Seeding Content: The New Digital Influencers

The typical public relations pitch to bloggers follows a familiar pattern: email/tweet, phone call, follow-up email, saying thanks or asking for feedback on how to improve (Side note: Seriously, ask for feedback. It will makes you at least 10x better).

This method is a fairly effective (and exceedingly bland) way to get bloggers interested about your product and to create buzz. The hardest part of this? Doing the research to find bloggers who could be potentially interested in your content (or pulling an intern and emailing an entire category from AllTop).

However, what if you have great content? I'm talking truly rockin', informative content that not only is promotional but actually adds value for potential customers. As Chris Penn likes to put it: "Make something awesome."

If you haven't done this, go back and create some. No, seriously. This won't work unless you have compelling content.

Awesome, you've created content that truly has value. However, is it enough to just reach out to bloggers? Heck no. If you want to supercharge your content: you need to identify, contact and connect with those who "find the awesome".

The content revolution is transforming the way companies conduct business. However, one key group of influencers has been under-looked, under-leveraged and woefully misrepresented in the digital world. These influencers are the gatekeepers of content and in order to be truly effective you need to appeal to their sensibilities (and target the right networks to distribute your content).

Identifying, tracking and discovering who and where these "gatekeepers" are is another story entirely. It isn't just about who creates or writes about your content anymore it's about those people who find it, seed it and push it out to their own networks. In essence, you are looking for the new rung on the Social Technographics Ladder: The Sharer.

The sharer is an interesting animal. He/she is not quite a collector, not quite a commenter, and doesn't actually create any content. They merely facilitate and decide what is truly awesome.

By meeting with and engaging potential sharers of your content genre you are laying the groundwork for a potential ace in the hole. Sharers tend to be fickle, resistant to influence and fairly anti-corporate. Therefore, engaging them requires a unique set of PR skills.

Want to engage? You have to have the street cred, an understanding of their motivations and an understanding that your content could be rejected. Remember, just because these people aren't creating content: they still have reputations. Thus, they can't submit subpar content or they risk losing their influence.

Tread carefully, listen and learn as much a possible from these individuals. In the future they will become the key for launching campaigns, products and programs.

The key is to start meeting with and engaging them now.

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