How do you reach out to and engage with social influencers?

Good question Craig, I'll give both a traditional and slightly contrarian response. But before asking that, it's critical to know what your objective is and why you want to engage them. Do you want to "sell" them on promoting something you do, are you looking for their views, insights, etc? This will shape your strategies and choices of methods and channels through which to engage them. Also think about "what's in it for them to be engaged with you?"

Clearly to engage with social influencers, you have to hang out where they hang out--listening and joining the conversation. Commenting on their blogs, engaging them in discussions at the blogs or other forums (like Focus), where they are engaging their constituencies. Twitter is also a great place to initiate engagement.

Leverage all the channels they leverage and engage them in each---your an my relationship is a terrific example--we engage each other in Focus, our respective blogs, twitter and other social channels.

Now the contrarian part. There seems to be a view that we only engage social influencers through social channels. One of the most impactful things I have done and that's been done with me is something as simple as a phone call, a cup of coffee. Old school works! We shouldn't limit our engagement of anyone through just one set of channels, but leverage all that are appropriate and support our and the person we are trying to engage objectives.

Again, our relationship is a perfect case study--we've engaged in social media, we've extended that to phone calls and emails, meetings at trade shows and in your office. It all is part of a natural set of conversations that occure through several channels (and you now know how to recognize me so you can avoid me ;-)