Today I’m putting on my Community Manager hat to share some of the insider scoop on what brands look for when they reach out to bloggers and influencers.
For purposes of full transparency and for this to make sense, it’s important to know that at the time I wrote this piece I was the Community Manager (aka I run all of the social media accounts) for Bai Brands. They’re a healthy beverage company that makes Bai 5 and Bai Bubbles, both are antioxidant infusions made with coffee fruit (the stuff that surrounds the bean) and sweetened with stevia and erythritol (both natural low calorie sweeteners).
I started my job back in June 2014, and as a blogger myself, I knew how powerful of a platform blogs are. I’ve discovered and fallen in love with products like Siggi’s Yogurt, Purely Elizabeth Granola and Califa Farms Almond Milk all through blogs and social media. Not only that, but once I put my stamp of approval on a product I’m not shy about sharing it. I’ve turned friends and family (and readers) onto different products and recipes that they now love. Blogs are powerful stuff (but you know that). Since then, my partner and crime (Rachel) and I have been working with bloggers in the healthy living space to talk about Bai. Rachel has been an avid reader for years (and recently started her own blog) and I’ve been a blogging for over a year.
My advice comes from my own experience of working for a healthy drink brand. I’m in a unique position because I fully understand and can relate to both sides of the table. I have goals at work and I also know what it feels like to work with brands as a blogger. Hopefully this will be helpful to you if you’re looking to work with healthy food/beverage brands in the future.
There are 4 main categories that we care most about: The Right Fit, Content, Audience and Engagement. Not every blog has to perfectly fit each category, but they must balance each other out.
The Right Fit
Starting off with an obvious one, but before diving deeper into a blog, we need to check to see what the blog is about. Do the topics covered make sense with our brand? If your blog is about politics would it really make sense to have a sponsored post from a beverage company? Probably not. Even in the realm of food blogging and specifically with a health focus, there are so many niches and we’re careful to choose blogs that fall into the niches that would reach more potential customers. There are blogs we love and would die to work with but we know that it just isn’t the right fit for our brand. It doesn’t make them less of a spectacular blog.
Content
Visuals
Put simply: Does this blog look legit? The first things I look at are the design and photography. From both a brand and a blogger’s perspective I’ve learned and believe that simpler is better. That doesn’t mean you can’t be unique, but distracting background colors and too many bells and whistles on your homepage can be overload and doesn’t look professional. Usability is key, if links are broken or the navigation is difficult to figure out I’ll likely be frustrated before I even get to read your posts.
Voice & Authority
Ok, now that we’ve landed on our first post, the blog looks good we’re ready to read. Things I always ask: Is this blogger a good story teller? Are they relatable? Do they have any authority and confidence about the topic they’re writing about? Do they use humor? How does their writing make me feel? Inspired, empowered, excited, happy, amused, emotional? If they’re a food blogger are their recipes approachable? Easy to follow? Hopefully these are questions you’re asking yourself already, but it never hurts to get a friend or fellow blogger you respect to help you answer these questions and identify any potential weaknesses.
Audience & Engagement
The second and third biggest things we look at are audience and engagement. I’m lumping these together because they go hand in hand. This is also why smaller bloggers shouldn’t be discouraged by numbers. First we look at your social media audience. In our case Instagram is crucial, followed by Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook. Not every brand will feel the same, but in our case Instagram is one of our most important platforms and having a presence on that network is a major component. But before we make a judgement call on the audience size we look to see how you engaged your audience is with your content.
For example, if someone has a great looking blog with professional looking photography and design, but their posts have zero comments that sends up a red flag. A large part of what we look for are people who can compel their audiences to try new things whether it’s a recipe, a new workout or in our case a new drink. In fact, I’m willing to forgive some poor photography and design if I see that the blogger’s audience is engaged and excited about whatever the they are writing about.
The same goes for social media. If you have 20,000 followers on Instagram but are only getting 200 likes on your photo that’s another red flag. We’d rather work with someone who had 2000 followers with 200 likes and 30 comments because it means people care about what they post. The bonus is when we see the blogger responding and commenting with their audience – this shows a real connection that can help close the deal.
Those are the big 4, but there’s still more that can make or break a deal.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to brands you love that you want to work with!
Start engaging with them on social media trust me, community managers love that stuff – when people tweet at us, take photos of our product and comment on our posts we notice. Don’t forget that there are humans behind the brand and they’re most likely huge nerds about their products so share your passion!
Know your value, but also recognize opportunities beyond money. Budgets might not be huge for some smaller companies, but if you go above and beyond for a sponsored post even if you’re just getting free product (not a bad gig if you ask me) people remember that and when bigger opportunities come along we use people we trust and are professional and fun to work with.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes:
Your Turn:
I’d love to hear your thoughts and feel free to ask any questions about working with brands as a blogger
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I was doing the same thing when I was working with Laptop Lunches, I spent most of my day scouting out mommy bloggers and emailing them about our product. It made me really want to start my own blog too! I definitely think visuals were a number one to me, if the first couple of posts don’t have something engaging on them, I’d usually move on. I also try to respond to every email because it was oh so annoying when bloggers acted like they were too good to respond to you.
So true! At Bai we try to be as personable as possible, and while it’s totally fine that not everyone is the right fit, it can be a little disheartening when people are rude or straight up ignore you. It’s nice to be able to have perspective from both sides (I’m sure you feel that way too!)
