Building social influence and authority online should be a public relations objective for any organization. One way to do that is by earning backlinks to content produced on your organization’s blog. Banklinks, or inbound links, show who is paying attention to and sharing your content.
Here is an example. Recently the Cision Blog found my post “Use the ‘Law of Liking’ to Grow A Social Media Tribe Around Your Brand” and linked to it. First, Cision’s audience can read my content. Secondly. to people searching for public relations counsel, this connection can influence their decision to seek out my help because Cision has more influence than me. It’s bigger, more powerful and probably ranks better in search.
The decision of the Cision blogger to link to my post tells people she likes it. This behavior is best explained by the Balance theory, which my colleague and friend, Erik Deckers explained in his post, “Use Communication Theory to Boost Search Engine Optimization.”
With that in mind, there is one very distinct advantage of building social influence online. It cuts through the noise of competing messages and captures the attention and approval of stakeholders. Organizations that successfully build influence thrive, even when the economy isn’t.
Writing for TechCrunch, Aileen Lee is, “convinced the best way [ to build social influence] is by harnessing a concept called social proof, a relatively untapped gold mine in the age of the social web.
So, how do we build social proof cost-effectively?
- Social proof starts with remarkable products and services. If what you’re selling, providing or giving doesn’t delight the people buying or receiving it, you will weaken any efforts toward building influence.
- Create content around your remarkable product or service. This stuff must provide value.
- Don’t be afraid to point others in the direction of colleagues that can do a better job in certain areas. For example, I can’t build a website to save my life, but I know folks who can. So I point people in their direction.
- Appreciate, accept and affirm your stakeholders and other openly.
Lee also tells us, “people are wired to learn from the actions of others, and this can be a huge driver of consumer behavior.” So social proof begins with a remarkable product or service, and grows with the content produced by you and others — especially your stakeholder’s — and thrives when it is shared liberally and its people are appreciated openly.
Thank you Cision and Lisa Larranaga for including me in your post.
