The Influencer Marketing ROI of Creating and Publishing a Roundup Post [Codrut Turcanu Interview]

Roundup posts are a powerful form of influencer marketing when strategically planned and implemented correctly, especially but not limited to B2B businesses. Learn how to create your own roundup posts with this interview with Codrut Turcanu, one of the global leaders in producing expert roundup blog posts.

Key Highlights

[00:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Codrut Turcanu

[02:38] How To Define A Roundup Blog Post?

[04:40] How Did Codrut Started The Concept Of Having Experts Chime In Your Blog

[07:05] Pain Points Businesses Will Face The First Time They Do Influencer Outreach

[09:55] Why And How Roundup Blog Posts Benefits Businesses

[11:58] Success Stories

[15:48] Case Study Example

[19:05] Ballpark Number For Roundup Posts

[21:47] Codrut's Final Advice

Notable Quotes

• The quick, the quick, or the fast solution would be to think about what is the end result? 
• Once you know the goal, or the main achievement, then you can start and create or compile your experts list or your influence in classes list.
• What I recommend my clients do, first of all, before they set on the goal, before they decide what they really want to achieve with their first test Roundup, then I suggest that they create a list with people whom they already connected with, these might go back to previous clients, doing Venture Partners, and so forth.
• Definitely worth about because you connect with people who are already influential in their marketplace in the industry, actually, when you associate with people who already have an audience, already have access to people who work or want to access, like, for example, leads clients, social media ordinances, and so forth.
• It also puts you on the radar of these influencers, because now you're starting to build a relationship with them through this engagement through this tactic of inviting them to have their opinion voice. 
• And with the right promotion with the right strategy, you may be able to collaborate with them so that they can promote your blog post, then you can also use your newsletter and social media accounts, to drive traffic to your back to your blog post as well to your expert.
• This is why I recommend my parameters to my clients, because they open the door to a long term relationship and the links the social shares, the visitors leads and clients will follow quickly afterwards, it will come as a natural effect.
• Now, one remark I want to make this, this concept of excellent that can be just and implemented in any niche, no matter how large or small in any industry. That's why I suggest to my clients to go to connect with those on the middle levels, who have a sizable and significant audience, but they are so respond to emails or to their social media accounts personally.
• Always focus on quality content, and quality experts. And this goes back to listening to your audience, because your audience actually will dictate how you adjust your strategy whom you connect with, and what type of content they they want to read or listen to.

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Transcript

Neal Schaffer: 0:00

What's up, y'all? Let's go. Welcome to the maximize your social podcast follow me discover the latest social media marketing techniques from the world's leading experts from top to bottom. This is the podcast where business professionals come together to master social media without all the confusing mumbo jumbo. With no further ado, turn it down. Here's your host the one and only Neal Schaffer. Hi, everybody. This is Neal Schaffer. And welcome to a another exciting episode of maximize your social. Today I have a very special guest for this interview. And it's someone that I have known for several years and some of the I have yet actually, I've been wanting to but I've yet to directly do business with him. But his story is going to be part of my upcoming book on influencer marketing the business of influence. So I thought that it would be a great way for not only me to learn more about this genre of you know, this type of influencer marketing program or campaign that I will talk about in the book, but also gets to know more about the value behind this type of influencer marketing. Now. What we're going to talk about today is something called a roundup blog post. Some of you may have read these, some of you may have created these, some of you may have heard the term. And you know, this is an example of something like affiliate marketing. That is a type of influencer marketing that has been around way before we talked about Instagram stories and hashtags. So with no further ado, I'm going to introduce today's guest who has been kind of stay up late at night, in Bucharest, he and for those of you who have never been, that's Bucharest, Romania, my good friend at Code groups, and like I said, I've been engaging with cooker for for several years on email, social. So this is the first time I've had a chance to actually speak with him personally. So I'm really excited for the interview today, Cody, welcome to maximize your social and, and please, you know, introduce yourself to the audience.

Codrut Turcanu: 1:59

Hello, Neil, thank you for having me. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to share my my expertise. My name is quadrupedal. Colonel, as you said, I'm from Romania. So I'm glad to be talking with you tonight.

Neal Schaffer: 2:13

Excellent, thank you very much colder. Bucharest is one place that I got to speak at a few years ago, before I knew you otherwise, we would have had a chance to meet up. But it's it's a beautiful city, beautiful country, beautiful people. So it's really a pleasure to have you as part of the podcast. So I sort of hinted at this keyword called round up blog post, I know that this is something that you do for a lot of businesses. Let's start with, you know, how do you define a roundup blog post? Maybe you have other words, and maybe they're different variations. But, you know, please describe to everybody what exactly that means. Sure,

Codrut Turcanu: 2:49

we're on the blog post, actually, is also known as crowd source type of particle. This is where you or someone from your team, or maybe your source of the process, you gather a list of influence marketers, specialists in your industry, people who are experts at their craft, and we ask them a specific question. And what you end up with is a full blown blog post where they feature their answer. So that's why we call it this. Roundup, grab an expert, Roundup blood.