Great post! Very good information to remember when you are reaching out to brands…Like you I have found so many of the products that I love on social media and actually work with most of them. Sometimes all brands are not a fit which is okay…You can’t please everyone and I think it is always important to remember your worth and never settle for a brand, if isn’t what you believe in. Thanks for sharing!
Couldn’t agree more, when you work so hard to build something and create a trusting community it’s never worth it to sell out or go against your gut! But I’m SO happy that I get to work with you <3
This was great information! It is always good to hear from the other side and know what to expect. I think the biggest thing for me was feeling confident enough to reach out to bigger brands (or just brands in general) and to know that I have a platform that is potentially worth importance to them.
Definitely! Never underestimate the power of your audience. If you can find concrete examples of engagement with your social media and blog they can be powerful tools when you reach out to brands to say “hey I have proof that people really listen to what I say”. Thanks for stopping by Brie!
Although I am not a blogger, I find all of this insanely interesting! I also look up to all of you bloggers/vloggers and strongly value your opinions. It’s probably because you guys are so well practiced at what you do (recipe-creating and fitness experimenting travelers, etc)— I actually found out about In It 4 the Long Run through Peanut Butter Fingers by Julie Fagan lol and she is always hyping up different brands..most of my impulse buys have been well-worth it, thanks to you all lol .
Thank you so much Kaley – Julie is incredible and actually one of the first blogs I ever read <3 I love being able to chat with new friends I've found through my blog (and other blogs) - building that foundation of trust/friendship is so important before you start working with brands (in my opinion).
This is such a great post! It’s helpful to know that countries put that much stock in bloggers’ social media platforms.
Do you have any Twitter tips or have you done any posts on Twitter? That’s currently the one that stumps me the most.
Ahh Twitter is such an interesting platform and there are a lot of different avenues you can take. I use it mostly to help build relationships and share (what I think is) interesting content with my audiences. I can definitely put together some pointers (from a brand & bloggers perspective) but my biggest piece of advice is just to interact with the people you follow as much as you can – answer their questions, reply to their tweets, ask them questions. Brands also love that. When in doubt, share funny gifs 😉
Thank you so much for your insider perspective. These are great tips and certainly have me thinking. Sometimes, especially on Instagram, you post random pictures with not much thought– your post has me thinking twice about that. Brands are looking, even when we think they aren’t. Thank you!
Thanks for stopping by Lisa!
I spend a lot of time on Instagram as a community manager whether it’s posting for the brand or interacting with our fans/customers/bloggers. I love when bloggers/influencers have a nice mix of personal/behind the scenes and blog related posts – people really appreciate when bloggers are authentic. But really, as long as you’re true to yourself and feel confident in your voice and content you’ll be set.
Girllll this is super helpful–so interesting to see things from the other side. You definitely have me making some “to do” lists 🙂 Thanks!
Bookmarking, favoriting, tweeting and pinning this post. So much great information, from a blogger and brand insider!
love love love this my little G, my blogsta sista
That quote is EVERYTHING. So fun to see what things look like on your end when it comes to finding bloggers 🙂 Super helpful!
That quote is EVERYTHING. So fun to see what things look like on your end when it comes to finding bloggers 🙂 Super helpful!
Thanks for the tips! Sometimes I wonder about #1, though. It often surprises me the types of brands who reach out to me. I wonder, “Did they even look at my site?”. The part about engagement vs. followers was very interesting and encouraging, though.
Oh my gosh, this post could not have come at a better time!! I’ve been wanting to do this with my blog since I’m pretty new and want to start reaching out. Now I know what to do without sounding like an idiot! Thank you SO much Georgie! 🙂
This is a brilliant, BRILLIANT, topic to write about! I’m so glad you did. I have learned so much about influence as a blogger in just the one year I have been blogging. Though I haven’t worked with too many big name brands yet, I hope to continue to build up my skills as a blogger to have more opportunities to do so in the future! Also…you have my dream job. Seriously. If I could find the job you have working for a nutrition, health, or food company in Texas when I move there this Summer, my life would be made. If you have any recommendations for companies in the Austin area…please keep me in mind! 😉
Good information. Thanks for sharing from a brand’s perspective… all makes good sense.
No problem! Glad you enjoyed
I agree that brands want engagement as well as sites that are focused on topics that pertain to their particular brand.
Totally, engagement is one of the most important things to me. You can have 100,000’s of people following you but if they don’t care what you say it’s not a valuable following
I found this post really informative, so thanks for that. However, I found your About Me to be more helpful… you told me what a BLEND is! Makes total sense… blog friends! I don’t have the expertise that you do, but I would think that a smaller audience but greater engagement would trump a large audience of non-caring followers. I mean… anyone can buy followers these days!
Yes! Does this mean we can be blends?! As far as audience size/influence goes, for my job, we’ve seen more impact when a blogger has consistent engagement (their followers talk to them and they talk back) than when we just try to reach a lot of people (plus it’s much harder to prove ROI with a pure reach play)
This was extremely helpful! Thank you!
-Molly
My pleasure!
This is such great advice! I’m so glad I found this post. Personally as a newbie blogger I feel like I haven’t developed all the skills necessary to start working with brands, but it’s nice to hear the perspective from the other side in case I do one day 🙂