OPA (Other People’s Audiences)

OPA (oth­er people’s audi­ences) is the fast­est way to grow.

So, you have no audi­ence. Well, that’s the way every brand has to start. Building an audi­ence isn’t easy, and there are no guar­an­tees of success.

However, there’s a way to grow your audi­ence — fast.
And with little cost.

You piggy­back on oth­er people’s audiences.

Let’s dive right in:

OPA — Too Good To Be True?

Typically, you build an audi­ence slowly and stead­ily. You struggle to reach new people, and then you work to estab­lish enough trust for people to stick around.

It’s a mutu­al under­stand­ing — a Follower Contract.

But what if your inbound growth is too slow?
And your mar­ket­ing budget is weak?

You could design a clev­er vir­al loop. Still, vir­al loops are typ­ic­ally devel­op­ment-heavy and keep­ing them “alive” is extremely dif­fi­cult — if you can even get them to work in the first place.

But get­ting your­self and your brand in front of oth­er people’s audi­ences is a sure­fire way to accel­er­ate your growth. If you man­age to col­lab­or­ate wisely, your brand audi­ence could grow exponentially.

It sounds almost too good to be true.

However, it’s true and tested. The only caveat is that you must have some­thing of value to trade.

Incentive Mapping for OPA

These are my best tips to get your­self and your brand in front of OPA (oth­er people’s audi­ences): ¹I recom­mend Copyblogger’s excel­lent blog art­icle, The Smart Way to Use Other People’s Audiences to Build Your Own.

1. Give OPAs Exclusivity

Your brand might have access to exclus­ive reports, con­tent, news, launch details, etc.

2. Give OPAs Traffic

Your brand might have at least some online traffic of interest for the plat­form own­er to bene­fit from.

3. Give OPAs SEO Boosts

Your brand might offer do-fol­low links and social media men­tions of value for the plat­form owner.

4. Give OPAs Well-Deserved Praise

Your brand might be able to hon­our the plat­form own­er with a rel­ev­ant reward, like an hon­or­ary title.

5. Give OPAs Extra Clout

Your brand might be posi­tioned to elev­ate the plat­form own­er (“king­maker”) to a high­er status.

6. Give OPAs Valuable Insight

Your brand might offer the plat­form own­er­’s audi­ence expert know­ledge of value.

7. Give OPAs Some Excitement

Your brand might offer excit­ing value exper­i­ences to the plat­form own­er­’s audience.

8. Give OPAs Lots of Entertainment

Your brand might be able to offer com­pel­ling stor­ies or oth­er types of enter­tain­ing content.

9. Give OPAs Useful Inspiration

Your brand might be in a pos­i­tion to offer inspiration.

10. Give OPAs Your Services

Your brand might be able to offer products or ser­vices for free.

The No. 1 Strategy for OPA

While the above Incentive Mapping is help­ful, there’s one OPA strategy that out­shines them all:

Become an influ­en­cer with an audi­ence yourself.

It’s a chick­en-or-the-egg situ­ation, of course, but it’ll be easi­er to piggy­back on oth­er people’s audi­ences as your audi­ence grows.

PR Resource: Influencer Marketing vs Influencer Relations

Influencer Marketing vs Influencer Relations

There are three main types of influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing (digit­al mar­ket­ing) and one primary type of influ­en­cer rela­tions (digit­al PR):

Influencer Relations (Part of Digital PR)

Influencer out­reach (earned media) = the influ­en­cer receives invit­a­tions, demos, or exclus­ive mater­i­al without strings attached.

Influencer Marketing (Part of Digital Marketing)

Influencer advert­ising (paid media) = the influ­en­cer will pub­lish the brand’s pre-made con­tent in their channels.

Influencer spon­sor­ship (paid media) = the influ­en­cer will read a script to con­vey an offer­ing fol­low­ing the brand’s instructions.

Influencer col­lab­or­a­tion (paid media) = the influ­en­cer show­cases the brand’s offer­ing by cre­at­ing con­tent sim­il­ar to the influ­en­cer­’s reg­u­lar content.