Neal Schaffer: 3:29

Excellent. That's a very, very concise definition. Thank you very much. And it's funny because before this term existed, with my own maximize social business site, I did a few of these. And at the time, I called them roundtable discussion. So the idea was, let's get experts to chime in. I did one for clout, and I did one for Google Plus, and I had people like Guy Kawasaki Jeremiah, a lot of people that I, you know, I didn't reach out to them, because they were influencers, I reached out to them, because they I, you know, they had a lot of respect in the industry, and I respected them a lot as well. And I really wanted to tap into their, their opinion, and and publish it for my audience. So I only did that I think twice. But I understood after I did that not only was the content great, but a lot of these influencers started to share that content from my website to their audience. And, and I'm already sort of hinting at the potential value here of doing these roundup posts. But let's take a step back. Because you've been doing this when people in reading and in content markets, were in diapers, you know, for several years. How did you get started at doing this and seeing the value behind doing this or businesses?

Codrut Turcanu: 4:45

I started this concept back in 2015. Three years ago, actually, my background goes back to November 99. This is when I first heard about online marketing Know, to cut the long story short, I cried a lot of money making opportunities, I got into blogging into affiliate marketing. And fast forward more than a decade, I got into it surrounded by, by mistake or by accident. I had no clue what extra roundup was both. So because I'm curious by nature, and I'm also creative. I wanted to learn more about the topic. So I had some connections, I had some previous connections, people whom I work with previously. So it was kind of natural for me to create these expert levels. But actually, the concept can be adjusted and can be accurate. And you can call expert on that. What however we want to call it. We can even do round up blog posts with the rookies or beginners. Sure. Yeah. Basically, that's how I started with

Neal Schaffer: 6:00

so called rude, but I want to ask you, you know, before the podcast, I obviously go over with my guests sort of what the conversation is going to look like. And, and I like to keep these off the cuff. What one additional question comes up when when you mentioned that, which is, you know, I have done roundup posts, and you obviously do them for your clients. And it sounds like Oh, that's great, I'm going to do one, but it's actually very, very time consuming. And you're not always successful. Because it is this aspect of influencer marketing, where we call it influencer outreach. It used to be called blogger outreach, where you're trying to reach out to these experts, and you're in line with 10s of other people that are trying to do the same thing, why it's gonna give you the time of day. So can you speak to and that's why it's, I mean, you offer a great service, because you take all that load off of a company's backs. But can you talk about some of the challenges that businesses have? You know, like, Hey, I'm going to do one for the first time? What are the challenges? What are the pain points that they're gonna face that you've also faced? I'm sure but but that you've gotten very good at getting over?

Codrut Turcanu: 7:11

Sure. Sure. If you don't mind, we can go into the nitty gritty later on. Like, for example, I could share with you some case studies, which actually works. Sure, sure. But to help people who are doing this for the first time. The quick, the quick, or the fast solution would be to think about what is the end result? What what do you really want to achieve from your restaurant, because it may be you may want to generate leads, you may want to generate the clients all may simply want to create new connections and do this for brand exposure. So once you know the goal, or the main achievement, then you can start and create or compile your experts list or your influence in classes list. And this is the the major challenge. First of all, most people don't have a goal. Secondly, they don't have a lease with experts, or proven contracts. That's why you may want to hire somebody who can care to this disaster. But what I recommend my clients do, first of all, before they set on the goal, before they decide what they really want to achieve with their first test Roundup, then I suggest that they create a list with people whom they already connected with, these might go back to previous clients, doing Venture Partners, and so forth. So that's the main drawback that's deploy Erco is very time consuming to create one experiment, you need to have the goal in mind your your strategy, your vision with that first blog post, then you need the right connection.

