Influencer Outreach – Step In Communication

Fran Stephenson September 14, 2019 Leave a Comment

The Complete Guide to Disclosure for Brands and Influencers

Disclosure is the hottest topic in social and digital media and is the least understood by brands AND by influencers.

Full Disclosure: I am not a lawyer and am not offering legal advice. Anyone who has questions about disclosure and how the law applies to them, should consult a licensed attorney.

Now that’s out of the way. (See what I did there!)

So, what is disclosure? By definition, it’s identifying or exposing an act or instance of something. In today’s social media environment, its theoretical underpinning is this: to help social media users identify and separate organic posts, stories or videos from posts, stories or videos for which compensation has been given. But it’s not just about compensation. The law covers material relationships which include gift cards and discounts. It also covers family and business relationships too.

In practice, the term “Wild West” doesn’t even begin to describe how it’s really being used.

What is the Law?

The “law” comes from the Federal Trade Communication and has been revised several times, as social media has grown and changed. The most recent update was September, 2017. Their website features a set of Endorsement Guides which give examples for a wide range of situations including payments, contests and soliciting product reviews.

You should bookmark this link FOREVER.

In case that feels like a bit too much to digest, the Truth In Advertising organization has distilled it to a set of bulleted lists that explain what they call the “material connection” and offers suggestions on how to comply with the law.

The Scoop on Social Media Influencer Disclosure Requirements

Disclosure for Agencies and Brand Representatives

Full Disclosure-AGAIN: I am not a lawyer and am not offering legal advice. Anyone who has questions about disclosure should consult a licensed attorney.

As a communicator, I am extremely motivated to follow the law. So I counsel my clients to do the same. But every day, my team and I see examples that are clearly paid engagements that lack the necessary disclosure.

Examples:

Facebook and Twitter posts that feature a company that the poster clearly represents with no disclosure.
Agency comments on an Instagram post where there is clearly a client relationship and no disclosure.
Sending products or services to influencers to use/share/discuss and telling them – don’t bother to thank us or mention we gifted this to you.

Disclosure for Influencers

If you accepted something, you need to disclose it. It’s that simple. Familiarize yourself with the guidelines and start to implement them on your next brand activation.

And you need to make sure that the contracts you sign with brands contain disclosure requirements. We use disclosure language with a link to the FTC Guidelines in every influencer contract we manage.

Our team is hyper-aware about this topic. One of our team members participated in a course by a major Instagram influencer who is making significant income from paid engagements there. She was horrified to see a thread in the accompanying private group in which the group advised in a q/a that there is no need for disclosure when a brand “gifts” something to you. Others in the chat advised “it’s up to you if you share that it’s a gift or not.” And they even suggested that you should post something about the gift, then show the post results and pitch further business to the brand. Every single piece of advice in that thread violates the disclosure laws.

My team member was horrified.

Besides the complete ignorance about the law, the additional issue is that this group is selling their “expertise” to others who are following their advice, perpetuating bad habits and encouraging others to do the same.

Here are some examples of disclosure featuring influencers I know and have worked with regularly.

*A disclosure from Jill Robbins of Ripped Jeans and Bifocals*

*The disclosure on a Facebook post from Sara Phillips of Sensibly Sara*

*Another disclosure on a Twitter post from Sara Phillips of Sensibly Sara*

It’s not that hard.

“I see a lot of influencers use brand partner, hosted, or my personal favorite, “spon” to disclose the relationship with the brand, says Jill Robbins of Ripped Jeans and Bifocals. “My interpretation is that only “ad” or “sponsored” meet the FTC’s disclosure requirements.”

What if You Are Not Sure?

It’s anyone’s guess who the FTC might fine when disclosure isn’t obvious. The agency has been criticized for the guidelines being confusing and open to interpretation. Government agencies are often very measured in the actions they take to enforce laws and this law is no exception. Since the September 2017 guidelines have been released, they’ve sent 22 “educational” letters (which is the step prior to a warning letter) to celebrities, according to this story in the Morning Consult.

