influencer engagement

Best Free Google Chrome Extensions for Social Media Influencers

Social Media influencers work hard – very hard. They need any edge they can get, and they need tools that can save them time, and can help them with faster, smarter and yet super sophisticated, customized deliveries. Here are a list of the 11 best Google Chrome extensions that I use for my Mishu.Underdog :

1. Socialpeeks Influencer Analyzer, offered by: socialpeeks.com

I use this tool many times a day to see where I am!

The No. 1 KPI for SMI* is engagement rate, which is usually calculated as the quantity of your followers, divided by the quantity of Likes and Comments per post.

As a SMI you want to keep the engagement rate UP up up so the social platform algorithm will make sure you show up in their users’ feeds. Socialpeeks is tool that I choose to display my account engagement rate, in real-time. All you need is to login once to their server, and from then on, clicking on their icon on the Chrome toolbar will display this:

Socialpeeks Influencer Analyzer – Mishu as a study-case.

Price: Free

2. Crowdfire, offered by: crowdfireapp.com

Crowdfire scheduling and publishing suite

Mishu uses Crowdfire for scheduling and publishing content on social media channels. With Crowdfire there is no platform that you cannot post to – whether it is Twitter, Facebook, Tiktok, Blog – anything, and in a simple, fast way (you can re-publish too). You can fully customize each post if you’d like – the number of words, the wording, media attached, etc.

Admittedly there are many tools and chrome extensions to schedule content. I believe I got my hands on this tool through a special holiday promotion, and have liked what I’ve seen since then. Yes the price was right, but the functionality is awesome too.

Price: 0-$75 – the more accounts, the higher the price is (yet they often have special pricing for the holidays).

3. vidIQ Vision for YouTube offered by: vidiq.com

At the beginning of the year Instagram made an incomprehensible move – they deactivated what used to be the @DearMishu main account (see Mishu’s video about that here). As a result, I decided to open an alternative to Facebook’s empire of products – and to swim in YouTube…

vidIQ – a service via Chrome extension – helped so much, mainly with finding the right tags, keywords, trends, competition, subscriber analyses, what not. It’s a very high value tool for YouTubers.

Price: Free for awesome basic

4. RiteTag, offered by: https://ritetag.com

I don’t use RiteTag too often, as I love to find interesting hashtags manually (it’s like finding a treasure – one can be very creative with those hashtags). But sometimes, when I have no clue which hashtag to attach to Mishu’s posts, I will take RiteTag’s advice. RiteTag has hashtag suggestions for text and images, which is cool:

Price: Free

5. Emoji Keyboard – Emojis For Chrome, offered by: coolfont.org

SMI use emojis allllll the time. Emoji Keyboard is the Chrome extension I use to insert emojis into anything through Chrome – Instagram comments, emails, docs, blog posts, etc. It’s so simple to use – click on the tool icon on the browser toolbar and either reuse an emoji you previously used, or enter a search and find a new one, like 🧤 !

Price: Free

6. Asana, offered by: https://asana.com

Asana is my main database, as well as my go-to detailed productive tool. I enter everything there – potential partners, amazing Cortado coffeeshops, videos to create, content ideas, licenses, ideas for the future, potential conferences to speak at – all is possible!

Asana for Influencers - example - Cortado Coffeeshops DB — My Cortado Coffeeshops DB on Asana – it’s so convenient as you can search it by city, level of coffee making, etc – the sky is the limit!

Asana’s Chrome extension is wonderful, because you can bookmark the webpage you are on, and associate with to a project that you are working on about to work on, and – if interested – associate it with a date to do, without leaving the page. Very productive!

Asana chrome extension - recommended to influencers — Asana chrome extension – recommended to influencers

Price: Free for unlimited awesome basic. $11/Mo and above for larger team.

7. Workflowy Web Clipper, offered by: workflowy.com

If Asana is my productive project management tool for details and databases, WorkFlowy is like an orchestra conductor for it all. It shows me the light, for both private and business purposes…

I believe most of you haven’t heard of WorkFlowy, and what a pity that is. WorkFlowy – available on all possible platforms – is a web-based or app tool. It helps me organize my thoughts, ideas, directions, priorities, almost anything, in a minimalist, and very pragmatic way:

You can draw your plan for the week.
You can add a calendar
Once you write a certain goal, you can associate tasks to someone from your team (or to yourself, don’t be a snob…) right from it.
You can add a web clip to ANYTHING that you’ve written so far (for example a blog post about Chrome extensions on a Chrome extensions initiative).
Want to associate a date to an item? A file embedded in it? That’s possible too.
Tagging? Of course, tagging and searching something fast is one of the best parts of WorkFlowy. As you can see I love it a lot…!

Price: Free for awesome basic.

