Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition

Leveraging Fire Starters

Fire starters are the superheros of your industry. Fire starters are those people who have so much influence that their endorsement can ignite an explosive effect that shoots your rocket ship to new heights nearly overnight.

These experts have direct access to a superengaged reader base that directly matches the base you're seeking to acquire. When fire starters recommend something or someone to their base, it's like dropping a match into kerosene—it ignites with a fury. The result is often immediate: many people become fans of your business because of the power of a fire starter.

If your launch is just getting under way, you'll want to use fire starters to ensure a successful takeoff.

The Influential Power of Fire Starters

Here's a quick story to demonstrate how fire starters can propel your business.

Back in early 2009—before I started SocialMediaExaminer.com—I had the idea of publishing a paper called the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. It would be a survey-based report revealing how marketers were using social media.

But I had a big problem: I didn't have access to social media marketers. I only had maybe 500 people following me on Twitter at the time.

I knew I'd need to team up with some superexperts to help get the word out about the report. Specifically, I needed people with influence among social media marketers.

Months earlier, I had targeted three people: Chris Garrett, Denise Wakeman, and Mari Smith. Each had at least 10,000 people following ...