January 5, 2011

The blogging community is more active and knowledgeable than ever. With enough reach to stretch to the moon and back multiple times over, cultivating strong blogger relationships has become vital for any serious brand marketer. They can really push that buzz around your brand with minimum effort. And with all the spotlight on trust agents and word-of-mouth marketing peaking as we write, the blogger community can be a real asset in maximizing audience reach for your content, products and services.

But it is important to understand the community and how they work. You may well be surprised as to how receptive they can be.

How Not To Do It

PR and the related press release mill need to be a bit more critical about how they are managing the whole blogger-outreach process. Impersonal emails and other communication tactics that can otherwise really benefit a campaign, is being blindly used to push out as many press releases as possible without so much as a thought to humanizing the reach. Then there are the viral marketing agencies, publishers, and link-builders of different types.

Know Your Blogger

For mutually beneficial relationships that can be wonderful n the long run must be the objective. Just because bloggers write to populate their pages doesn’t mean a conglomerate with a healthy appetite for marketing and communication budget starts reaching out to bloggers for favors. There is no mutuality there.

So, do your research and come up with a decent plan to engage and retain bloggers than can offset your other non-beneficial relationships.

Lots To Do

Maintaining an email list is healthy. But shooting unsolicited emails, and even worse, impersonal emails, is not the way to go. Try identifying and short-listing the most powerful bloggers and reach out personal.

Don’t Trip

Step by step is also another factor to consider when reaching out to the blogger community. Establish healthy relationships from the start. Explain what you do, who your clients are, and what you expect to gain out of this relationship. Start a discussion where both parties understand how work will be measured and which expectations are, and which are not viable.

Simply stated, support those bloggers that you deem to be valuable to your brand / campaigns. The blogger community depends on maintaining their blogs and followings. All that costs money. Whether for equipment or for expansion to cover your brand events and campaigns.

A free drink voucher may seem alright, but you can sponsor little bits of their operating costs here and there.