Advertising, spon­sor­ships, and col­lab­or­a­tions are typ­ic­ally referred to as influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing, and out­reach is typ­ic­ally referred to as influ­en­cer rela­tions.

Organisations look­ing to util­ise the poten­tial reach of rel­ev­ant influ­en­cers will be wise to pay atten­tion to these dis­tinc­tions. ²Silfwer, J. (2020, January 15). The Influencers in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Learn more: Influencer Relations vs Influencer Marketing

PR Resource: How To Categorise Influencers

The Influencers in Public Relations

In pub­lic rela­tions, influ­en­cers are indi­vidu­als who have man­aged to grow a sub­stan­tial audi­ence, which has the poten­tial to affect a spe­cif­ic organ­isa­tion either pos­it­ively or negatively.

Influencers = inde­pend­ent con­tent cre­at­ors with influ­en­tial plat­forms and fol­low­ings of poten­tial import­ance to a brand. ³Silfwer, J. (2020, January 15). The Influencers in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Establishing and main­tain­ing good rela­tion­ships with stra­tegic­ally chosen influ­en­cers for the organ­isa­tion is often crit­ic­ally important.

“Influencers in pub­lic rela­tions are emer­ging stake­hold­ers who gen­er­ate a state of opin­ion in the digit­al com­munity that sur­passes tra­di­tion­al pub­lic opin­ion.”
Source: The Role of Prosumers in the Interactive and Digital Processes of Public Relations ⁴Polo, M. (2020). The Role of Prosumers in the Interactive and Digital Processes of Public Relations. 161 – 174. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​4​0​1​8​/​978 – 1‑7998 – 3119‑8.ch012

How To Categorise Influencers

There aren’t stand­ard­ised ter­min­o­lo­gies for influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing and influ­en­cer rela­tions, and no gen­er­al fol­low­ing sizes or engage­ment ratios exist. However, it’s pos­sible to make approx­im­ate distinctions.

I recom­mend using the fol­low­ing tiers and nam­ing con­ven­tions for cat­egor­ising dif­fer­ent types of influencers:

Learn more: The Influencers in Public Relations

PR Resource: Six Principles of Influence

“Influence” by Robert B. Cialdini

Robert B. Cialdini pub­lished “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” in 1984, and his prin­ciples of influ­ence are widely cited. They provide a frame­work for under­stand­ing how people are per­suaded, and pub­lic rela­tions, advert­ising, and sales pro­fes­sion­als often use them. ⁵Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: The psy­cho­logy of per­sua­sion (Rev. ed.). HarperCollins.

Here are Cialdini’s six principles:

• Reciprocity. This prin­ciple is based on the idea that people feel oblig­ated to give back when they receive it. If a com­pany gives some­thing to its cus­tom­ers (like a free sample or a dis­count), those cus­tom­ers may feel com­pelled to pur­chase in return.
• Scarcity. People tend to want things that are lim­ited or hard to get. Marketers often use this prin­ciple by cre­at­ing a sense of urgency around a product or ser­vice, such as a lim­ited-time offer or a lim­ited-edi­tion product.
• Authority. People tend to fol­low the lead of cred­ible experts. In PR and mar­ket­ing, this can be achieved by hav­ing an expert endorse a product or demon­strate expert­ise and cred­ib­il­ity in the field.
• Consistency (or Commitment). People like to be con­sist­ent with the things they have pre­vi­ously said or done. This prin­ciple is often used in mar­ket­ing by get­ting a small ini­tial com­mit­ment from a cus­tom­er, which increases the like­li­hood that they will make a more sig­ni­fic­ant com­mit­ment later.
• Liking. People are more likely to be per­suaded by people they like. Physical attract­ive­ness, sim­il­ar­ity, com­pli­ments, and coöper­a­tion can influ­ence this.
• Consensus (or Social Proof). People often look to the actions and beha­viours of oth­ers to determ­ine their own. If a product or ser­vice is pop­u­lar or endorsed by oth­ers, people are like­li­er to deem it good or trustworthy.

These prin­ciples are power­ful tools for per­sua­sion and can be used indi­vidu­ally or in com­bin­a­tion to influ­ence per­cep­tions and behaviours.

Learn more: Public Relations Books

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