How many bloggers should you be reaching with your social media outreach? Hundreds? Thousands? Not quite, according to the folks at Ivy Worldwide who led a recent WOM-COMM course. Thirty seems to be the “magic number,” according to the firm. But that doesn’t mean any old 30 bloggers will do. It’s about finding the “right” 30 (or so) that have influence to help carry your message.

It’s important that brands do their homework to listen in and find out who the influencers really are. Identifying bloggers can be done simply with a Google search, or you can use more advanced social media monitoring tools to listen in. The blog search engine Technorati, which is free to use, will help you determine the popularity and influence of certain blogs as well. No matter what tools you use, learning who is talking about your brand/issue/etc. is key. By finding the right people who are truly influential, they can help carry your message – if you have a word of mouth-worthy story to tell.

Don’t go overboard trying to find and outreach to every person who ever wrote about your product or service. Find the right people, and make sure you know the rules of the road when it comes to blogger outreach.  This white paper on blogs has some information that may be helpful. Since it was written, there have been important changes to the FTC guidelines that impact how brands work with bloggers. It’s important to be familiar with these guidelines, or risk the consequences.

WOM-COMM is a certificate program by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.