You’ve heard it said that one must “Soar with the eagles,” to be successful in life, and the same holds true in the world of influence marketing on the social web. You become like those around you, so make sure the information that you’re receiving is honed and worthy of your precious time and attention. If you want to get ahead online, you must associate and follow people who are smarter than you. I recommend you start out following “20 Smart Peeps.”
“It is difficult to soar with eagles when you choose to live among turkeys.”
Attention is the commodity for today. It’s crucial that you meticulously guard your time, and your attention. Don’t allow information to flood your face arbitrary. Take time to sit back and strategize to find the best content that will most benefit the individuals in your target market, in your network and in your community. If not for yourself, do it for your Friends, Romans and Countrymen. Do us all a favor and follow smart peeps.
Meticulously guard your news feed and follow only those people who have something fabulous to say that is relevant to your niche and relevant to your target market. Following smart people is wise because it pays you back exponentially. Relationships and connections equal time. You waste time if the people around you aren’t bringing value.
Watching who you follow is one way of optimizing your social media influence.
You should monitor who you’re following meticulously because your feed is only as good as those you are following. I think it’s a good idea to have an arsenal of 20 Smart Peeps who are thought leaders or highly respected news sources, organizations or associations. Pick those you truly respect to follow daily or weekly within your industry. You can become famous and well respected off other people’s content by sharing and retweeting, so long as you know which articles are most helpful to your target market.
The route to influence is smart tweets.
Pick your 20 Smart Peeps to follow (it can be a person, a company, an association or a company or whatever, so long as it offers valuable and relevant information). Follow his or her blogs and or Twitter feeds. Here’s four reasons why following 20 Smart Peeps is good for marketing your business through the social web.
1. You have better content for your own news feed.
2. You can concentrate on influencers who will get to know you and be thankful that you retweet them.
3. You will gain influence as you post valuable content provided by influencers.
4. You get a better understanding of the market so you sound better when talking to clients.
Who you’re following and listening to should be guarded the same way you guard your time: Meticulously.
Just like most things in life, you are more successful when you break things down into chunks. I recommend starting out following only the top 20 influencers such as journalists and organizations in your field.
There are so many ways to connect on the web, and so much great info out there to process, how can we filter it in a way that benefits us and increases our businesses? There is no one-size solution. How you track the movers-and-shakers depends on your personality and your preferences. Here are a few ways you may get info from important people for sharing throughout your networks:
Twitter Lists
Twitter lists are great for some people, though they haven’t been successful for me. Again, how you track your smart people depends on your personality. I’m much better at listing people separately and attending to their Twitter page manually. The list feature hasn’t helped me at all. I know many people use it religiously though, so you may like it too.
WP Link List or Blogroll
If you have a WP blog, make use of the “Links” area. Add links to valuable websites in your industry. Follow 20 of the top influencers for your niche. Visit your link list weekly and catch up on what the movers and shakers are posting. Post this through your networks on Twitter and/or Facebook. The WP List Feature helps me to organize and bookmark blogs I appreciate.
Feed Reader Sites
You can track the blogs you follow using a feed reader such as Google Reader, or you can set-up Google Alerts which will email you results. You can also sign-up on other people’s blogs for Feedburner to send new blog posts directly to you as they’re posted, if the option is available.
The point is that you should be following a short list of small people–I recommend 20–and keeping them organized in some form or fashion. Your list may evolve, but keep things to a manageable level. Visit one or two of the sites on your “Smart Peeps List,” every day, and retweet the info for your followers.
If you have any other ideas for managing your Smart Peeps, please leave a comment below. I want to hear from you.
