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A blogger’s job is a mystery to some, with lots of questions about how bloggers help businesses. I often have to explain how blogging can be both a pastime and a profession, and that lots of bloggers are earning a living from their sites. Bloggers write about their lives, things they like, and places they’ve been, which helps their audience relate to them. Once a blog has an audience, it’s possible for its owner to earn money by collaborating with other businesses, both big and small.
How Bloggers Help Businesses
Advertisements have evolved, and not all of them take the shape of blinking gifs that get in the way of the text you want to read. They can also be much less in-you-face, and far more objective and informative. Bloggers tend to have a big role in this type of advertising. In the modern world, brand awareness and relationship building is much more important than trying to convince you that you want or need something. Instead, the information is online and available for a time when you want to check it out.
Companies such as Get Blogged can help connect bloggers with businesses who want to work on collaborations. Blogger outreach comes in many forms. Sometimes bloggers are selected and approached, there are also blogger opportunities advertised on social media that bloggers can apply for. Whoever is running the blogger outreach will ensure the bloggers they choose are the best fit for the collaboration.
How do Blogger Collaborations Work?
Micro bloggers like myself collaborate with businesses to help expand brand awareness. Sometimes this will be in the form of a review, other times it will be an article about a business, or even an article that’s informative in general and only mentions the brand in relation to the services it provides. Not all adverts are a sales pitch – and that’s how it should be.
When it comes to marketing value, a micro blogger can be just as important as having a hugely popular influencer on the campaign – providing its the right one for the job. The most important thing is that the blogger is associated with a brand that feels like a good ‘fit’. Whatever they are advertising should be in line with the topics they usually write about, so that their audience is likely to have an interest in the ad they publish.
I tend to write about family lifestyle, makeup and little bit about blogging (because I think it’s a fantastic way to earn from home if you’ve got children and need flexible hours). As a result of this, I try and keep any collaborations I agree to within those topic areas so that I don’t bore my audience. For example, a while ago I worked with Too Faced on a review of their White Peach Palette to help amplify brand awareness. I often write about beauty and skincare that I’ve bought myself, so when my audience saw a review of a gifted beauty product, it wasn’t jarring and they were still interested. It received a lot of interest on Facebook and is proving popular on Pinterest too.
How Can Bloggers Help Businesses?
If a blogger is doing their job properly, they can help businesses by showing their products and services in their best light. We received some Rainbocorn surprise eggs to review and my daughter was delighted. I captured a photo of her with both eggs before we opened them and the excitement pictured is genuine.
Bloggers can bring products and services to life by putting their own spin on things. If a blogger likes a business enough to help promote it, they should have their own feelings and opinions that they can convey. When I work on reviews, I try to put my own personal spin on things and make the photography stand out, like when I worked on the I’M A GIRLY collaboration and took the picture below.
My Experience as a Blogger
I’ve found that if the collaboration is in line with the usual topics on my blog, people still want to read what I write. I won’t recommend anything I don’t like or wouldn’t personally use. I think doing so is probably the fastest way to break trust and lose readers. I’ll often write about products and services without incentive because I like to keep all recommendations authentic.
Because I’m selective about who I work with, I’ve expanded brand awareness in all the advertisements I’ve work on. I think as long as both parties are selective about who they work with, any collaboration can be successful.
Blogging can often lead on to other work too such as freelance writing. You might like these tips for freelance writers.
This is a great article, and a great showcase of brands you’ve worked with. Hope you don’t mind me asking, do you ever pitch to businesses you like? If so, have you had success with that method?
I’m reading through some of your other articles now, I especially like your toy reviews!
I occasionally pitch but I probably should make the effort to pitch more. I’m a bit too scared of rejection haha!