Event Debrief and SlideShare: The Art of Successful Blogger Relations
Bloggers’ Lounge, a marketing agency that partners bloggers with brands in order to hit tough sales KPIs (backed by us at Keytools) played host to some fantastic brands and bloggers. The breakfast event gave brands the rare opportunity to hear from a selection of top bloggers, enabling them to really understand what makes that perfect blogger/brand relationship.
The room was buzzing with big brands all eager to listen to the days topic; The Art of Successful Blogger Relations.
Rebecca Nutmeg, Bloggers’ Lounge: Engagement and Measurement (Slides 3-26)
Rebecca heads up the team at Bloggers’ Lounge, so is perfectly placed to really understand the blogger / brand relationship. Her talk walked us through a blogger campaign; ‘who is your audience’, what will resonate’, how to build a relevant outreach list’ and ‘how can I measure results’. The presentation was packed full of actionable takeaways.
Who is your audience?
If you don’t understand your audience, how are you going to understand which bloggers to target? Rebecca suggested the following methods to really help you understand your audience…
– Google Analytics
– YouGov
– Speaking to your sales and customer service teams
What Will Resonate?
We know who our audience is, but how do we know what content they like to consume, and when they like to consumer it? Rebecca had the answers…
- – Use Google Trends to understand the relevance of your content idea
- – Use Keyword Planner to help you understand if there is a need for your idea, is anyone searching for your content topic?
How To Build a Relevant Outreach List
Now, which bloggers to target? Rebecca outlined some great tools we can use to help build our outreach list…
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- – Majestic SEO can help you find out which websites have previously linked to similar content to yours
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- – Use Followerwonk to help find your social influencers
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- – Facebook Graph search helps you find your most relevant bloggers (you need to make sure you change your account to US in order to access this information).
- – Use Social Rank to find the social influencers in your niche
How Can I Measure Results?
Proving the credibility of your campaign is the only real way to ensure client buy in. Often seen as a tricky one with Influencer Marketing, here are Rebecca’s suggestions…
1) Measure sales over time
2) Measure page / product uplift
3) Overlay PR activity with sales data
4) Use Google Analytics to measure seasonal comparisons to compare worth
Jenny Tonkin, She Gets Around: How to Build the Perfect Partnership (Slide 28-41)
Next up, and ready to take centre stage, was Jenny Lowthrop. She runs the fantastic travel blog ‘She Gets Around’. Jenny has had some amazing experience working with big brands such as Flybe and Room Auction. The room was eager to hear from her about how to build the perfect partnership.
Jenny gave some great examples of work she has done with brands, and her experiences with them. She gave some fantastic insights into what works well, and what does not.
Slides 38-39 summarise a great list of do’s and don’ts which be sure to take note of! Here are some of her top takeaways…
Samantha Jones, The Prosecco Diaries: What Is and Isn’t Working With Current Brand/Blogger Collaberations? (Slides 43-45)
Thirdly, we had the excellent Samantha Jones from ‘The Prosecco Diaries’ blog. Sarah, a Lifestyle and Beauty Blogger, talked through what is and isn’t currently working in blogger/brand relationships. She began with examples of what is not working, showcasing some comically tragic outreach emails!
And had some words of warning for brands….
On the big topic of budget, she advised the best way to get the most out of bloggers was to make them feel valued.
After going over some poor outreach emails, she turned her attention to what is working well, including some top tips…
Taylor Carr, London Beauty Queen: How Blogger / Brand Relationships have evolved over the last 5 years (Slides not included)
Last, but certainly not least, was the fantastic Taylor. She runs the hugely successful and popular London Beauty Queen blog. She has been running her blog since 2010 and has seen a lot of change since then.
Taylor has a background in brand management, so truly understands both sides of the blogger/brand relationship which the fortunate attendees were ready to hear all about.
Hayley kicked things off by highlighting what the blogging industry used to be like…
•The blogging world used to be very small
•A sample (or a cupcake and glass of champagne) was good enough to generate coverage on a blog
•Bloggers had little commercial interest
•Event attendees were booming
•Everyone was excited and optimistic
