Do you truly know who is most influential in your field?
Can you name the blogs in your field that rank highest on Google searches? Can you name the related social media accounts with the highest followings?
It’s okay if the answer is no. In truth, the most influential figures, brands and accounts within a particular niche might be surprising even to industry insiders.
When we think of influencers, we might imagine Instagram models or YouTube vloggers with millions of followers.
The reality is that many influencers fall under the radar outside of certain industries and circles: they are often reputable businesses, active bloggers, and professionals with an online presence.
But if the authorities in your industry aren’t completely obvious, how are you ever supposed to reach out to them?
Authority Spy helps businesses get in contact with the people who are most relevant to your brand… but also, most importantly, your customers.
Guest posts, sponsorships, collaborations… working with influential people and platforms is a proven method to raise your profile and expand your customer base.
But is Authority Spy the right way to reach out? In this review, I’ll go through the features offered by this program, and how the help of an influencer could be your big break.
Core Features
1. Locate Influencers Near You
This is Authority Spy’s core feature. From blogs and websites, to social media accounts, Authority Spy can produce thousands of results that are location-based.
The idea of partnering with international influencers might sound alluring, but the reality is a partnership from a local business or blog is much more likely to have a direct impact on your customer base. If their business is hitting a higher search volume, it’s definitely worth reaching out about link building opportunities or potential collaborations.
2. Employee Identification
Authority Spy does not only allow you to identify influential websites and organizations, but you can actually see employee lists where applicable.
This feature is great because knowing about an influencer is not what matters–getting in contact with them is what does the trick. Often, an employee’s contact details will be hidden in search engine results, so this is huge for building out your outreach strategy.
Even if an organization or social media account has contact information, you can easily become lost among hundreds of emails.
By contacting an employee directly, you maximize your chances of your collaboration proposal ending up in the right hands.
3. Guest Post Opportunities
Whenever possible, Authority Spy will let you know if a blog offers the opportunity for guest posts. Internet marketers are huge into guest posting, especially if you’re just getting started. It gets your name and business out there to a new audience, and you can usually get a backlink (even in something subtle like your ‘author bio’).
Link building wherever you can, especially from authority sites with high search volume, will increase your traffic and analytics for your website.
Guest posts can be a great way to utilize an influencer’s massive audience, and making a case for your brand is worth paying attention to.
4. Export Results For Free
If you have a few minutes to check Authority Spy on your lunch break, it may not be enough time to jot down everything, especially considering the fact that the program often produces thousands of results.
Luckily, you can export results for free, so you can always return to a search at a later time.
5. Keep Your Projects Separate
Maybe you want to expand the audience of your healthy recipes blog and your Chicago-based restaurant. These two distinct projects will have different audiences and, therefore, require different searches.
To avoid any confusion, Authority Spy allows you to create separate files for separate projects, ensuring that you only see the most relevant information.
6. All-In-One Metrics
Authority Spy doesn’t make you go chasing down the specific details you need, and I appreciate them so much more for it. When making a search, you will see top influencers as well as their success across various platforms and their contact details.
Using Authority Spy, the process of finding influencers will never be anything but easy.
7. Easy Outreach
Found an influencer and want to reach out?
Authority Spy makes this process easy. They provide contact information and social media accounts directly in search results, meaning you don’t have to go hunting for any further information.
8. Find Influencers For Hire
Forget LinkedIn. If you are hiring, Authority Spy can be your one-stop resource to find qualified candidates near you.
Not only do they filter results through region (ensuring that you do not find the perfect candidate who lives on the other side of the country), but they can help you gauge whether a candidate is respected, experienced, and influential in the field.
9. Language-Specific Results
Your audience is not a monolith.
By showing language-specific results, Authority Spy allows you to reach out to specific communities, or filter out certain influencers who may be popular, but who aren’t relevant to your brand.
The last thing you want is to waste your time on an Engnlish guest post, only to submit it to a Spanish-speaking blog. On the other hand, if you want to reach out to a certain community, it can be useful to work with influencers who speak their language.
Pricing Models
Authority Spy offers three packages: Basic, Pro and Platinum.
Basic and Pro packages can be accessed with a one-time fee of $27 and $47, respectively. The Platinum package, which offers the most features, has a one-time fee of $47 along with an additional $17 a month subscription fee.
The Platinum package is by far the priciest, and although it comes with special features such as profile matching, many beginners will probably find more value with one of the two more affordable package options.
My Thoughts On Authority Spy
The accessibility of Authority Spy is certainly its strong suit. Firstly, it is a very user-friendly program, and features like language-specific results can be extra helpful to businesses with niche audiences.
Influencers have been around long before the Internet. But now, it is simply a lot easier to reach out to them. It can be an intimidating challenge to reach out to influencers as it is. When you don’t even know who to reach out to, it can feel impossible.
That’s why I find Authority Spy to be such a useful tool for businesses of all sizes–we could all use a bit of help at times, and when many of us reach influencer status for ourselves, we will be happy to return the favor and support those who are up-and-coming.
With the help of Authority Spy, we can all get one step closer to that goal.