Just because you’re not a celebrity doesn’t mean you should ignore the law. Overcommunicating your relationships in social and digital posts is better than no disclosure at all.

I’m a community manager for Texas Travel Talk, a community of travel influencers. We work with brands to bring bloggers to Texas destinations and tell the destination story through blog posts and social media blitzes. These are paid relationships. We’re not perfect but we constantly review and revise our disclosure guidelines. For example, we used to put the disclosure about our financial arrangement with a destination at the bottom of each post, but because the requirement is for a disclosure to be up front and clearly noticeable, we’ve moved those on all blog posts to be right after the first paragraph and in bold font.

Disclosure on a blog post from Texas Travel Talk

We also struggle as to the appropriate disclosure that we, as community managers, need to pursue. Since I’m not the actual influencer, I often use a more narrative disclosure like “So thrilled to be working with #client [insert name] or something like the tweet below.

If you’re not working with influencers or find disclosure necessary, I am willing to bet that you’re following someone on Instagram or Twitter who talks about products, restaurants and experiences. Are THEY getting paid to promote those things? Maybe it’s worth asking.

Just last week, The Truth in Advertisiing group (the same one we linked to earlier in this story) filed a complaint with the FTC against Ryan ToysReview You Tube channel managed by the parents of 8-year-old Ryan who is often cited as You Tube’s highest performer with 21 million followers. They argued that children under age 5, the primary target of this channel, could not possibly know the difference between paid and organic content there. Read the full story here on the Today show website.

If there’s one thing you can take away from this discussion on disclosure, there’s a lot at stake. So, let’s go out there and be law abiding social media users.

How have you struggled with disclosure?

Jennifer Hatton May 23, 2019 Leave a Comment

Help Me, Help You Connect with Brands

Here at Step In we work on behalf of brands, products and organizations to connect bloggers and influencers for different paid and trade projects. Whether it is a weekend getaway or a free lunch, you should want brands and those who work on their behalf to be able to find and connect with you.

Finding the right person to work with on behalf of the brands we represent at Step In is something we take seriously. Yes, we have tools that help identify bloggers and pull page authority and rankings but we pick our bloggers “by hand”. We spend a lot of time reading through blogs, scanning Twitter feeds, looking at Facebook pages and combing through Instagram channels of each of the people we recommend to our clients/brands and then ultimately decide to pitch. We use custom pitches written for each project and blogger which takes more time but we believe in. This process is not fast and is a lot of work, but we feel it makes the best partnerships and the projects work more smoothly.

Being in the business a long time also means we know many of the bloggers and influencers in the travel space, especially in Texas. Lots of these people we are thankful to call our friends. In groups and in person we have seen and heard more than a few complaints about brands with bad pitches that just did not hit the mark or were so far off base it was ridiculous. While brands definitely need to do their homework when reaching out, there are definitely some things you can do as a blogger and/or influencer to help the brands, products and organizations figure out if you are a good fit.

Things Bloggers Can Do To Be More Visible

After a recent research session on behalf of a travel destination, I compiled a list of things that were lacking on many influencers’ public profiles. These things will help you stand out, show clearly who you are and what you are passionate about. You want to move from the initial “quick scan” stage which we do with a large list, on to the longer “detailed review” stage as the list of potential influencers gets paired down.

We hope this checklist will be helpful for you to scan across your blog and social channels with new eyes to see if you are making it easy for brands to find you, see your hard work and reach out to partner with you!

___ Do the social media links on your blog work? I can’t tell you how many times I clicked through to dead links directly from blog sites. Yikes!

___ Can we find your channels? With so many great blog templates and widgets these days it is easy to find one that you can connect the social profiles you are active on to your blog where they are easy to find.

