Blogger Outreach: How to Build Relationships With Bloggers

Do you want to attract more attention to your business?

Are you wondering how you can build relationships with the influencers in your market?

To learn why it's important to reach out to bloggers, I interview Scott Monty for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.
More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Scott Monty, the former head of social media for Ford Motor Company. He blogs at ScottMonty.com and his podcast is I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

Scott shares how to build relationships with bloggers to raise your visibility.

You'll discover the types of influencers you need to reach out to and how to engage them in a positive and productive way.

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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Blogger Outreach
Scott's definition of rented

In a recent AdWeek interview where Scott discussed paid, earned and owned media, he referred to rented. He said, "Sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, we don't own those. We are using other people's property."

Scott explains the reason for that comment was to address the concern marketers have in the drop in organic reach with their posts on Facebook.

The challenge now is you can't ignore Facebook because there are over 1.2 billion people who use it, and you have to find a way to live with it.

Scott says the reason why he calls these sites rented is because they are ultimately in control. If you look at Facebook, they can change the algorithm any time they like, and marketers have to suffer the consequences, unless they are willing to pay.

You need to look at your owned sites, where you do have control. Scott thinks it's best to centralize your content in a hub, then have digital outposts of rented spaces and good relationships with influencers. Then use paid media around all of that to strategically amplify your earned, owned and rented spots.

Listen to the show to find out why it's not just about using paid for promoting your ads.

Blogger outreach and why it's important

Scott says that blogger outreach isn't that different from media relations.

You need to look at who the influencers with an audience are, and figure out if you can either invite them to special events, give them an experience with your products or let them meet with the executives of your company. Then they can go and tell a story to their audience.

Any brand has a story to tell and you have to think of ways you can inspire others to tell your story.

Once you have figured out who the main industry influencers and bloggers are in your industry, then you can start to reach out to them. It's important to take note of how they interact with other brands too.

You'll discover the parallels and distinctions between public relations and blogger relations, and how to treat each type of influencer differently.

When Scott was at Ford, they mixed the bloggers in with journalists. Some of the true journalists weren't happy about that, and didn't give bloggers full credit for what they were able to do.

Listen to the show to find out how Scott and his team handled the bloggers and journalists together.

The power of bloggers compared to traditional media

Scott explains that most bloggers don't have the same reach or potential reach as a traditional journalist. Although there are many bloggers who have been brought under a network approach.

For example, if you look at the Gawker family of sites, they each started out as a hobby. Jalopnik for automotive, Gizmodo for tech,