Download Report

8 Reasons Why Blogger
Relations are Essential
to Your PR Strategy
Index
Introduction
1
Chapter 1
Reason 1 - The blogosphere is a huge and under-utilised PR opportunity
3
Chapter 2
Reason 2 - Consumers often trust bloggers more than brands
4
Chapter 3
Reason 3 - Bloggers can become your brand ambassadors
5
Chapter 4
Reason 4 - The blogosphere lets you talk directly to your target audience
6
Chapter 5
Reason 5 - Bloggers need your stories and ideas
7
Chapter 6
Reason 6 - A better and more measurable return on investment
8
Chapter 7
Reason 7 - Blogs dramatically increase SEO benefits
9
Chapter 8
Reason 8 - Blogs create the shareable content needed by Social Media
10
Next Steps
11
www.inkybee.com
Index
Introduction
PR has changed for good.
Are you adapting to the changes?
Blogs are one of the most important tools that PR professionals
have in their communications arsenal but effective blogger
outreach strategies are often overlooked.
Blogs tend to have devoted niche audiences and those audiences
are waiting to hear from you. But they don’t just want to hear from
anyone, they want to hear from someone they trust.
kallejipp / photocase.com
Nicki Varkevisser flickr.com/clickflashphotos
kallejipp / photocase.com
Communications is all about building relationships and in turn,
those we build relationships with extend the connections deep into
our target audiences. Most serious bloggers are seen as experts
in their field, having built up credibility and respect from their
audiences. What better way of getting your message out than to
have it relayed by someone trusted by thousands of people in your
target audiences.
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
1
Introduction continued
The success of your next campaign depends on making your
campaign message highly visible to these target audiences. Blogs
offer a direct and precise way for you to do this easily. Google
loves blogs and successful blogs are highly visible to people
searching for information relating to your campaign. Get your
campaign message written about on the right blogs and you will
rank highly in the results when your target audience is searching
on Google.
As David Meerman Scott said as long ago as 2006, “the Web
has changed the rules for Press Releases. Gone are the days
of being reliant on mass media to influence your audience. The
Web has decentralised information and empowered publishers.
Press releases can reach target audiences directly on their
desktops, laptops and mobile devices in real-time.”
Here are just eight reasons why you should be using blogger
relations and what you’re missing out on if you don’t.
No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has
been more important to my life than blogging. It has
changed my life. It is the best marketing tool by an
order of magnitude”
- Tom Peters
Shashi Bellamkonda / www.flickr.com/drbeachvacation
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
2
Reason 1
The blogosphere is a huge and
under-utilised PR opportunity
Your target audience is probably reading a blog right now.
One way for you to think about the
blogosphere is like a large room where
thousands of people - the target audience for
your next campaign - are already discussing
the ideas in your campaign messages. This
represents a huge opportunity for you and
your client’s campaigns.
To reach these people, you need to reach
out to the bloggers that are leading the
discussion.
The statistics are huge and they tell their own
story:
rudik / photocase.com
There are over 160 million blogs on the Web
(Nielsen/McKinsey)
78% of internet users conduct product
research online (Hubspot)
There are 1.6 million new blog posts every
day, or approx. 19 every second! (Technorati)
38% of bloggers will write about brands
they love or hate (Technorati)
Greater than 70% of consumers stated that
blogs affected their purchasing decisions
(Hubspot)
89% of journalists conduct research via
blogs (Cision)
Greater than 80% of internet users read
blogs at least once a day (Hubspot)
The average cost per lead is 62% lower
for inbound marketing than outbound
marketing (Hubspot)
The communications industry must embrace the
socialization of the Web to transcend the foundation
and very essence of PR into a more meaningful,
relevant, and lasting renaissance.”
- Brian Solis
affiliatesummit flickr.com/affsum
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
3
Reason 2
Consumers often trust
bloggers more than brands
The level of influence blogs have on consumer purchase decisions
has increased dramatically. Bloggers make it easy for consumers
to garner trust in your campaigns.
The last Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey placed trust
in online customer opinions at 70%, vastly outstripping
traditional media.
Read more about this here
Bloggers aren’t tied to a commercial organisation so their opinions
carry much more weight than any messages direct from a brand.
Using a person that people associate with to represent your brand
makes them more likely to associate themselves with your brand
and values too.
Blogs are earned media - you have to have presented something
compelling to merit the coverage that you are given. People will trust
earned media over any kind of paid for advertisement because you
had to earn a blogger’s trust and admiration in order for them to
champion you.
The bottom line is that bloggers are considered more authentic,
sincere and credible as sources of information than advertising.
People trust in the opinions of people, not brands.
“People influence people. Nothing influences people
more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A
trusted referral influences people more than the best
broadcast message.”
- Mark Zuckerberg
deneyterrio flickr.com/deneyterrio
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
4
Reason 3
Bloggers can become
your brand ambassadors
Bloggers as brand ambassadors talk directly to your target
audience and extend the reach of your campaign.
You need all the help you can get when it comes to getting
your next campaign in front of your target audience and
bloggers are your friend in this respect. Bloggers as advocates
can become the greatest driving force in getting your
campaign messages directly to the people you’re trying to
reach.
wombatonline / photocase.com
thoffmann / photocase.com
alphoxic / photocase.com
It is a common occurrence in the blogosphere for bloggers to
become ambassadors for brands. They will do this for you if
those campaign messages are relevant and interesting; and if
you have approached them in the right way.
If you have a good product story to tell, it is highly likely that
there is a blogger out there who will want to spread the word.
Identify that person, become their friend and you will have an
advocate for your messages.
When brand ambassadors, or brand advocates, talk positively
about your messages, it is far more compelling than when it
comes from you.
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
5
Reason 4
The blogosphere lets you talk
directly to your target audience
Don’t waste time talking to everyone, go straight to the
people who want to hear from you.
Whatever the subject matter of your next
campaign, it is a fact that there are people
discussing it right now on blogs. These are
precisely the people that will have a high
level of interest in your messages and they
probably want to hear from you.
Reaching out to the right blogs helps you
get to these people efficiently rather than
wasting resources trying to influence larger
and very general audiences. If you conduct
research to identify the bloggers with the
right audiences, they will be key to helping
you to get your message to your target
audience.
Bloggers are an effective way of opening
a dialogue without being intrusive. The
audience knows you are listening and has
direct access to share their thoughts quickly
and conveniently. The benefits are twofold.
People want to be listened to, something you
demonstrate by contributing to blogs, and
you benefit from knowing what your target
audience is thinking about your messages.
kallejipp / photocase.com
Because blogs represent a smaller more
engaged component of your audience, you
can tailor your message specifically to their
demands. This means you can participate
in a real conversation with your audience,
creating a community around your messages.
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
6
Reason 5
Bloggers need your
stories and ideas
Good PR is about telling great stories and bloggers
are storytellers. They’re waiting to hear from you.
Consistently coming up with great content for a blog is actually
quite a challenge and consequently, bloggers are always on
the lookout for good stories to tell.
Labnol / www.flickr.com/amit-agarwal
That’s where you come in. Providing a blogger with stories
that are interesting, informative, and entertaining makes a
blogger’s life easier and helps you meet your own aims of
getting your messages out. However, it must be relevant. You
need to have done your research and be confident that you
are 100% on topic on your approach.
A common strategy for bloggers is to share quality content
that will be relevant to their audience. Producing your
messages in formats that are easy for bloggers to share is a
useful strategy to consider.
The digital age in general, and blogs and social media in
particular, have shifted the communication paradigm.
Journalists and traditional media no longer control the
conversation. Bloggers want to heard (why else would
they write?) and they actively want to distribute and
amplify your messages.
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
7
Reason 6
A better and more measurable
return on investment
Effective targeting with measurable results demonstrates
tangible value.
Blogs often have a much more engaged audience than
traditional channels and this means that it is possible to make
an impact despite the much smaller readership figures of
some blogs.
People wouldn’t be reading a blog if they weren’t interested in
what that person is talking about.
The efficiency of this targeting delivers a higher level of return
for your efforts which is a more efficient use of your time than
a generic press release that is too broad interest.
Retain your existing clients and win new ones by
justifying your work
lama-photography / photocase.com
Being able to measure the results of your outreach efforts
represents huge value for you and your clients. Happily, it is
easy to measure and report on the results of your outreach
efforts to bloggers.
Understanding levels of reach and engagement as the
campaign progresses helps you see what is and isn’t working
and plan your next campaign more efficiently.
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
8
Reason 7
Blogs dramatically increase
SEO benefits
Reaching out to bloggers brings huge SEO benefits for your clients.
The Web has changed the entire consumer purchasing cycle.
Online product research is now a key component of any
material purchase. If you are reaching out to bloggers, you can
demonstrate the wider business benefits of this to your clients.
Effective SEO relies on three factors to help you achieve visibility:
• Providing interesting, compelling and relevant content.
• Generating lots of links from other influential sites
• Enabling as much social interaction as possible.
una.knipsolina / photocase.com
kallejipp / photocase.com
ryu-tako / photocase.com
Getting your messages written about by bloggers helps in all of
these factors:
• Blogs share, distribute and amplify your content.
• Blogs create inbound links directly to your own site.
• Blogs generate participation and interaction with their readers.
In short, Google loves blogs! Getting your campaign messages
written about on blogs results great SEO for your clients which
they will appreciate.
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
9
Reason 8
Blogs create the shareable
content needed by Social Media
Getting your messages written about on blogs means your
campaign is easily shareable across social media.
Reaching out to bloggers can easily be overlooked in the rush to
get your messages out to the latest social media channels. In fact
blogs deserve to be considered separately because of the power
they have. Much of Social Media is fluff and transient, but what gets
written about on blogs tends to be more considered and it stays
around longer.
Blogs are the backbone of powerful social media strategies partly
because blog posts can contain more content than Facebook
or Twitter. Importantly, when people read something they have
enjoyed or agreed with, they want to share it with their own
communities in other places such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
This helps your message go viral.
Markus Gann / photocase.com
morgenroethe / photocase.com
tobeys / photocase.com
Not only does your content spread further, but having good,
sharable content drives more traffic to the blog too which helps
bloggers build on their audience base. Another virtuous circle
which confirms the original point;
the rules of PR have changed for good!
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
10
Next Steps
Want to put it into practice?
Watch out for our follow-up paper:
“A Best Practice Guide to Effective Blogger Outreach”
“Blogger outreach has proliferated in the last year as firms and clients
… see the value of exposing bloggers and their audiences to new
campaigns and products”
- Ogilvy PR
In the meantime, you can check out the resources below which
will all help you to develop a winning digital media PR strategy.
The Hubspot Public Relations marketing hub
The Social Media Explorer online public relations archive
The PR 20/20 inbound marketing gameplan
The Hubspot social media for PR ebook
The Technorati ‘State of the Blogosphere 2011’ report
www.inkybee.com
Tweet this ebook
11
Inkybee helps you to research
the blogs you need to target, then
measure and report on the results
of your outreach efforts.
www.inkybee.com
Inkybee is a Forth Metrics Product
web: www.forthmetrics.com
blog: blog.forthmetrics.com
twitter: @forthmetrics
Copyright © Forth Metrics Ltd. 2012