8. Pinterest Save Button, offered by: pinterest.com

Unfortunately Pinterest is not a social media platform. However, I do use it often to catalog images and videos- it’s so helpful! Examples: pin pix you want to publish, or success stories from your content or visuals to explain a concept:

Price: 100% Free

9. Bitwarden – Free Password Manager offered by: https://bitwarden.com

Bitwarden is available on all platforms, all OSs, and so it’s really nice to have it doing the task for me of remembering Mishu’s user names and passwords on all those millions of influencer-brand matching services and websites (most of them useless – read here) :-), I highly appreciate the work Bitwarden did for us all.

Price: Free for individuals. $3.33/Mo otherwise.

10. Zoom Scheduler, offered by: zoom.us

You’re an influencer, famous even. People want to know you, they want to talk to you, and make an appointment with you… You may like to use Skype, Meet from Microsoft, or Instagram rooms to speak with people, but those are not as common as Zoom. Everyone is on Zoom now, and that’s the main way to communicate via video online noways.

The Zoom scheduler Chrome extension lets you schedule fast and conveniently Zoom meeting sessions for your week and year, as well as start a meeting. This is done by clicking on its extension icon on the tool bar, in just few clicks, without leaving the browser. How convenient is that!?

Price: Free for awesome basic

Pro note:

Of course, meeting the brand team (or the exact person…) offline is often the best way to start a brand deal negotiation.

Price: Free

11. Save to Pocket, offered by: getpocket.com

Save by Pocket chrome extension for influencers — Save by Pocket chrome extension is very useful for influencers and all…

It’s just as hard for SMI to do multi tasking as it is for anyone else. We explore so many Instagram posts, important industry articles, webpages, images, etc., and we have to bookmark them somewhere, so we can get back to them. Pocket – a forever tool to save anything (almost) is here to help. You save those items to the app, so you can read it (offline is possible) later.

I also like the read for me feature on Pocket – where it can read you articles, while you are closing your eyes, or walking with your dog.

Using it is very simple – anything you want to save you just click on the Pocket icon and boom, that’s it, it is saved. Then, opening the Pocket app on your phone (or browser) will let you read the articles anytime, anywhere.

Price: Free

Good luck my influencer heroes!

Disclaimer – Use with caution – I like and use those apps and services for my Mishu. However, Chrome is made by Google and please don’t consider this my endorsement or recommendation of Google and its platforms. Its products still have severe privacy, tracking and censorship issues to work so… so use with caution.

Hire niche SMI* with the sole objective of getting feedback for samples received from the factory before placing a minimum quantity order with your manufacturer, and definitely before sending a new product to the Amazon (or Walmart) warehouse.

I have been there. I was an Amazon Vendor and really enjoyed it. What a journey it is! It’s exciting to build a small empire, your own legacy, with your own brand and various products and creations that you have envisioned.

There is so much competition on both the Walmart.com and Amazon (or eBay) marketplaces, and their tools have their limits in terms of showing you which new product will do well.

Before you hit the market with a new product (a brand, or a concept) for your Amazon store. Before you put so many hours sourcing something new. Before you invest in a trip to China (and unlimited different time zone hours on WeChat, Skype and Alibaba interviewing partners). Before you invest your money in hundreds of sample fees, and then on minimum quantity orders. Before all that… make a reliable, stable, conservative test, to eliminate some of the risks. It will save you a lot. And here is my advice:

I. Hire SMI with the sole objective of getting feedback.

Social Media Influencer (SMI) is:
(1) Someone who owns a social media account (min. 50 followers), such as on Tiktok, IG, YouTube, etc.

And – very important too –

(2) Uses it for great – no, amazing – relationship building AND/OR content sharing with their followers.

So you know by now the boost you can get by hiring a good SMI, right? You can get instant gratification – people visit your website, you get attention, you get access to new communities you haven’t dream of, gain recognition, etc. Today though we will focus on you hiring the Influencers with a different goal: getting feedback.

From interviews we’ve conducted with various pets suppliers, the most interesting revelation was that most brands got really surprising, unexpected feedback from SMIs. Here are some examples:

The treat is too big, with low moisture. It’s hard to chew for small dogs, and so the focus should only be on dogs above 10 pounds.
—
The treat is intellectually stimulating (!!) for the dog because he spent 40 mins on the treat. He was intrigued about how to best eat the treat!
—
Yes, pet SMI are cute but unless a human is involved, we don’t look for for advice…
—
One influencer had dachshunds and we found out that they can chew only half the size of our desserts!
—
An SMI said that he is seeing more poop bags left on trails, possibly because people are walking more often. Unlike before when it was annoying and inconsiderate, it’s now an actual threat to health as well as the environment.
Source: Interviews with Dog Brands: How They Work with Influencers

Ok so – how you do it…?

