In this post, you’ll hear a story about an influencer experience I just had. And then you will learn 3 critical strategies for dealing with influencers. Fun times, I promise.

The Story

First of all, I know. That name is a mouthful. Guillewhaaaa…?

Since 2008, Chris Guillebeau has been writing about his life eschewing the traditional. He travels constantly. He doesn’t have a regular job. He writes a bestselling book and donates the proceeds to charity. He is passionate about encouraging other people to live their dream lives.

I found Chris’s blog – The Art of Nonconformity – early on, and immediately fell in like. Anyone with a life goal to see all 193 countries in the world is awesome. (HEY YOU– I want to do that!) Even when it’s super weird expensive Equatorial New Guinea. He is living the kind of world I admire, and I’m a fan. Plus, he’s (sometimes) in the great town of Portland, which is my first or second favorite city in the USA.

Blah blah blah I continued reading him for years/fast forward to this weekend….

In writing up my best of the Interwebs links round-up I was scanning my tickler label in Gmail (thanks Simple Mom for that awesome suggestion!) and realized that Chris had published this awesome post a little while ago I hadn’t pointed folks to. So I did.

And then, I went back to my weekend.

Imagine my surprise when Chris showed up in my inbox the next morning. Nice, brief, hello, thanks for fun link email. Easy for me to ignore or act on. Just the way I like it.

What transpired – I must say – was nothing short of a galactic meeting of the minds as I tapped my fingers away. At least from my end.

I tweeted him, saying I wrote him. He tweeted back, proving a little flattery never hurts. I forgot to favorite the tweet, but I will do so now for the sake of my ancestors. #duh

And then we kept trading emails.

And I realized, as we did so, that without meaning to, I had invited Chris into my world my linking to him in a blog post. Sure it doesn’t always work — think of how many links I’ve posted to folks that don’t give a freak check their backlinks. But it sometimes does. I’m not the first blogger to admit I usually check my backlinks — and if someone with an overlapping world view sits on the other side I might just reach out.

As part of my new mastermind email extravaganza with Chris, he sent me his newly released manifesto today.

Check it out.

The 3 Strategies for Dealing with Influencers…

So, despite how much I like sharing about meeting an internet person I’ve followed for so long in real-live email, the real point of this post is to provide three main best practices about to connect with influencers. So, what are three tactical strategies about connecting with influencers that my story above points to?

1. Invite an Influencer Into Your World. When I mentioned a post I liked of Chris’s in my weekly Best of the Interwebs post it invited Chris (as a blogger who checks his backlinks) to see the that I had linked to him. He then had the choice to care, not care, act, or not act. But either way — this was an invitation into my world. Find a way to invite an influencer in. Send them a copy of your new book. Write a nice article abou them. Be useful.
2. Have Something in Common. No, I haven’t been to 173 countries like Chris. But I have been to more than 50 and lived in seven of them. We’re both authors. We’re also both bloggers — sometimes writing about intersecting themes. The fact that we have something in common makes it heaps more likely that a blog post where I mention him could actually lead to him noticing it. Find something in common with an influencer that is actually, legitimately, something.
3. Be Breezy. Putting a link to someone else’s blog in a blog post is breezy. Writing a short, no-need-to-respond email is breezy. Sending @reply once in a while is breezy. Be breezy. Influencers smell the reek of desperation. Most importantly when dealing with influencers you must learn the fine art of being persistently breezy. This means you can regularly contact someone without sounding hurt, offended, or angry that they (busy as they are) haven’t written back to your email. This is critical.