Reap Dividends With Influencer Marketing

Influencers in the online world can be powerful bloggers with a strong readership; social media participants with a large following; popular online columnists, community or forum leaders; or those running popular websites of their own. YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram are some of the platforms with a rising number of social media influencers.

You can integrate influencer marketing into your chiropractic content promotion strategy to improve your online visibility and drive more targeted traffic to your chiropractic website. Consider the following suggestions on how to go about utilizing influencer marketing for your practice.

Step #1: Identify Your Influencers

The first step in your efforts at influencer marketing is to identify the people who potentially influence chiropractic patients or encourage them to seek your services. You can perform some basic research online by using a simple list of keywords such as chiropractic, alternative medicine and natural health care to prepare your own broad list of influencers.

Join LinkedIn network, which is a powerful social media tool for professionals, and also use hashtags on Twitter and Facebook to look for relevant influencers. Consider using advanced public-relations software tools such as Cision.com to widen your search for influencers. To search for relevant bloggers, use Google Blog Search and Technorati.com, which provides real-time search for user-generated media.

Step #2: Engage With Influencers

Once you have created your broad list of influencers, prioritize them on the basis of relevance and potential impact. To begin with, engage with them over social media by commenting on some of their posts. If they have written an article, column or blog, share it through your social media accounts and leave your comments on their blog, website or forum. Wherever possible, you may provide your insights or experiences in the comments to add more value to their write-ups.

Through this exercise, you will find a few influencers who reciprocate by participating in social conversations with you or sharing your content on their site or blog. This is the perfect time to send them a personalized email to explain about your chiropractic practice and how you would like to have a recommendation, endorsement, collaboration, or relationship with them for mutual benefit.

Step #3: Seek Out Reviews & Interviews

When you are able to build a successful relationship with an influencer, you may ask them to write a review about your chiropractic practice and services. If you have written an e-book or a white paper as an expert in your field, ask the influencer to write a foreword or a review for it. Sometimes you can draft the review for them and ask them to simply personalize it as they want. This makes it quicker and easier for them to give you a review.

You can conduct an online or video interview with a powerful influencer on topics of current relevance and then disseminate that interview through your website and social media. If you are conducting a webinar or a Google Hangout meeting, you can invite the influencer as a thought leader in the field.

Act Favorably and Thoughtfully

To consolidate your relationships with powerful influencers, you can send them an interesting book as a gift, free samples of certain products you may be introducing at your practice, personalized memorabilia, or something related directly to the areas of interest. If you can invite them over for a speaking opportunity, send them privilege passes for an event or conference where you are a participant, or even donate to a charity that they support, you can enhance your relationship with the influencers.

Most importantly, be genuine in your interest in the influencer's activities and maintain a relationship even when you see no immediate gains for your practice. Influencer marketing is a long-term endeavor that will deliver great dividends over time if you are able to build and nurture relationships with commitment and dedication.

Editor's Note: The author thanks Vikas Vij, who assisted in the writing of this article.

Naren Arulrajah is president and CEO of Ekwa Marketing (www.ekwa.com), a complete Internet marketing company that focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of chiropractors.