II. Ask the SMI for all kinds of feedback that you need

The feedback can be on your new product idea, new logo, new slogan, web-page, packaging, etc.

Real an example from my DearMishu, where she found that there was an issue with closing the package of the sample she received. That saved a lot of money for the brand before mass market launching.

Ask the SMI to give you feedback on ANYTHING YOU NEED OR MAY NEED to make your product decision. Here are some ideas:

Yes/No Questions

Did you find any missing components?
Does it speak the language (some products with Chinese language only…)?
Is it “foreign” to understand? If yes, why?
Could you use it < x times/days (the idea is to find out if it’s getting ruined easily or not)?
Will your community love it? Why?
Is it Instagramable/Ticktokble (today that’s how new products sell – if they fit well into Instagram or Tiktok video/picture/visuals or not)?
Do you think you should add something to it, such as new features, colors, logo, attitude, plastics, etc? If yes, what?
Etc.

Rank 1-5

Perhaps ask the infuencer or their followers to rank the product 1-5 (or 1-10…), and leave space for notes:

Package look & feel
Shipment time or arrival
Unboxing experience
Installation/assembly experience
Do they like the logo?
How much did they LOVE it?
Etc.

Open questions:

Many don’t get it but SMI can be the best consultants! They know your community the best, they know how to tell a story, they know how to convince, they know how TO INFLUENCE, they really do. They’ve done so much A/B testing, and tried so many methods in marketing, publishing, UX, human behavior, emotional triggering, and unbelievable creative out-of-the-box of CTAs (Call-to-Actions), that you’d be kind of a fool not to take advantage of their experience. Their knowledge of your target audience is priceless and… real.

So, ask them:

If it was them, would THEY have sold this product to their community?

What would be THEIR strategy if they were you to bring the message of this new product/idea/etc?

If you hire them to recommend this to their followers, can they tell you how they plan to do it (and their costs)?

IIII. Who’s a good SMI for feedback giving?

Of course, not every SMI can- deliver such feedback. Hire those that are:

RELATED: Find SMI that are related to what you do – if you want them to give feedback on dog collars, they should own at least one dog. Someone that has cats only might not be suitable.
PS/sometimes there are surprises in terms of relevancy that you haven’t thought about – read about the Orange People…
LOVE: this is really important – make 100% sure that the SMI is someone who is CRAZY about what you do. Otherwise, it will be apparent and it won’t come truthful.
RESPECTED by their community – go over past few months of the SMI social media post. Look at their followers’ comments – how involved are they? How much they care about the SMI requests and opinions? If not at all, then that’s not your candidate.
SIZE: from research I’ve done, a repeated complaint is that big account SMIs don’t share feedback and that “all they want is more contracts, from all possible vendors.” i.e. greedy…. It is therefore recommended to work with SMI that are not too large if you are looking for feedback.
REPORTING: Will the SMI be able to report well?

Find their qualifications via referrals and direct interview questions. Make sure you signed a contract that cements all milestones and commitments!!

Good luck my heroes, you CAN do it!!

I strongly recommend using a contract for any sponsorship to protect yourself and your business, such as my Brand-Influencer Contract

“Engage Your Engagers” – Influencer’s First Commandment?

Indeed, and this is not only the First Commandment for any social media-ist. Every time engagers are going out of their way from their daily activities and bothering to engage with you on your social media account, engage back. Such attention is so appreciated in today’s world and is really the essence of building lasting relationships on social media.

engage your engagers - example — engage your engagers – example from YouTube

We all have at least one engager on social media, and those people are so important. But wait…

Is it a good idea for brands to say their product is cool?

Don’t use some version of “I have a cool product” on your BSMP unless the community you’ve built is about brands that say “cool” about their products…

Your BSMP is for talking about WE vs “Me”…?

*BSMP = branded social media profile, a term that was coined by… me.

Branding Your #SocialMedia Profile (BSMP) Series:

Your BSMP Bio Photo
Your BSMP Extended Name
Your BSMP One Sentence Wordings
Your BSMP Hashtags
Your BSMP Update Line
Your BSMP URL
How to optimize your “Branded Social Media Profile” area
kick-ss CTAs for your branded social media profile
Doing your profile the wrong way
Powerpointed (Mobile Growth Virtual Summit 3.0 – “How to  Transform Your Social Media Branded Profile to a Sales Funnel Machine,  by Dear Mishu’s Dad”)! 

Coming soon:
  Your BSMP Emojis
  Your BSMP Location
  Your BSMP Social Media Influencer
 

Private, personalized 1-on-1 consulting on YOUR social media profile strategy is available now.

Are Influencers and Brands Pirates?

Many good marketers were and are pirates. Brands and social media influencers are no different. They “pirate” by introducing various ideas to relevant their audience and see what bites.

