more willing he or she will be to return the favor. But keep in mind these small favors will change according the influencer.

Some influencers (like me) would love a positive review for their podcasts (here’s mine). Other influencers would prefer you leave a 5-star review for their latest book. Writing a guest posts for the influencer’s site is also a viable option.

Determine which favor holds the most value for a particular influencer, then offer it without expecting anything in return.

If you approach relationships in this manner, it won’t be long before an influencer voluntarily provides you with something in return (if you have to ask, start with something small).

#4: Ask Meaningful Questions

Top influencers love shepherding other people through the path they once traveled.

Gary Vaynerchuk has an entire podcast dedicated to helping others. Want to get on Gary’s radar? Ask him a really good question.

Nearly all influencers recall a time in which they spent countless hours trying to figure things out. When they see other people in a similar situation, they naturally want to lend a helping hand.

Influencers enjoy steering people in the right direction and providing that little nudge to keep them moving forward. And they like it even more when people act their advice.

This is the starting point for repeat interviews and a much greater relationship.

#5: Be Everywhere To Them

You can’t be everywhere for everyone, but you can be everywhere for someone. What’s everywhere for someone mean?

Simply focus on the places where your special someone spends the majority of his/her time. This is why television ads used to work (and why now they are less effective).

Today, people spend more time on Facebook than they do watching tv, which is why social media ad spend has greatly increased over the years.

But that doesn’t mean you should try reaching an influencer with an ad. Rather, you should seek out the places they’re engaging with their readers.

Do they reply to tweets? Do they respond to blog comments? Are they posting a lot on LinkedIn?

These are the places where you need to be. Like, share, and comment on everything they post. Mention their social media handle when you share their content and eventually they’ll notice you.

For example, I notice the people who repeatedly share my content on Twitter more than anyone else in my audience. While I write with my entire audience in mind, I can match names and faces with the people who consistently share my content on Twitter.

Find the platforms most frequented by top influencers who share your mindset.

In Conclusion

Connecting with influencers is as easy or as difficult as you make it. The beginning stage may feel difficult, but as you continue, you’ll have a much easier time connecting with influencers and building relationships.

The ultimate hack not mentioned above is that once you build all of these relationships, you can ask for referrals.

Once I have over 30 speakers for my virtual summits, I ask them if they know anyone else who would also be a great speaker for the summit. They usually make intros and that alone makes relationship building much easier.

What are your thoughts about these hacks for building relationships? Have any tips for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.