A good trade show organizer can probably rattle off the top of their head 10 to 20 influencers in the industry they serve. These are often people who serve as keynote speakers, contribute content and are well connected.

But every industry has more than just 10 or 20 influencers. What about the people you don’t yet know, but are the most connected to your desired audience? People who others rely on for the most relevant news.

How do you go about finding these people?

A company out of Portland, Ore., Little Bird is helping organizations find and connect with the right people and discover the most relevant content about their industry. 

Instead of putting the focus on the most popular people on social networks, Little Bird uncovers influencers who are topically relevant. It is not just what someone is talking about that makes someone an influencer, but who they are connected to as well.

Let’s say you are the owner of a small business expo. You know healthcare is a hot topic, but you’re not familiar with who the key influencers are on that topic. Using Little Bird, you can enter “small business health care” as a search term.

Little Bird will seed the search with relevant Twitter accounts, or you can add your own. The system will generate a report of people who talk the most about small business health care and are followed by the highest number of people interested in that topic.

The search starts with Twitter, but it expands into other social networks, Internet content sites, and blogs, giving you a much more rounded sphere of influence. Once you’ve identified the movers and shakers, you can start to use that insight for different aspects of your event.

When creating an education component you can easily identify trending topics. This identification will take some of the guesswork out of how to structure educational tracks and what sessions to highlight in your marketing. You even gain insight into how large a room certain topics will need, based on consumption of content by your audience on that topic.

Show organizers can also use the data provided to discover new emerging communities within their industry. Just the information you need if you are thinking about expanding your event.

You can use the information to find the best speakers for various topics. Not just speakers who are experts in a certain area, but those who have the biggest relevant audience.

Are you looking to stir things up a bit with your panel discussions? You can use Little Bird to find influencers with opposing viewpoints on topics of your choosing. You can also identify influencers before they become famous.

Reports generated by Little Bird allow you to view where your influencers and their audiences are located geographically. A show organizer can use that information to decide where to locate an event. You can also use that information to create a targeted marketing campaign in specific regions.

Most events are using Twitter hashtags and identify the most active people on those hashtags after the show to build their database of influencers. Little Bird ranks participants using the hashtag based on their influence. Again, it’s not just who’s doing all the talking, but how many people are listing to them on a regular basis.

Perhaps what’s best about Little Bird is how easy it is to use and how visual their reports are. You don’t have to be a data scientist or programmer to use their service. It only takes minutes to generate a data-rich report, and it’s very intuitive once you start digging into the information.

According to Little Bird’s Web site, pricing starts at $50 per month for a very basic account that allows for one user and limits you to five reports at one time with no export capabilities. The next step up is a small business account for $250 per month and allows 10 people access, unlimited topic reports, and the ability to export the data, as well as other features.