One of the biggest challenges in the social media-marketing world today is getting influential bloggers to not only listen to you, but write a blog about you or your product. Sometimes this can just happen by pure luck, you produce something they enjoy (or hate) and they write a little blog about, people read it and poof! Next thing you know more and more blogs pop up all over the Internet regarding your product, because of that a growing number of people are becoming aware of you and your product. And it all started with this one blogger. But how do we reach that one, special blogger? Andwho is this guy anyway? What does this guy have that other bloggers don’t? Well the answer is simpler than you think. What he or she has over other bloggers are readers. Yes, it is that simple, they have people who read their blog regularly. And as a result these people respect their opinion, and are viewed as a credible source.
Who is this person?
With all the bloggers in the world it is important to find the “right one.” You must find a blogger that does not only have a strong following but will also be receptive to you and your ideas. Luckily, AdWeek makes it easy for us. The publish a list of bloggers that they deem the “Power 150,” the bloggers with the most viewed, commented and popular blogs. A great example of one of these blogs is the popular site AdFreak. On top of this website there are two sister sites, MediaFreak, Brand Freak and TweetFreak. All three are successful and respected as well, a company should be pleased to be featured on one if not all three. But today, we’ll focus specifically on AdFreak.
One of the greatest aspects of this blog is that it is not just one person. It is eight different contributors, who all have different viewpoints and interests. The chance of having an effect on one of the eight is pretty high. On this website, these eight bloggers review different television commercials and specific ad campaigns. They keep their postings short and sweet while still encouraging conversation. The postings are at times humorous while still engaging their audience. Other postings are heavily critical. Several of their postings get people of talk.
For example, one of their most recent postings concerned Pepsi’s Amp application for the iPhone. It was posted only three days ago and the number of comments have grown and grown since. Because this was such a popular topic, the bloggers did the intelligent thing and posted a follow-up thread just two days after the first. These are two of the most commented on postings in the past few months. Pepsi is getting a lot of heat for their new iPhone application and AdFreak does not condemn it any less than anyone else, however they do something smart with it. While everyone is discussing how every woman will hate this app, AdFreak actually hops off the bandwagon and actually discusses whether or not this move will do anything for the brand.
The most important aspect of this website is that it is all just ads. The entire website is made up of advertisements. And because of this, people willingly watch them repeatedly. In a world of DVR, online television, and consumers doing pretty much whatever they can do to avoid watching commercials, people go to this website to watch commercials. That is what gives this blog so much power and sparks the interest of advertising companies.
How to Reach Them
When communicating with this particular blog, take a hint from the structure of their posts. Keep your communications short and sweet. Bombarding them with useless product specs will not get you anywhere, a simple overview accompanied with a television commercial or a print ad will get you much further. Once the advertisement gets blogged about and reviewed, they will automatically link your website to their blog. So useful! They are also very active on twitter, which would be the perfect place to approach them. These bloggers may actually respond better to that approach.
For example, if you were to email just one blogger from the website rather than the group it may serve you even better. That way making it more personal will give you a better chance that they will write on your topic. One of the bloggers (who wrote about the Pepsi Amp Application) Rebecca Cullers writes mainly about food, video games or similar products (like an iPhone application). Therefore, when you pitch to her, you better be pitching something interesting that involves food or technology. Otherwise it will seem as though you are wasting her time.
Whatever product you are marketing, it is important to reach out to a blogger. More and more people are not trusting traditional advertising and would rather find their information online from a third party source. Twitter, Facebook and blogs are the new marketing tool and it’s time to practice using and communicating with them.
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