Guest post by Caroline Graeff of Imagine Marketing Agency

This is a highlight video from the event, to view the full discussion click here:

“Where’s Waldo”, a social media discussion featuring great panelists, experts in the social media craze:

- Jonathan Rosen, Lucky NY

- Cameron Olthius, 5ones.com

- Scott Tilton, loopd.com

- Emily Goligoski, Federatedmedia.net

- Jonathan Nafarrete, JonathanNafarrete.com

- Greg Cargill, bigMETHOD.com

The conversation was centered around Influencers online and using them in your social media campaign:

- Who are they?

- How do you find them?

- How do you approach them to talk about what you’re selling?

- How do you measure your success?

- And how do you handle negative feedback from these influencers?

It was one of the best panels I have listened to so far. Everybody had lots of energy, they definitely knew what they were talking about and provided great insights to people that don’t know much about social media.

Here is a quick recap for those who missed it! Let’s get back to the questions above:

- Who are they? Influencers are the people who create compelling content to others. Their feedback shapes others’ opinion on a product, service, and so on.

- How do you find them? This takes time. Use sites such as Google Blog. When looking at potential Influencers, you have to evaluate factors such as number of subscribers, number of followers, friends, and content of whatever social media platform they use (FB, Twitter, Youtube, Blogs, etc.). You also cannot forgot those “Hidden Influencers”, who might not come as Influencers at first because they run a smaller blog or have fewer followers, but actually provides content to quality people that have a larger network of “friends”, “followers”, “subscribers”, etc. Basically they act as connectors to bigger Influencers.

- How do you approach them to talk about what you’re selling? The “pitch” needs to be extremely authentic and personal. You cannot be pushy and expect the Influencer to talk about your product, service, etc. First, do you homework. Go over the Influencer’s blog, content, interests, etc. to capture information that will help you connect with them. So use this information in your pitch, so when the Influencer reads it, first, he is stoked you actually pay attention and care about what he does, and second, you provide him with information that is relevant and compelling to him/her/

- How do you measure your success? The panelists agreed that positive feedback is extremely valuable. bigMETHOD, a social media agency, compares social media campaign success to advertorial and show the added value of positive comments by an Influencer speaking to a large audience of Followers and other Influencers. There are also a large number of tools out there that helps you track your social media campaign results. Google Analytics has been brought a few times as being an essential.

- And how do you handle negative feedback from these influencers? After pitching a blogger, if he ends up talking poorly about your product or service, don’t get mad, write him back thanking him for his feedback and indicating him that you took note of his comments and will do your best at making the necessary changes to improve the product or service. They typically appreciate the open and honest communication and might write something nice about you.