How to find bloggers to promote your business

Sometimes, knowing where to start it the most difficult part. This article aims to make it a little bit easier.

Why do you need bloggers?

In the online space, your store’s reputation is crucial to success. It improves customer relationships, engagement, organic rankings and credibility. The best way to improve your brand reputation is to make your brand well-known and bloggers are a great avenue to do this.

Every blogger has a following and an audience who read and respect their work. With this respect comes a trust of opinion and the ability to influence thousands, if not millions of their dedicated followers. Harnessing the favour of bloggers will help you to build an audience of your own. Take Chinese blogger, Tao Liang (better known as Mr Bags), his blog and consistent posting has turned his loyal fans into big spenders, selling out luxury brand handbags within minutes.

When you align yourself with an influential blogger they bring along with it, their audience and their audience’s network. They help to drive traffic to your website, increase your following on social media and can sell out a product through a review, recommendation or story of their experience. With the decline of traditional advertising, influencer marketing is becoming a highly successful and effective way to invest your budget.

What should you look for in a blogger?

Over 2.7 million blog posts are published every day so it can be a little daunting knowing where to begin. When it comes to finding someone to fit your brand you should be looking for:

• A large readership
• Regular blog publishing
• A highly engaged audience
• A large social media following
• High domain authority (Moz has a free monitoring tool that tells you this)
• Audience demographics that match your target customers
• Content that fits with your brand
• Good quality photography
• Professionalism

Where can you find suitable bloggers?

Before you begin your search, create a spreadsheet so you can record all the essential details you need going forward. This should include name, domain, social profiles and contact details.

To find relevant blogs try using some of the following tools:

• AllTop - find the top blogs by industry
• Buzzsumo - helps to find blogs with trending content
• Tomoson - software tool that helps to find influencers & micro-influencers
• Google Search - a great place to look for influential blogs as a result of their organic ranking
• FollowerWonk - another great tool by Moz that identifies the influential people behind a blog
• Twitter - one of the most comprehensive search functions. Start by looking for popular tweets and individuals with thousands of followers.

Finding contact information is sometimes difficult. Best case scenario you find the blogger’s direct email address but many successful bloggers prefer to go through a management agency. If you find their Twitter profile it could also be worth reaching out through there.

Aim to have around 30 blogs on your list and you’re good to go.

How do you conntect with bloggers?

Asking an influencer to work with you might seem intimidating at first but it should generally start as an informal introduction. You don’t need to be too specific but do imply that they have something to get out of connecting with you.

Here are some pointers on the best ways to connect:

Be direct in your communication. Don’t skirt around your intentions, if you want the blogger to write a review of your products, tell them. Be sure to do your homework. A lot of bloggers have information on their profiles about the kinds of collaborations they are interested in. By reading those first you will save yourself a lot of time, and ensures your request falls within their guidelines. Make sure to offer something in return. You need to make it worth their while. Whether that’s through free products, exposure to your audience, or future opportunities. Be personal. Focus your communication on each individual blogger, nobody likes to receive a generic email that’s been sent out to the masses. Express what you like about the blogger and why you’d like to work with them. Be creative. Try to come up with an exciting angle to encourage blogger involvement. This could be something like a promotional discount, a giveaway for their readers, an appealing product review or a how-to guide.

Know the rules and regulations

There are legal requirements when it comes to sponsored and paid for content on blogs and social media. So, do your research on the do's and don’ts.

If there is an exchange of money or high-value products between you and the blogger their post will most likely feature a line or hashtag marking it as sponsored content. If there is an exchange of low-value products, the post will likely contain a line to say that the blogger received goods in exchange for the content. This is essential for transparency and ensures they keep their readers’ trust by disclosing these details.

Another thing to remember is when you ask a blogger to feature your product, you won’t necessarily get to control the editorial content of the post, so keep in mind that you won’t get to dictate everything.

Examples of sponsored content

Conclusion

Unfortunately not every blogger will want to work with you, and that’s okay. However, the ones that are willing to work with you are likely to provide significant value to your brand. However do not consider blogger outreach as an inexpensive marketing alternative, instead, your relationship with influencers should be regarded as professional collaborations. Be sure to invest in these relationships and over time your audience will grow accordingly.

If you're looking for more help, why not read our guide on how to engage influencers and win customers on Instagram.

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