As you must know by now, I’m a big favor of testing until perfecting, and testing the story-telling of your brand in particular. Some go to the extreme of pirating, and that’s (sometimes) ok too:

The Amazon Pirating Way

How about Amazon as an example of a pirate? Are they successful enough by now to use as an authoritative example 🙂 ?

Call-To-Action: Tell Your Audience Why

Besides providing a clear and simple action for your audience to take, it’s also important to tell them why they might want to do it.

Here are some examples:

“Alright guys, that’s a wrap! Like and comment below if you want to discuss more!”

Brands: DM is the new ‘phone number’ for social media!

Brands: So we know by now that not having a presence on social media is like you… do not exist, since that’s where your audience is. Your social media account is your business card, your face, your talking point, your front-line, your border, your mom and pop, your puppy too.

Once you choose the right social media platform for the audience you want to reach, and you activate it, it’s…YOU. Make sure that from then on it reflects … YOU indeed.

Your communication with your audience should now be via social media. And so – for example – if someone sends you a DM instead of calling your phone, it means that they want a response via DM (= direct messages) and they most definitely do not want to call you. So make sure you address that.

Brands: create an Instagram account only if you can handle it – use direct messaging as your new phone.

Or alternatively:

Absurd following? Not necessarily!

Here is my question: should you follow someone back whose message is “follow me and I’ll follow you”? Before you answer…,

You should know by now that Twitter/Instagram/YouTube etc. are platforms for community building.

And SMI*? They are community builders, they are the people (or pets) that build a community around the clock, around a (often niche) topic they are crazy about, such as:

"I love to travel to Asia so much"
"Anything that has Orange in it"
"My mutt dog is so cute at home"
"We are proudly overweight"
"I have an attitude at school and I'm not ashamed of it"
"My respect for Gameboy is unlimited"
"Let's talk about black holes"
"I'm a bimbo"
Etc.

Branding Your #SocialMedia Profile Series No. 10: Your BSMP Influencer

Branding Your Social Media Profile (BSMP) is a new 1-on-1 program that helps brands bring their social media profile and presence to the next level.

This series of articles is an introduction to some of the techniques and experiments that have been proven to make this underutilized real estate work for you.

Brands and others looking for customized analysis and guidance specific to their profile(s) can register for 1:1 coaching here.

In past BSMP* series article I explained how you can optimize YOUR story-telling through your profile photos, extended name, update line, profile description, hashtags, CTA and URL. Today I will show you something new, related to SMI* on – yes – your profile.

*BSMP = branded social media profile, a term that was coined by… me.

What should your social media bio photo look like?

Your bio photo should tell YOUR story, and be as perfect as you can in terms of size, pixels, and background for the platform. Just keep it focused on your story-focused.

The following is an extract from Dear Mishu Dad's  “How to Transform Your Social Media Branded Profile to a Sales Funnel Machine" presented at Mobile Growth Virtual Summit 3.0, etc.

When it comes to your bio photo, make sure that it is telling YOUR story. For example – see below – her account is all about rosé wine. So she’s holding a glass of rosé wine in her photo (and her hashtags & everything else are all about rosé wine):

A good example of consistency in story telling is this rose wine story… it’s everywhere in her bio and profile, and that’s how it should be (no one will confuse Sarah’s account with a beer tasting account, right…?)

Then – of course – I’m sure you’ve heard this before – try to use the perfect size & pixels, perfect background, perfect everything for the platform.

Category: Engagement

Best Free Google Chrome Extensions for Social Media Influencers

1. Socialpeeks Influencer Analyzer, offered by: socialpeeks.com

2. Crowdfire, offered by: crowdfireapp.com

3. vidIQ Vision for YouTube offered by: vidiq.com

4. RiteTag, offered by: https://ritetag.com

5. Emoji Keyboard – Emojis For Chrome, offered by: coolfont.org

6. Asana, offered by: https://asana.com

7. Workflowy Web Clipper, offered by: workflowy.com

8. Pinterest Save Button, offered by: pinterest.com

9. Bitwarden – Free Password Manager offered by: https://bitwarden.com

10. Zoom Scheduler, offered by: zoom.us

11. Save to Pocket, offered by: getpocket.com

Feedback Influencers for Walmart.com and Amazon Vendors

I. Hire SMI with the sole objective of getting feedback.

II. Ask the SMI for all kinds of feedback that you need

Yes/No Questions

Rank 1-5

Open questions:

IIII. Who’s a good SMI for feedback giving?

“Engage Your Engagers” – Influencer’s First Commandment?

Is it a good idea for brands to say their product is cool?

Are Influencers and Brands Pirates?

The Amazon Pirating Way

Call-To-Action: Tell Your Audience Why

Absurd following? Not necessarily!