Marketing in the 21st century is evolving fast. The digital revolution has changed the way people consume the news, pick up on new ideas and purchase goods.

This is great news for smaller organizations (and authors) as, whilst a big budget is still helpful to purchase advertising space, it is no longer a requirement. The age of “interruption marketing” is past. Consumers want to be fed relevant, contextual information when it suits them. And it is possible to do this without a big budget using the World Wide Web, as every organization, no matter what size, can be a publisher.

The latest buzz-word in marketing is influencer marketing.

Tapping into the people that have reach into your target audience to talk about your product. And it is only going to grow as the move to researching every purchase on the Web grows. To the younger generation – “digital natives” – it is all they know.

So, as an author, how do you tap into this huge opportunity?

Well, you need great content in the first place (your book and associated promotional material), and if you are growing your own social media presence (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) that can get you so far, but you need to reach a broader audience.

Which is where blogs come in. But why blogs?

• Consumers trust bloggers – they are seen as independent, reliable commentators;
• Bloggers are the experts in their field and you can laser target the relevant ones;
• The blogosphere is growing in importance with over 2 million new blog posts every day; and
• Google loves blogs for their changing content and active engagement.

Nowhere is this a more obvious opportunity than in the arts world, where a fragmented industry can now reach its target audience directly.

The film world has picked up on it with an exploding number of online reviewers and clever software apps like Distrify enabling immediate viewing and purchasing of films. And the book industry is following suit as reviewing, purchasing and reading are all digitized. Having your book reviewed on the Web has never been more important.

If you are unfamiliar with “blogger outreach” as a concept, it’s worth checking out this best practice guide. It’s a valuable strategy that requires a commitment, not an overnight win; but done right, it pays back in spades; and you’ve got a great starting point – a book to send to your bloggers!

So if you are ready to get going, how do you find the bloggers in your niche? Blog databases like Technorati are out-dated and Google blog search is a time-consuming minefield.

Which is why Inkybee was created.

Inkybee finds relevant bloggers using sophisticated keyword and tag-based searches. It then tells you which blogs are the most important by displaying a selection of key metrics, for instance:

You can search by any particular genre, niche or subject matter and filter by various criteria including location. And once you’ve got your bloggers sorted out, Inkybee also tracks your relationships with them and measures the impact of your outreach.

Is it time to get some rubber on your digital outreach road?
You can get started below:

Hugh Anderson is a web entrepreneur and the Co-founder of Inkybee , a tool for smarter blogger outreach and influencer identification. He can be found on Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

 Photo Credit: Bastografie / photocase.com