*Note -This one really surprised me. I found many social pages people were obviously spending time to update and put good content on them (I do content creation for clients too and I KNOW how long that takes!) but they were not linked. It took multiple google searches to find all of their social channels because they were either not linked on their blog or the social links on their blog were broken/linked to the wrong place. Not everyone is going to take the time and extra effort to go look for all your channels, make it easy and link them!

___ Are each of your channels linked to the other? On the note above, people don’t always start with your blog – no matter where they find you on the web, they should be able to get back to your main channel, ideally your blog. Are they able to do that from each of your social channels?

*Ideas – Pin a tweet on Twitter with all your links to your blog and active social channels. Use highlights on IG or at least link to your blog or a link type app on your IG bio. Use your FB “About” section to list all your social channels.

___ Do you have consistent branding? Consistent branding and photos across platforms are helpful so we know we landed in the right place! This is especially important if you don’t have the same name or handle on your blog and social channels.

___ Is your physical location easy to find and correct? If you have moved in the last few years scan all your bios to make sure they are updated. Many times offers are location based and being able to figure out what city and state you are in saves you and the brand both time.

*Example – Once we were looking for bloggers from a specific city to help talk about new flights from that city to our client’s destination. If none of your profiles state your home base, then we are just guessing!

___ Contact information easy to find? Sponsor page with all your blog stats, great! But how do we contact you? Make sure you have a contact page and that your email is on it! I visited multiple pages that had no email or contact form which makes reaching out a little complicated.

Connecting Brands and Influencers is About Finding the Right Fit

As the industry continues to grow and change, micro influencers will pave their own way. Just because you don’t have 50k-500k followers doesn’t mean a brand won’t be interested in working with you. We enjoy discovering up and coming influencers and you don’t have to have to have Kardashian status, just be a great fit for our client!

We encourage all bloggers to make it easy for products, brands and organizations to reach out to you. You never know who you might be the perfect fit for!

Take a Moment to Check All Your Profiles

Something we recommend to all our clients is to do a quarterly review of their online presence. This is a good practice for influencers too.

Here are some things you can do to keep your social channels ready for fans, followers, collaborators, advertisers and brands.

Quarterly Social Check Up:

About and Bio Pages

Is the information current?
Do the links work?

Profile, Cover and Header Photos

Are they the correct size?
Current or relevant photos and graphics (no past holiday/event/etc.)?
Do you have cohesive branding across channels?

Security

Updated password?
Two-factor authentication?
Review all locations where logins to your social accounts have occurred.
Confirm you are using all apps with access to your channels, if not revoke/remove access.

What are your experiences working in the influencer/brand activation space?

Fran Stephenson March 6, 2019 Leave a Comment

How Influencers and Brands Can Find Common Ground

Influencers and brands have been in the news lately and not in a good way. Dishonesty in campaigns – it’s rampant in the world of working with influencers. But it’s not that difficult for brands and influencers to find common ground. Brands philosophically understand why working with influencers can elevate their efforts. Influencers need brands to keep their independent media channels growing.

But it’s clear from recent news coverage that the ocean is choppy and brands and influencers are having a tough time navigating their courses.

Influencers Who are Faking It Make the Rest Look Bad

Two recent examples point to flaws among the influencer community. Rachel Hollis, a blogger turned speaker and author recently attracted unwanted attention after she was accused of plagiarizing quotes on her Instagram channel.

Another recent story involves Aggie Lal, a lifestyle influencer. It came to light after she charged $500 to join a master class, which turned out to be anything but masterful. Some of the 380 participants (do the math on what she may have earned from the project) were so angry they turned to other social networks to complain loudly and publicly.

The Atlantic recently reported on just how rampant “fake deals” are among the influencer community, which should shock anyone in the field of marketing and communications.

“Lifestyle blogging is all about seamlessly monetizing your good taste and consumer choices, which means it can be near-impossible for laypeople to tell if an influencer genuinely loves a product, is being paid to talk about it, or just wants to be paid to talk about it,” wrote Taylor Lorenz in The Atlantic.

This only scratches the surface of the problem of transparency with influencers. Many influencers who are trying to establish themselves in the space know just enough from a conference they’ve attended or a presentation they’ve heard to bravely approach brands. Often they use specific language about what they’re offering you and what they want you, the brand, to do. Others are more vague, saying things such as “we’d like to partner with you” which means they’d like to get paid, but want you to reveal your budget first.

This ruins it for the influencers who are conscientious, transparent and communicative. Because they are out there. I’ve worked with hundreds of them and it’s a joy to bring to life a campaign that perfectly marries the right influencer with the right brand.

Brands Have Reputation Issues Too

Late last year, shoe retailer Payless created a fake pop up store and tricked more than 80 influencers into thinking the shoes were part of a new luxury brand. The story, which you can read here also describes how they “revealed” the trick to the participants. (Payless recently filed for bankruptcy and is in the process of closing its stores).

While philosophically, brands understand influencers, they just can’t figure out where they fit in. Are they like a journalist? No? Are they like a marketing promotion partner? Sometimes? Are they like sponsored content? Sometimes?

One of the biggest brand hurdles is FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. They want to get into the influencer game, they know it’s on trend, but guess what? Maybe they didn’t do their research. Or they’ve made small advances with a few select influencers here and there and believe they got burned, so that defines how they feel about the future of influencer marketing.

Our team has assisted many brands to get started working with influencers. We help them answer a lot of questions. Who should I choose and why? What do I ask them? Do I pay them? How and when? What can I expect from them?

Making the Right Match between Influencers & Brands

Clearly, there is huge room for improvement between influencers and brands. Here are three things influencers AND brands can do to make the right match.

Do Your Homework

Influencers: Research the brand who approaches you or the one you are targeting. Look at their marketing, their social channels, and visualize where you might fit in.

Brands: Research every influencer you’re interested in AND those who approach you directly. Are they who they say they are? Who have they worked with before?

Clear and Concise Communication

Influencers: don’t oversell to a brand. Be honest about your past work and where you are in your influencer journey.

Brands: Be clear about what your influencer activation policy is and most importantly, WHAT IT IS NOT.

Expectations

Influencers: get your work in on time and do more than expected. Ask questions until you’re clear what is being asked of you and by when.

Brands: be clear and reasonable about what you want the influencer to do. Is it number of words, number of posts, reporting on engagement? Define it.

Make Strategic Decisions

Influencers: Don’t hit up every brand in your industry or in your geography. Be selective and targeted.

Brands: make sure the influencer is the right fit. Just because they’re “big” or well known does not mean they will work for you.

As influencer and brand activations continue to accelerate, it’s more important than ever that we negotiate equitably and honestly. It’s not difficult to find common ground between influencers and brands if you plan and prepare for the project. If you want help getting an influencer program started for your organization, call us. We’re here to help.

Fran Stephenson January 11, 2017 Leave a Comment

How To Get Value from Influencer Relationships

For some organizations, working with bloggers and other social influencers is new, maybe it’s even uncharted territory. Other companies have ideas about how to approach these media creators and may even have tried a few things. A third group of companies has sophisticated programs with high visibility.

If your company is new at this, or tried a few things that may or may not have worked, it’s a fair bet you are seeking ways to demonstrate the value of working with social influencers. Here’s how to demonstrate value in the future.

Clear Expectations

Create clear expectations of what you want the results to be. Are you asking the influencer to do social media on the go — spontaneous posting on social networks — as they experience your product or service? Or are you looking for a thoughtful report or image stream after the fact?

Ask yourself these questions:

What do I hope to get out of this relationship?
What volume do I expect?
Are there deadlines I hope to meet?

Fair Exchange

A fair exchange is “I’ll give you X and I expect Y.” What “X” and “Y” are for your organization could be different. If the social influencer is creating content for your digital properties, fair exchange might include compensation and credit for the content. If the content is created on the influencers’ blog or social network, then fair exchange may be your ability to promote that content on your organizations’ channels. Making sure that the “deal” works for everyone and that everyone’s intellectual property is protected, might include an actual contract. Or a clearly defined email. Or as the organization, you might use the photos or works under Creative Commons licensing. There are millions of variations of these ideas and organizations and content creators should always consult professionals related to contracts and other legal matters.

Here are some questions to ask:

Have I been clear about what I expect?
How have I communicated my expectations?
Do I need a contract?
Should I consult a lawyer or contract administrator for assistance?

Nurture The Relationship

Getting to know influencers that may align with your brand takes time and research. There are many ways to find those influencers organically and many tools that help identify influencers using tags and algorithms. Even if you have the best tools, it’s still important to get to know each influencer, their expertise and how they approach brand relationships. It’s no different than joining the local chamber and getting to know other chamber members at networking events. The relationships need to be built over time.

Some things to consider:

How can I develop influencer relationships?
Are there groups to join?
What tools should I explore?

Disclosure

If you want your future influencer relationships to be professional and ethical, they must include elements of disclosure. The influencers, by law, must identify brand relationships with disclosure statements on blog posts, and identify paid relationships using hashtags like #ad and #client on networks such as Instagram and Twitter.

Have I discussed disclosure with the influencer(s) I’m working with?
Are we meeting my organizations ethical and professional guidelines?
Are we in compliance with current laws regarding disclosure?

I’ve matched brands with influencers on a wide variety of promotions and campaigns, and it’s easy to get off track. By creating clear expectations, nurturing the relationships and developing clear expectations including strong elements of disclosure, you can develop value for your organization with influencer campaigns.

Fran Stephenson August 10, 2015 1 Comment

Blogger Compensation: What’s Right For You?

If your social media team is working with influencers locally, regionally or nationally, it’s likely that the topic of compensation has come up. As more and more brands work with influencers, the discussions are becoming more tangled. Some of the questions I’ve heard from PR practitioners at recent conferences go something like this. Should they be paid? Should you treat them like journalists? Can you offer unique or custom experiences in exchange for their social output? What can you require them to do? What should you be required to do? How do I explain this to my boss? Here are some typical blogger/brand models that we’ve seen and how they might work for brands and bloggers.

The Advertising Model

In this model, bloggers get revenue through paid ad words campaigns or affiliate marketing. Amazon is the best example of this model but there are many popular to bloggers including BlogHer, AdThrive,The Blogger Network and Ad Sense. This story from Elayna Fernandez, The Positive Mom, talks to bloggers specifically about making money from blogs. Below is an example of affiliate marketing from Tori Foster Johnson of The SToriBook.

Sponsor Model

In this type, bloggers (or other influencers) are approached by a brand with a request to create content for a blog post or other social network. The brand offers a fee based on the request and the exchange is not unlike a freelance writing agreement. It may include deadlines, word count, hashtags or links and may be on the brands’ networks or the individuals or both. Examples of this type are easy to find and are most popular with consumer products, particularly those appealing to families. Below is a sample of a sponsored post from Colleen Pence at San Antonio Mom Blogs.

Consultant Model

In this model, bloggers are approaching brands that they are interested in and offering or negotiating a contract or consultation which could include identifying and approaching other influencers and working as a go-between for the brand and the bloggers to a mutual end. Similar to hiring a subject matter expert or celebrity and usually involves a specific timeline or project. Many in this model have media or communications backgrounds so they can be quite sophisticated but others bring only enthusiasm for the project or the brand.

Fam Tour Model

This capitalizes on the brand’s need or requirement to NOT pay for coverage and the bloggers need to develop great content for their networks. It also plays into the bloggers desire to develop content for growing audiences to build their network. It is dependent on the individual passions of the bloggers and the reputation of the individual brands. There is also a certain amount of prestige to working with a specific brand. For this model to work, the value proposition needs to be high for the blogger – the brand must offer something great! This model is often used in the hospitality industry and by destination management organizations as it aligns with how they work with travel writers.

Scarcity Model

The brand in this model creates a competition to create alignment with bloggers and to build attendance. The brand identifies and approaches bloggers but creates a competitive environment to draw in the best candidates. And the brand often charges a nominal rate to recoup the expenses incurred from hosting them on the trip or experience. These usually have large WOW factors! The SeaWorld of Texas AdventureCon program is in this category and so is the Disney Moms program.

The Passion Model

In this model, the brand or cause reaches out to bloggers based on their personal convictions –bloggers participate because of their personal beliefs. Local causes leverage the fact that bloggers want to contribute in their communities and are vocal when doing so. The project that Step In Communication managed for Cardboard Kids falls in this category.

Using bloggers and other social influencers as part of overall marketing goals is evolving. And there is no ONE way for bloggers and brands to work together. With so many models out there, it’s no wonder that some marketing and PR teams are confused. What models have you seen? How are they working? Share your examples here.

Fran Stephenson March 27, 2014 Leave a Comment

Mobilizing My Community to Fight Child Abuse

FACT: In 2013, there were 5,846 victims of child abuse in MY COMMUNITY. 10 children died at the hands of their abuser.

FICTION: There’s nothing I can do about this.

When you think of your social media channels, do you ever think of how you can use the networks you’ve built to help your community? This is an often-overlooked area when it comes to bringing attention to community causes. This month, I’m using my networks on behalf of ChildSafe.

ChildSafe and the Burden of Child Abuse

Earlier this year, when I was asked to be a volunteer with ChildSafe and help them advance their cause using a more strategic approach to social media, I had no idea where it would lead. Child Safe provides a range of services for child survivors of abuse and neglect and their protective family members, including forensic interviews, crisis intervention, case management, individual, group and family therapy and even adventure therapy to aid in healing child victims. They work with dozens of organizations in San Antonio but there’s more work to do. Only 1 in 10 cases of abuse is reported, so we need to create an environment to bring the problem to light.

Introducing Cardboard Kids

Cardboard Kids is a new program of ChildSafe, which should bring attention to the problem. 5,846 two-foot-high cardboard cutouts decorated in every way imaginable, will appear around San Antonio on April 3, which is the official start of Child Abuse Awareness Month in our city. One Cardboard Kid for every case reported last year.

How I am Using My Online Community

First, we invited bloggers who participate in a chat group on Facebook to meet the ChildSafe team and hear about Cardboard Kids. We asked them to participate, and dozens have already contributed. We created sample messages on a Google Drive document to make it easy for them to share messages and included important links and hashtags for easy retrieval.

Next, we scheduled a Thunderclap, a tool which combines the power of many voices in a simultaneous message delivery on a designated date and time. Here’s a picture from our Thunderclap page. You can add your voice to the “thunder” for our April 3 “clap.”

As our message begins to build momentum, we are seeing traction in many channels, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But it’s hard to be everywhere at once, so we’re going to set up some keyword monitoring and we’ve created a Tagboard to collect everything in one place. We have so much more we can do between now and April 3, when we expect people who see these cardboard cutouts all over town will start posting pictures and questions. We are encouraging citizens to take a picture, tag it #cardboardkidssa and reading about what ChildSafe does. We have no idea how many tagged photos we expect to see next week, but it should be thousands.

There are lots of different ways we could mobilize our community, but this is how it evolved for us. Have you ever used your community for a special cause? Share your ideas in the comments. I’ll be back to share how we did in a couple of weeks.

Fran Stephenson February 28, 2014 Leave a Comment

Make it Easy for Brands to Find You

Are you a blogger with a story to tell? Do you think you might want to hear from brands who align with those stories? Then make it easy for us to find you.

You might think you’re “visible” because you have a Facebook page, Twitter channel and a Pinterest and Instagram account. But is that where you want to do business? Most brands want to reach out (at least in the beginning) in a more business-like fashion.

