Looking for a few good beta testers

by Hugo on July 6, 2012

I’ve always been a big believer in automation. It’s a big part of my overarching strategic approach to most digital marketing channels. However, one of the areas that has proven to be a real challenge to this automation mantra of mine has been the area of social influencer engagement.

The reason is that various aspects of influencer engagement require a 1-to-1 human touch. After all, it’s hard to build meaningful relationships with people (online or offline) if you don’t take the time to interact with said people in an intimate two-way dialogue. Therefore, it’s likely that these facets of the process will always be manual, human and decidedly un-automated.

But there are plenty of other areas that can be automated, and one in particular has caught my attention for the past few years

I’ve been using the technique since around 2004, I’ve been writing about it since 2009 and I decided to build a technology platform to automate it in early 2011.

While I’m not quite ready to release the tool to the public, I am looking for a handful of additional beta testers to help me streamline the interface and work out any lingering programmatic bugs.

In a nutshell, what the platform does is:

  1. Tap into your analytics data (Google Analytics only…for now)
  2. Analyze your referring sites data
  3. Identify new referring sites that have never referred traffic to you
  4. Provide automated alerts every time a new referring site comes along, so that you can strike while the iron is hot and engage with said site in an effort to build a foundation for an ongoing, mutually-beneficial relationship

This process is really just half the battle, because as I mentioned earlier in this post, you still need to know how to interact with these potentially influential sites in order to develop the type of relationship that can lead to marketing ROI.

Still, I’ve found that automating the information gathering and analysis process is extremely valuable from both a time-management standpoint as well as from a standpoint of insuring that no potential influencers fall through the cracks.

If you’re interested in being a beta tester for this tool, please send me a note via my contact form.

And if you have any questions about the broader process (with or without this new automation element) feel free to leave me a comment or contact me.

  • http://twitter.com/dohertyjf John Doherty

    Hey Hugo –

    How is this different from Linkstant? http://www.linkstant.com/

    • hugoguzman

      That’s a good question, John. Linkstant is a nice tool for sure. I’d say that some of the main differences are:
      1) My tool creates a baseline database of historical referring sites/URLs, then queries new referring site data and filters out any data that was already in the historical database. That way, you’re only alerted when there’s a truly new referrer (e.g. a completely new relationship ready to be made). This is of particularly value to marketers that manage sites with a large set of daily referring sites because cuts out all of the effort that goes into deciphering that referring site data to pick out the truly new referrers (and helps avoid new referrers falling through the cracks)
      2) It includes interesting data such as whether or not the referring URL is indexed by Google, whether or not the link is “no follow” and other analytics data such as referred visits.

      I built this tool after years of dealing with the tediousness of manually creating that historical database and matching it up against new referring site data. It’s not impossible to do, but I knew that automating the process would free up time for more strategic work, and that’s always a win in my book.

      Let me know if this helps or if you have any follow-up questions or feedback. Thanks!

      • http://twitter.com/dohertyjf John Doherty

        Oh very nice. I didn’t know about the indexation, follow vs nofollow, etc. Sounds very cool.

        I’ll be a beta tester :-)

        • hugoguzman

          Cool! I’ll hit you up ASAP.

  • http://twitter.com/neyne Branko Rihtman

    Ooooh sign me up!!!

    • hugoguzman

      Sweet! I’ll definitely hit you up my man.

  • linkdip

    Cool. You should use Linkdip to promote it.

    • hugoguzman

      Most definitely, Chris!

  • jfwhite

    Awesome idea! I’m not managing any sites that would be a great candidate for this tool at the moment, but I look forward to the finished product.

    • hugoguzman

      Thanks for chiming in and I’m glad you dig the idea! And you never know. Even if the volume of referring site data is relatively low, if this tool helps identify one referring site that might have fallen through the cracks and that site becomes a source of recurring mentions and links as a result of outreach and engagement efforts, the ROI from that one relationship would pay for a year’s worth of the subscription price for basic premium account.

      • http://jfwhite.org/ James

        Point well taken. I’ll contact you through the form and see what I can catch while you’re in beta.

  • Shawn Walsh

    Hi Hugo, I am working on a process myself. Not exactly like yours but more of trying to create a system of engagement that is a pattern to follow for success. Not exactly automation at this point but trying to outline the ground work that delivers quality information while maximizing engagement. Hit me up on my email, lets catch up.

    • hugoguzman

      Sounds like a good idea. Hit me up via Linkedin email when you have something formal/crystallized.

Previous post:

Next post: