How Bloggers Can Work With Brands They Love

At the annual BlogPaws Blogging and Social Media Conference, you will always come away with great learnings and a list longer than your arm of take-aways to improve your Blogging and Social Media skills.  I always look forward to learning how I can grow my blog traffic and my social media channels even more.  This year's conference did not disappoint!

My blog is a business, driven by a Passion for my own pets and for helping animals in need.

IS YOUR BLOG A BUSINESS OR A HOBBY?

Like many bloggers, I consider my blog more of a business than just a fun hobby.  It's a business driven by passion.  Passion for animals, passion for helping homeless animals, and passion for my own pets!

The more money I make through blogging, the more time I can justify spending on my blog and the more I can give to the causes I am most passionate about.  For this reason, one of my key blogging goals is always trying to increase revenue from my blog.  The learning sessions at the BlogPaws conference are always so helpful in working towards that goal.

As I prepare for the conference, I start by searching for the working sessions that will help me accomplish my Blogging Business Goals.  At this year's conference, one of those sessions was WHAT ARE YOU WORTH IN 2017 AND HOW TO GET BRANDS TO BELIEVE IT! presented by two great bloggers I love; Bryn Nowell creator of the blog A Dog Walks Into A Bar and Alison Reder creator of the blog Sarcastic Dog.  I was so impressed at the research Bryn and Alison compiled in the months prior to the BlogPaws Conference in preparation for their presentation! They did a great job and provided so much insight and so many helpful blogging tips!  Tips on how to work with brands you love and how to improve your blog to attract the brands you want to work with. 

The educational sessions at BlogPaws conferences are so helpful in achieving your blogging goals!

Bryn and Alison surveyed both Bloggers and Brands to find out what makes them want to work together.  They gained valuable insight into what brands are looking for when they select bloggers they want to work with and what makes brands NOT want to work with a blogger.   You may think the numbers are all brands care about, but you'd be wrong.  Brands don't only want to work with bloggers that have the highest number of monthly blog views, there are other things they look for. Some of those things may surprise you!

HOW BRANDS FIND BLOGGERS THEY WANT TO WORK WITH

Bryn and Alison started off by talking about how brands find bloggers they'd like to work with. The top 5 ways brands find bloggers they want to work with are:

🐶 GOOGLE SEARCH - they search for the kind of bloggers they're looking for via Google search.  That makes sense, if you're looking for dog bloggers you search for dog bloggers.  Make sure your blog is searchable for the things you want to be known for.

🐶 INSTAGRAM - this was interesting to me, I thought brands would be more focused on Facebook.  I hadn't paid that much attention to growing my Instagram account, but since Bryn & Alison's presentation I have focused on it a lot more! 

🐶 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA - I'm a big Twitter user and have focused more on promoting and growing on Twitter much more than my other channels.  Now I'm going to focus more on my other channels for growth as well.

🐶 PR FIRMS - Yes, I know, they seem to always say whatever brand they're representing is "unable to pay" for any work you do to promote their products. Apparently, brands also rely on PR Reps to help them find blogs that are a good fit for the brand so don't ignore PR Reps, keep those relationships going! 

🐶 BLOGPAWS - this was music to my ears!  I was so happy to see that our BlogPaws community was high on the list of places brands look to find bloggers they want to work with.  If you're not already a member of the BlogPaws community, please join us - It's Free!

They talked about several other avenues brands use to find bloggers they want to work with but these were the top 5.

REASONS A BRAND WILL SELECT BLOGGERS FOR CAMPAIGNS

Next, Bryn and Alison talked about the reasons a brand may select particular Bloggers to work on their campaigns.  Here are the Top 5 Reasons a brand will choose a blogger for a campaign...

- DRUM ROLL PLEASE - 

The number one thing a brand will base their blogger selection on is, and this one is no surprise, BLOG POST CONTENT.  Obviously, if you have a dog blog they expect you to write about dogs, they don't expect blog posts about collecting model cars!