There are a few simple things that bloggers can do to be more discoverable to brands, to public relations people and to other bloggers.

My good friend and colleague Jennifer Hatton paused from a recent research project to post a “public service announcement,” which you can see below. She was reaching out in a bloggers group to which we both belong. There are more than 300 in the group – representing everything from diaper discussions and tourist destinations to marketing principles, home schooling and photography. We are bonded by the fact that we live in the same city. Some of us in the group are also communications pros who often connect with bloggers on behalf of a cause or brand. Jennifer is one of those “connectors.” And you can see by her post that she’s full of great ideas.

This really got the group talking about best practices. So here is a combined list from Jennifer Hatton, Colleen Pence and Stacy Teet, of the best ways for bloggers to be discovered.

How to Help Brands Find Bloggers

Have your actual real name on your blog.
Better yet, have an “About” page with your real name and your preferred method of contact.
Update your social channels to include links back to your blog or website
Claim your Facebook page so your URL looks professional when copied.
Provide a strong comment option on your blog; allow readers to leave name and URL as part of the commenting platform.
When uploading photos to your media library, make sure to put titles and alt tags on all your photos, so when people share them on Pinterest, they are catalogued and linked to you.
If you are researching bloggers in an area you don’t know, ask the bloggers you DO know, as you never know where their networks might reach.

The best tip from the group is worth a whole paragraph. And it came from Stacy.

Find Your Colleen

In San Antonio, we have an awesome resource in a very generous and giving blogger, Colleen McGinley Pence. She runs the San Antonio Mom Blogs which aggregates blogs from moms all over our region. At last count, she was indexing between 150 and 200 blogs and bloggers. She’s one of those people who thoughtfully and instinctively knows how to connect people online and in real life.

I have mined her site frequently to research and identify bloggers for outreach on behalf of several of my clients. If you’re really trying to discover and be discoverable, find that person in your industry, city or circle who will connect you to where you need to go.

Take a Moment and Make an Update

Take it from the bloggers who participated in our discussion yesterday—being discoverable is important for brands AND for bloggers.

Do you have a tip to help make great relationships with brands and bloggers?

Fran Stephenson October 18, 2013 Leave a Comment

3 Things to Do Before You Start a Blogger Outreach Program

Colleen Pence, Debi Pfitzenmaier and Fran Stephenson at PRSA Luncheon

Colleen Pence (from left), Debi Pfitzenmaier and Fran Stephenson at PRSA San Antonio.

If you think that reaching out to bloggers might be important for your brand, then you are joining hundreds of companies who consider bloggers a vital component of their marketing plan.

But before you get started, here are three things to consider to make the engagement worth your while.

The first consideration is to make sure your efforts are integrated into your overall marketing plan. It may sound boring, but if you can’t answer the question “Why are we doing this?” with a sound answer that reflects sound business objectives, it’s quite easy to miss the mark.

Just last week, I sat on a panel with two of the smartest local bloggers in San Antonio which addressed this topic to the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. Colleen Pence of SA Mom Blogs and Debi Pfitzenmaier of SA Busy Kids have built strong regional blogs and each has their niche, even though both address elements of family life. Within hours of our presentation, one of them got a pitch that was so far off the mark from what they would consider appropriate for their blogs, it reinforces my second point.

The second thing to do before you start a blogger outreach program is to research your targets. This key element is often forgotten or ignored by many brands when dealing with bloggers. You need to find out who they are, what they are interested in and make sure they are a ‘love match’ with your brand.

The third thing an organization should do before incorporating bloggers into their marketing plan is PLAN. Bloggers are different from reporters in that sometimes they do it for love and sometimes they do it for money. But they almost always have built their blog presence in addition to something else they do. A cursory phone call to the blogger a day or two before the event is not considered advance planning. Spending time on their blog, reading their posts and finding out what interests them is more relevant research.

Integration, research and planning. If you do these three things before you begin a blogger outreach program, your program is destined to be successful.