We all remember the days when journalists used to build up a company’s reputation and goodwill. Hiring PR personnel was a must for cultivating a relationship with the journalists and thus with the end prospective customers.
However, the days are changed now. Social media marketers, micro-bloggers, digital market influencers have taken over traditional press releases and media relationships.
Why are they so important? They control the reputation and image of your brand, impact your SEO and even influence your prospective customers’ purchase behavior.
In short, they are like the gatekeepers – they let audiences and traffic in!
Today, the majority of the world is on the internet. These days, people “Google” even their most straightforward queries rather than asking people around. So, internet plays an important role here.
Now comes the microbloggers!
They are grabbing quite a lot of popularity and business these days. Today, we all are living a busy life with hardly any time to go through lengthy posts.
Under this scenario, micro-bloggers who potentially charge less than the celebs and have 10times more followers, sound more beneficial.
This is why bloggers with a significant social media presence are likely to benefit you and your brand. Well, that is how bloggers can boost your marketing and Google ranking.
1 – Before You Get Started
You must be having all these data ready by now – every business includes this information in their business plans. You need to know your audience and understand what they desire for.
For this, identify their age, gender, location, interest, problems. You need to target these people, address their issue, and offer a solution through the bloggers.
It will also help you recognize the bloggers with whom you would like to work.
For example, Zombdrive.com is a blog by Clara, Rodney, and Peter, a team of car lovers – perfect for car related topics and products.
2 – Set Your Offerings
Before you approach them, decide what you will be offering in exchange for their help. You could give them a sample of your product or app or service or a giveaway that they can share with their audience or you can just opt for a payment.
Monetary compensation is not always the first solution, some bloggers don’t accept it, but some does (for them blogging is their job).
3 – Define Your Goals
Your purpose is the first thing that the bloggers want to know. Below, are some of the goals that you need to set:
- Increase in traffic.
- Launch/Promote your product.
- Get referral traffic – boosting SEO.
- Increase in Sales.
- Newsletter signups.
- All of the above.
4 – Find the Right Blogger
Finding the right person is always the hardest part. Some bloggers have their own media kit – with all the demographic information of their readers. It helps you know about their reach. So, don’t hesitate to ask for it.
You can do your research to find the influencing bloggers of your niche – check their social media accounts as well. It gives you an idea how engaged they are with their followers.
5 – Introduce Yourself
Even before you send in your proposal, try to get acquainted with them. Follow their blogs, their social media accounts. Like their posts, share a few comments. The idea is not to appear as a total stranger to them.
Take it as a cold call. If possible, try to learn what they generally want regarding goals, hobbies, interest before approaching them. It helps you personalize your final pitch and proposal.
6 – Reaching Out to Them
When you are reaching out to them, your primary goal should be to hike their interest in your campaign. Get them on your team, so that they start finding out more about your project.
To strike a positive relationship right away, you need to keep the following things in mind:
- Write a personalized email. Address the bloggers by their name and talk what you like about their writing style. Don’t forget to mention that how you find their content would suit your campaign. Then go ahead with your proposition – how you think your product would entice the audience?
- Keep it short and simple. Every day, they are getting hundreds of email – don’t overwhelm them with another long one. So, get to the point quickly. If there is no response, you can send around three emails – each 5 to 6 days apart.
- Show interest. If you are not showing interest, you could never expect that from your blogger. So, showcase what’s so amazing regarding your product or project!
- Try contacting them through social media. You can also contact them through DM on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on but don’t make spammy!
7 – Conducting the Campaign
Let’s assume that the bloggers have replied and now you are all set to go ahead. Now, you would be sending them their task. Either you would be giving them their affiliate links, or you can set up a promotion and send them the code.
To accomplish the task, they would also require some more digital assets like photographs, logos, codes and all. You can share those via Google Drive or set up a library for them at Dropbox.
8 – Be Available
Once the bloggers are onboard, it will be a team. Whatever they are doing, is for you to be accessible to them to answer their questions, give feedback. It will help them to accomplish the task as fast as possible.
9 – Measuring the Outcome
When the campaign is up and running, from that time only you need to keep a close eye on the analytics. Things that you will be checking includes referral traffic, post engagement, increase in sale, increase in followers, subscribers and so on.
There are several tools like Triberr.com to monitor those results. If you find it too complicated, simply maintain an excel sheet!
10 – Don’t Miss to Say Thank You
Once you see, they have posted the content and delivered what you expected, send them a thank you mail. It is not unprofessional to express your appreciation. Instead, it helps you to build a strong relationship in future.
Conclusion
It is not a fixed step-by-step procedure but a long customized process. However, if you apply the steps as mentioned above, it would inevitably become easy.
Soon enough, you would get the results pouring in. If you are not getting the desired results right away, do have patience. Marketing takes time. So, the best way is to start small and start building up the relationship, and then you can go big.
If you don’t get the result, you can also seek the bloggers’ feedback on how you can improve the campaign.
Thank you so much babe!!! have a nice day