😻 QUALITY OF IMAGES -  is a very big reason brands will choose to work with a blogger - or not.  Of course images are important, but it surprised me that it was the number two reason a brand will chose to work with a blogger or not.  Bryn and Alison mentioned this many times during their presentation.  I spent much of last year working on my photography skills, and this year I'll be focusing on developing my video skills.  Time well spent, I'd say!

😻 COMMUNICATION -  from the Blogger.  Following up in a timely manner, delivering what you said you promised you would, and the quality of your communications with the brand.  This was a bit of an eye opener for me.  Of course, all these things are important but I didn't realize how important they were to a brand's decision to work with me or not.  Good to know, right?!

😻 POST ENGAGEMENT -   A brand will not be impressed by a blog post that has zero engagement.  No surprise there!  With active promotion and a good network of blogger friends that shouldn't be an issue.

😻 VALUES -  Matching the values of the Blogger to the Brand is important to a brand.  This makes sense.  A brand that makes high quality safe dog products doesn't want to see you promoting a product that seems unsafe such as a shock collar (Heaven forbid!)

WHAT ABOUT SMALLER BLOGGERS?

Another interesting thing Bryn and Alison talked about was why a Brand might want to work with a smaller blogger.  We tend to think that a brand wouldn't want to work with bloggers that don't have "the numbers", but apparently that's not always the case.    Your content, quality of your images, meeting deadlines, and social engagement are all factors that could sway a brand to work with you even if your numbers aren't high.  Good News, right!?

WHY WOULD A BRAND CHOOSE NOT TO WORK WITH A BLOGGER?

They also talked about why a brand would choose NOT to work with a blogger even if they had stellar numbers.  Here are a few things that turn them off:

The Alignment of a Brand's messaging with the Blogger's content was number one.  You and the brand need to be a good fit.  Content and Image quality are also important  Both of these things make perfect sense.  

The fourth reason may surprise you - having a Poor Reputation will turn a brand off!  What constitutes a poor reputation?  One thing I know will get you a bad rep is trashing any other brand online.  If you're trashing that brand, what might you one day say about them??  

I would venture to say that today's U.S. political climate has also brought out the worst in many of us. Friendships have broken up, online bickering and UNfollowing seem like they're at an all time high! Making harsh negative comments about sensitive subjects online is probably something a brand would cringe at.  You also don't know to whom a business, any business, is loyal. Many businesses are die-hard political party supporters.  If a brand sees you making harsh comments about the political party they have allegiance to and strong relationships with, it could work against you.

Slide from BlogPaws Presentation by Bryn Nowell & Alison Reder: Reasons why Brands may choose NOT to work with a blogger, even if the blogger's numbers are great.

Bryn and Alison put together this slide, which shows several other reasons a brand may choose NOT to work with a Blogger, even if their numbers are great. Keep these in mind as you navigate through your online world.

Brands will search you online.  If you think they won't ever see negative things you post, think again. It's amazing what they might be able to uncover.  Your reputation is indirectly a reflection on them, so brands are careful about who they work with.  It's hard to resist the temptation to lash out against the injustices we see online, I get that.  Whether or not to do so is a decision only each of us can make. We should all proceed with caution!

There were many more tips and learnings in this incredible presentation, far too many to list here!  In closing, Bryn and Alison advised us to create our Branding Strategy and maintain focus on Integrity and Professionalism.

I want to thank Bryn Nowell and Alison Reder for all the research and hard work they put into this incredible presentation!  The insights and advice I gleaned from them will be so helpful to me in achieving my blogging goals.  I hope this excerpt from their presentation will help you as you work toward your blogging goals as well!    

Please visit Bryn at  A Dog Walks Into A Bar and Alison at  Sarcastic Dog  If you don't already follow these great bloggers, you should!!

Note: This is a PetSmart Affiliate link. If you make a purchase through this link I may make a few pennies in commission, which would be much appreciated!


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