Neal Schaffer: 9:00

That's, that's really excellent advice. And you know, this, this actually speaks to my upcoming book, because you know, one of the chapters is dedicated to what does that strategy going to look like, right. And if, you know, if you're a well established brand, it's going to be very, very different than if you're just a startup. And you just want to get the word out there. But also that influencer identification is also critical. You want to make sure that obviously, you're, you're engaging with the right people, and that's going to have the biggest impact. So that's really, really solid advice. And obviously, it's like an onion, as you unpeel the layers, there's more and more complexity and challenges, but I think that's a really, really good sort of, you know, summary of the some of those pain points. So, you know, moving forward, there's a lot of work that goes into every one of these posts, but there's also a lot of benefits for businesses. So can you speak to you know why and how publishing these roundup or Expert blog posts are beneficial for businesses

Codrut Turcanu: 10:04

Sure, definitely worth about because you connect with people who are already influential in their marketplace in the industry, actually, when you associate with people who already have an audience, already have access to people who work or want to access, like, for example, leads clients, social media ordinances, and so forth. Actually, you can tap into other people, audiences, then you can generate with the your expert, Roundup blog posts, you can generate whatever you want, whatever you envision with your goal with your family, whether it may be leads, clients, etc. Got

Neal Schaffer: 10:47

it. It sounds really simple. But really, I mean, I've seen from those two posts that I talked about, it can really be impactful in terms of, you know, engagement with your social media channels, growth in your social media community, obviously, growth in website traffic, which can lead to growth, and what have you, but but also, I think you bring up a really, really good point culture, which is that it also puts you on the radar of these influencers, because now you're you're you're starting to build a relationship with them through this engagement through this tactic of inviting them to to, you know, to have their opinion voice. So and I think that that that alone in terms of you know, if we take a step back from influencer marketing, talk about influencer relations, that that there is is a very, very critical and important step. So that offers a lot of value. So that's great. What are you know, I know that obviously, you've been doing this for several years. So what are some examples of success stories? I don't want to go into the one necessarily, I'm going to feature in the book because well, that'd be giving everything away. But what are some examples of success stories or, or, you know, results? Now, I know you're in a tricky position, because businesses will outsource the creation of this pose. And once you submit it, you might not have access to Google Analytics and see how this performed but based on you know, customer testimonials, or, or feedback or, you know, things that you've seen, what are some of the results and success stories that you've seen?

Codrut Turcanu: 12:19

Sure, actually, I publish some of these success stories or case studies on best expert roundups.com. This is a project which I started about a year after already working with the with clients and having some level of success and we got now one case or the one I want to mention it about being fired. Website. Big fire, it's, it's an app. And there you go. I'm on the webpage of the case study right now. And from back in the day, when I create this blog post, it says 1200 social shares, more than 4000 Direct visitors, 18 blog comments, 106 backlinks, 33 referring domains, and 246 Organic keywords generated as a result of publishing these blog posts. Very good were gathered with the SEO tool, which is called hrs which people are which your audience I'm sure already know about. Yes, yeah. So that were the very goal of this case study.

Neal Schaffer: 13:36

Now, tell us a little bit more. I mean, those are really, really impressive results. But so what type of app is big fire?

Codrut Turcanu: 13:43

Okay, let's let me I don't have more details about this client, because actually, Delphi was introduced to me by by natural Barbie. Okay. Social Media Specialist. Gotcha. They create, they create mobile apps. Okay. The companies create mobile apps,

Neal Schaffer: 14:06

and you found all the influencers and experts yourself. So what were the types of experts that you were looking for if they create mobile apps where they came to connect with, you know, CTOs, CIOs or what what sort of experts do you go out and interview

Codrut Turcanu: 14:27

when the actual blog post expert roundup was about how to promote your local business online, 14 experts share their

Neal Schaffer: 14:37

tips got you. And the tie in then is if you want to promote your local business, you should have an app and therefore there's the value of big firebreath Yes, that's that's really excellent. And one of these ways of thinking about you know, once again, that strategy and the influencers and you know, even for SEO alone, you know, generating 106 more backlinks companies are always trying to figure out how do I get more backlink. So it's one of these examples of influencer marketing having, you know, impact across a lot of different areas. So that's those numbers are really, really impressive. And I like that, you know, when we talk about roundup posts, it doesn't have to be b2b companies, I think consumer facing brands can also leverage them. But obviously, for b2b brands that do a lot of concept marketing, it obviously has the most impact. So, you know, really, really great example of, you know, a mobile app developing company being able to create something, to tap into influencers and to create great content, to attract people to want to do business with them. So any other you know, I like to keep these podcast fairly short and sweet. But is there another, you know, case study or example that you can throw out there that you'd like to introduce?

