“People they’re not buying goods, people are buying emotion ”, - this thesis sounds more and more often from the mouths of marketers and businessmen. And emotions, as you know, cause other people. That is why opinion leaders are a trend tool today. advancement. And, according to experts, their impact on adoption purchase decisions will only grow.
What is this phenomenon? What is the secret of opinion leaders? How to become one of them? Let's talk about all this in our material.
Why be an opinion leader?
People extremely rarely understand information carefully. If she is close to them, they can attend to the search for additional knowledge, comment them, share your opinion with friends. If not, then often they ignore such an “information noise." To convey a message to a person, he needs to evoke a certain emotion, to impress and in this way to be remembered. And often this sequence of reactions causes someone “Expert”, “weighty” opinion - confirmation of data by the leader opinions.
Opinion leaders (also called trendsetters, abbreviated setters, ambassadors or opinion leaders) are people whose opinions influence the opinions of consumers (audiences).
There are There are many reasons that can motivate you to become an opinion leader: desire to develop a personal brand and be an expert in the industry, desire increase the popularity of your company, attract more traffic to the site just make money on it.
But anyway, you can get a lot of “goodies” from the status of an expert:
- saving of money: the opinion leader has a large personal audience loyal to him, therefore, marketing costs are significantly reduced: even if your fans are not ready to buy a certain product, at least they can share information about him if you ask them about it;
- added value of the product: your personal brand creates an additional price for the product or service that you represent;
- nice bonuses: many are ready to provide you with free services or give something as a gift in return for positive reviews and recommendations.
what no matter what motives you follow, you must always remember that work building a personal brand is a difficult and painstaking task.
Where to start?
Find your business. Maybe it will surprise someone, but all further recommendations on how to become opinion leader will prove to be completely useless if you will do not do what you want. You can only become a true trendsetter in the activity that you are really burning.
Explore . Like any business, building a personal brand needs to start with a study of the situation: who are the most popular opinion leaders in your area, what is their specialization, what are their distinguishing features, etc.? This will help you find your corporate identity, manner of communication with the audience, come up with unique "chips" that others do not have.
Keep your finger on the pulse . Subscribe to TOP bloggers and opinion leaders on social networks. Do a selection of those interested in reading, watching, listening. Analyze what their features are: do not limit yourself to just spheres similar to your activity - very often something truly unusual can not be seen where you expect.
Define communication channels. You need to understand where “live” and what are interested in those people for whom your information is intended. What social networks are used, and what content might be of interest to them? Based on this, you can determine what forms and platforms to use for communications. Typically, these are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Telegram.
So, if you have thoroughly prepared the ground for your own advancement, then it's time to learn from leading experts in personal development brand. We tried to collect all the tastiest in our next the list.
TOP 12 tips for becoming an opinion leader
- Make truly valuable content , which helps people solve their problems: answer questions, help, motivate, keep up to date with the latest innovations, let's recommendations. Your content should be able to inspire your audience and hurt her on an emotional level. It is also important that these emotions were present at you - people are very sensitive to insincerity and lies. If a you were overwhelmed with positive, when you created the content, then with a high proportion your consumer’s likelihood will also burn eyes. And vice versa.
- Be frank and transparent in everything that you do or publish: firstly, all your accounts must be open so readers can repost thereby increasing the number of links on the network to you. Secondly, only promote a healthy and quality product. Once lost trust of subscribers, you can restore a reputation for a very long time.
- Maintain regularity . If a you write an up-to-date, interesting, useful article, they will notice it, but one attempt is not enough. They will expect the same bright regular publications. A good content promotion strategy is consistency and sequence.
- Communicate and build relationships with other opinion leaders. Not neglect online dating. Various presentations, presentations awards, celebrity birthdays are places where you can meet trendsetters and establish useful business relationships.
- Always stay relevant : Introduce the audience to the latest in the industry, write posts on the topics under discussion topics, and if you are an expert in some issue that is located “on peak ”of popularity, you can comment or give your recommendations (do not forget about competence). Find the most “delicious” content and share it with your followers, talk about trends and trends.
- Don't limit yourself to one channel of communication. But and do not spray on all social networks. For example, if you defined for yourself that moving through Instagram, then Facebook will become very an important addition to finding your target audience. If your messages broadcast on Twitter, then maybe you should create a channel in Telegram for short and long messages, etc. There are many social networks for more focused interests - use the opportunities to the world wide web. And always be active in everyone social communities where you are present.
- Connect with your audience. your the task is to make subscribers active and not indifferent to your product. And for this you need to talk with the audience. Write provocative posts, directly suggest commenting, discussing problems, arrange contests, draws. Use to the fullest Modern live streaming tools on Facebook and Instagram. If a the scope of your work allows you to conduct webinars or workshops.
- Be a storyteller . To do this, constantly pump your storytelling skills. Good an opinion leader is, first of all, an interesting person. Tell me stories from your life, cognitive facts, etc. Do not neglect courses of oratory and statement of speech, especially if requires your field of activity.
- Find for yourself the industry or niche in which you can become a “guru”. Users you should know what exactly you should contact with questions on this topic. Conduct webinars, publish instructions on the topic.
- Follow recommendations - subscribers, friends, colleagues, and even competitors . Share ideas and ideas.
- Define your unique offer - focus on what you do best, how you differ from others.
- Help. Always help people solve their problems and most importantly, be sincere.
And a few words in conclusion
If you managed to become a guru in a kind of activity and super professional opinion leader, do not “bully your nose”. Such a role will require you to constantly and painstaking work on yourself. To maintain the loyalty of your fans, you need to be in all the time contact with them - to stimulate interest, give new information, participate in discussions. It is equally important to expand the list of topics about whom you communicate with the audience.
And, returning to what was written at the very beginning: you must love what do it. Your burning eyes, true reviews, interesting stories will always infect the audience with the same devotion to you.