A short powerful lesson in Influencer Marketing for startups

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May 13, 2016
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2 min read

I recently learnt an important lesson in Influencer Marketing that I’d like to share with you; you can apply this to your startup’s digital marketing strategy.

Yesterday morning, I read an article on Forbes titled ‘Marc Andreessen's Best Advice: Build Your Passion Before Your Startup’. I got to a part of the article that I liked a lot, so I decided to screenshot it and share it with my Twitter followers.

Now, I had the option of just tweeting ‘Read this awesome advice from Marc Andreessen’ or tweeting with both Marc and Forbes’s Twitter handles. I chose the latter. At the time, I didn’t think much of what I did. I just went with that because it seemed cooler. After that, I went about my daily activities, forgetting I had even tweeted something like that. Not one person retweeted the screenshot or responded to it.

Later at night, around 8:50pm, Marc Andreessen (pictured above) himself retweeted the tweet. When I saw the notification, I almost went nuts. One, because I considered it an honour for him to retweet my tweet. Two, because I knew my mentions were about to go gaga!

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https://twitter.com/DavidIAdeleke/status/730857735798063107

And they did. I spent the rest of the night receiving notifications from retweets, likes, replies and tweet quotes. It was fun, for me. But more importantly, it helped me realize, firsthand, what a simple unsolicited retweet or commendation from an influential person can do to your content or digital marketing efforts.

The lesson in Influencer Marketing

This is the simple truth: your content will go further if it is liked and shared by someone that is influential online.

Mind you, that tweet wasn’t alone; there was an accompanying tweet beneath it. Maybe Marc didn’t see the second tweet, so it didn’t receive as much attention as the first one.

Here are the two tweets:

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https://twitter.com/DavidIAdeleke/status/730719455056138241

https://twitter.com/DavidIAdeleke/status/730720741528834048

Now, look at the figures for both of them. Look at the difference that an influential person can make on a piece of content:

pmarca

conc

Influencers can do great things to your digital marketing. You don’t have to pay them to get them involved. Just share content that they might like and can re-share with their large audience; content that will make them look good. This is a major key in Influencer Marketing.

I'm always open to feedback and new ideas.
I'm always open to feedback and new ideas.
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I'm always open to feedback and new ideas.

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