Codrut Turcanu: 15:48

Yeah, I have another case study. And but we just think here, you may fit your own book, which will be a test HS case study. Okay. No, no worries. Yeah, actually, this one got more than 10,000 Direct visitors. But obviously, they already have dangerous. So I'm not sure if the traffic got this major exposure did by promoting the blog post itself, because they already have their own influence. The blog comments was doubled, then the build fire is was 36 blog comments that links they have generated more than 300 backlinks more than 3000 social shares. So it's triple than the previous case study. So what I want to mention here is that when we're doing this, if your brand is not already a true brand in itself, if you are in the beginning, if you have a startup or around the block and wants to do this, the the major traffic effects and backlinks and social media engagement and interaction will be generated mainly by the experts themselves, because they already have the audience. And with the right promotion with the right strategy, you may be able to collaborate with them so that they can promote your blog post, then you can also use your your newsletter and social media accounts, to drive traffic to your back to your blog post as well to your expert. Another quick mention I want to make here is that what I notice about my clients and the brands I work with, they have this scenario in their mind that if they do an Expert blog posts, they will generate X amount, number of links or backlinks. But I don't do it for the backlinks Ma, the great exposure we'll be getting is that you'll start to get key connections and relationships with these experts and specialists in your niche. So this is why I do experiments. This is why I recommend my parameters to my clients, because they open the door to a long term relationship and the links the social shares, the visitors leads and clients will follow quickly afterwards, it will come as a natural effect.

Neal Schaffer: 18:13

That's a really great point we in the United States, we'd say that's icing on the cake, the cake, the main benefit is in building that relationship. And everything that comes after is just the extra benefit. And that makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for that. And yeah, you're right. I mean, if you're an established company, you're already getting traffic. But you know, I think just in the case of a big fire, I mean, I don't know how much website traffic they get on a daily or monthly basis. But, you know, being able to generate, you know, 1000 views of a blog post for a lot of small businesses out there or solopreneurs, that or business owners who might be listening. That's obviously a huge amount. So that that's really, really awesome advice. I think you've given us a lot of food for thought. Just one one last question. And this should be a really quick question. You know, okay, I want to write my first roundup post, on average, is there a number of influencers or experts that you recommend you start with like, you know, 10 to 25 to 10? Is there like a ballpark number? Or it's really dependent on you know, every company and their objective and in the type of industry they're in?

Codrut Turcanu: 19:26

It depends on your honor. First of all, on your strategy, obviously, the more experts and influencers you connect with, the larger your blog posts, more content, more content, we'll have to feature on your social media accounts, more promotion opportunities, more relationships will be generated. So first question to ask yourself is what is the strategy do I do or do I want to want quantity besides quality? After you ask yourself did then can take action and start connecting experts. Now, one remark I want to make this, this concept of excellent that can be just and implemented in any niche, no matter how large or small in any industry. So it's very important. Who you connect with, for example, if you want to target, the top tier, specialist and influent, marketers, it's not easy to connect with both people because usually they are either very busy and don't respond in a timely manner, or they have a friend or somebody who wants on their behalf was very easy, not really easy to connect with the top tier experts. That's why I suggest to my clients to go to connect with those on the middle levels, who have a sizable and significant audience, but they are so respond to emails or to their social media accounts personally,

Neal Schaffer: 21:04

right. That's great advice. And this also is something that I talk about in depth in the business of influence and sort of that influence identification and engagement and influencer marketing. We call those people the power middle. And you know, there's lots of different types of influencers that the top ones we'd almost consider to be celebrities. But you know, they're not personally answering emails and phone calls, what have you so so anyway, that that's been really, really great advice club group. I know that I've learned a lot from this, and I'm sure that our listeners have as well. Just one final comment or one final note, anything else you'd like to add? Anything you might have forgotten to mention that you want to make sure to mention everybody here, here's your chance.

Codrut Turcanu: 21:47

Well, not sure if I should mention this, but I plan to create some workshops and seminars internationally about this topic. Right. So yeah, this is my game plan for the next year. One quick advice, I would like to suggest to beginners and also to people who are ready to excellent. Always focus on quality content, and quality experts. Great advice. And this goes back to listening to your audience, because your audience actually will dictate how you adjust your strategy whom you connect with, and what type of content they they want to read or listen to.

Neal Schaffer: 22:26

Yeah, that's really great advice. And I think it's like anything else. If everybody is doing expert roundups in your industry, how do you differentiate right, and it comes down to the quality and the alignment with your audience. So if you think about that, now you'll have a competitive advantage. So that's great information. When this podcast publishes, make sure you go to the notes on Neal schaffer.com. We'll have links to coders website, you'll sign up for his email list and get notified when he does these workshops in the future. I think they're going to be fantastic. And I could do thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We'll keep in conversation and look for ways to work together. And I wish you the best of luck in all your future work and developing the workshop. And thank you all for listening to this podcast. Appreciate all the reviews, all the comments, all the emails, I guess, wherever you are in the world, as I like to say make it a great social Day. Bye Bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to the maximize your social podcast Major key alert. Don't forget to subscribe and rate the show on iTunes so others can enjoy it too. To continue the conversation and empower your business through social media visit Neal schaffer.com right now have a great week. Let's go we'll see you on the next episode.