8 Principles For Building Strong, Long-Term Relationships With Bloggers

It is no secret that bloggers hold tremendous power. With their audience, they build brand identity, create awareness, and drive traffic. Any brand that has a relationship with a dedicated blogger or two would reap the rewards in a big way. So far, we understand how to get bloggers to work with a brand, but what about maintaining that relationship?

Brand-blogger relationships require commitment and understanding like normal ones. As a brand or business, you have an idea of what your blogger should do or should be, but a blogger is a powerful marketing chess piece too. Learn how to balance the dynamics and you are in for successful collaboration.

These are the 7 guiding principles for working with bloggers from any niche.

1.     TRUST THEIR JUDGEMENT

Your blogger’s talent has brought them this far, earned them an influential status even. They need space and time to work their magic for your brand. This means giving them creative freedom in their approach, this is important for sponsored content. Bloggers will know how and when to include relevant call-to-actions (CTAs) and affiliate links. Forbes states that a big mistake brands make is micro-managing their bloggers. Though their choices likely will not be what you envisioned, comment only if necessary, otherwise, let bloggers blog.

2.     PROVIDE THE FULL SET OF RESOURCES

Things become difficult when your blogger works with limited information. If they’re helping you with a campaign, they ought to have access to photographs, design files, footage, and other materials. Bringing a blogger on board is trusting a third-party agent (much like hiring an agency, but smaller) will perform with the brand’s KPIs in mind. Alternatively, creating a blogger kit addresses your blogger’s FAQs alongside your project brief which should contain all the necessary information for your campaign.

Source: Unsplash

3.     OFFER PLENTY OF PRAISE AND SUPPORT

Bloggers are humans too. They need to be reminded of their effort and the quality of their work. After all, it all goes to building your brand and your vision for your business. It’s one of the free and meaningful ways to connect better with your blogger. They may share details about their lives that they normally wouldn’t with another client. Blogger Lisa Koivu from “Oh, She Blogs!” points out that many brands and PR companies do not share sponsored posts on their official social media channels. It can only benefit both parties with increased traffic, so, being your blogger’s fan does benefit you. At Blogger Outreach, we develop relationships with our bloggers to help brands like yours soar in SEO and backlinking. You bring the content, we bring the traffic.   

4.     CREATE FUN ACTIVITIES

View your blogger as a secret weapon. Bloggers have massive potential when it comes to branding and consumer engagement. Depending on your brand, interactive activities such as social media takeovers or giveaways would be worth exploring.

In 2019, Dunkin’ Donuts shortened its name to Dunkin’ to focus on its coffee, sandwiches, and other beverages. Their coffee-first strategy led them to a campaign focusing on millennial nano-influencers (1,000-10,000 followers) on Instagram who appreciate coffee and project positive energy. Their campaign had 1,136,000 social reach, 965 comments, and a 5.2% engagement rate.

One of the smallest nano-influencers, Vanessa Lace, who had 3,000 followers then, created a significant impact with her relatable caption in a sponsored post, garnering a whopping 26.1% engagement rate (more than 5x the campaign average) with the campaign hashtags #sippingisbelieving and #phillyrunsondunkin in her post. Clearly, there’s strength in small numbers too. 

 Classy.org mentioned that if social media takeovers are executed properly, they are:

-        A great way to get audiences excited for a launch, campaign, etc.

-        A strategic way to increase audience engagement directly

-        A crowd-puller that could lead to a new pool of audience

Giveaways hosted by your blogger have similar benefits plus increased exposure. Imagine if your blogger announces the takeover on their account, their fans will tell their friends, and so on.

PRO TIP: Depending on which social media your blogger is taking over; consider your audience time zones and choose the best time possible, whether it’s going LIVE or using stories.

5.     GIVE AMBASSADORSHIP PRIVILEGES

After collaborating for months, if your blogger “gets” your brand, audience, and vision, you should consider making them an ambassador. A brand ambassador is someone who has an authentic connection and love for a brand. The brand typically compensates the ambassador with free products, commission, or brand exposure. It’s a highly collaborative process to advance the brand and the blogger’s influence in the industry.

There isn’t a fixed duration of how long you should work with your blogger before bringing up ambassadorship but do take some time because he or she will be the face of your brand. It works like a celebrity endorsement — Jennifer Aniston and Emirates Airlines, as an example.

Source: Unsplash

One of the biggest benefits is consistency. A dedicated blogger offers a steady stream of content of advocacy and storytelling, which elevates your brand’s message. Ambassadorship also means a structured program where both the brand and blogger bring value to each other. Bloggers will get a designated community manager who helps with guidelines, logistics, and administrative matters. 

6.     COMPENSATE FAIRLY    

An unwavering principle had to be about payment, right? Having a blogger or a brand ambassador is a real job (it has been for a while) and should be compensated according to the project rate in the stipulated contract. Agreeing to a figure, signing the contract based on that figure is one matter, the other involves fulfilling that agreement for the duration of the collaboration.

A survey by Grow The Badger shows the results of 1,117 bloggers and their blogging techniques. The last question was “What are your main motivations for blogging?” and they categorized bloggers into high-earning (over $50K/year) and low-earning. In both categories, the highest percentage voted “making money”, 71%, and 64% respectively.

PRO TIP: Although the blogging community is huge, and bloggers talk. If one blogger had payment issues with you, word will get around and you wouldn’t find it difficult looking for a replacement.

7.     CHOOSE COLLABORATION MODELS

Building a brand via blogging is a long game that requires ongoing collaboration. According to Sprout Social, you should take bloggers or writers on board (once you’ve found the right ones) on a semi-permanent basis — negotiating monthly tasks to ensure you have a regular stream of content coming in. The other school of thought is to have one-off collaboration whereby your blogger delivers a set of tasks all that once, which can be counterproductive because it may take too long, and revisions would be strenuous. 

A monthly retainer makes sense for both bloggers and brands because it solves a permanent frustration. There could be multiple frustrations, but it all boils down to not having a person at the helm of creating content and growing the brand long-term. We advise having monthly retainers with your bloggers.

8.     COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE

TV comedian Ellen DeGeneres said: “You should never assume. You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of you and me because that’s how it’s spelled.” — communication cures it. This collaboration is fluid and needs both parties to make projects run smoothly. Plus, when a project is ongoing, there will be questions, and keeping communication open and transparent is essential here. 

Remember that bloggers are partners, not employees. Their creative input matter (principle #1) too. We feel it is best to establish a trusted relationship with your blogger (principle #3) by keeping communication channels open and being available. When in doubt, communicate.

So, no matter... 

Whether it’s a campaign or sponsored piece of content, both the brand and blogger must take the collaboration seriously. Each party should get what they signed up for and be happy with the outcome. We believe in bloggers so much that we put money down on their talent. Bloggers are key drivers to your business growth and, that is what you should be investing in for 2020 and beyond.