6 Reasons Why Brands Should Engage with Bloggers
“Bloggers establish credibility with their audience much faster than static website owners because blogs by their very nature build a stronger and more vibrant knowledge-base and community.” – Trish Jones
As a digital marketing company, it is essential we engage with bloggers. But why is this? Why do so many companies ignore the importance of engaging with bloggers? Perhaps because they do not understand the positive repercussions of blogger engagement.
When done right, engaging with bloggers effectively can amplify your brand message substantially. In fact, engaging with bloggers should be one of your top priorities as a company because blogging audiences are extremely engaged and therefore more influenced by calls to action. They trust the judgement of the author and are receptive to things they suggest. If one of their suggestions is your company, your visibility and credibility is sure to improve.
Let’s consider why brands should engage with bloggers and what kind of benefits they will receive as a result.
1. Why Does Engaging with Bloggers Work?
In SEO terms, engaging with bloggers and working alongside them provides exceptional opportunities for link building. High authority blogs that provide and regularly update high-quality content have higher rankings in Google and gaining a link between the blog and your website should pull in new audiences and encourage low bounce rates on your page.
2. Targeted Awareness
Engaging with bloggers allows you the potential of targeting specific audiences and outreaching to like-minded groups on mass. Although it won’t reach the same amount of people as a TV commercial, it will spread awareness of your company among specific groups of people who are more likely to respond to your brand and messages. Relevancy is key – blogs come in a variety of sizes and shapes but you must engage with those that are relevant to your business and the services you offer.
3. Earned Credibility
Unfortunately, over our many years of working in marketing, we know that people find it hard to trust brands – but they do trust people. Today’s society is built off word-of-mouth recommendations. Therefore, adding authenticity to your message is critical as it makes you stand out from the crowd by allowing you sensitivity, empathy and reliability.
Bloggers can help engage your ideal audience by providing information about your company to a mass audience, earning you credibility with the people who matter most to you.
4. Storytellers
By their nature, bloggers are writers and storytellers. They can create compelling content that supports your brand and highly recommends it to their audience. They have built a dedicated following because people care about the stories they tell and are interested in what they have to say.
Brands who reach out to bloggers can harness a blogger’s voice to get their story told through well-written posts. Whether they are recommending your brand or carrying out a review of your product, when done right they can tell your brand’s story better than anyone.
5. Make Google Aware
Google is aware of everything on the internet and because bloggers tend to have large followings, when a blogger writes about your brand you can be sure Google will find it. In fact, blogs are visited by search engines more often than static web pages, so if you get your brand visible on a blog, Google will notice your content even faster and reward you for it. The SEO benefits of engaging with bloggers are limitless and can propel your brand into the limelight.
6. Bloggers Add Value and Visibility
Bloggers are influential and have countless followers on social media. Therefore, when you engage with bloggers you don’t just get visibility on their blog, you also get noticed on their Facebook, Instagram and Google plus pages. As a result, viewers and readers will engage in conversations on the various subjects presented to them by the blogger, which can lead to brand building and company visibility. Social sharing can change the face of your business and gain you countless followings, leads and sales.
Final Words
Encouraging bloggers to write and discuss your brand begins with reaching them in the first place. Outreach is essential to building lasting relationships with bloggers. You must take the first step to have any results. Finding bloggers that are the right fit for your company can be difficult but you must focus on bloggers that can add value and give you the best results.
From our experience here at Bamboo Nine, positive product and company reviews can provide you with a boost to your SEO. Authentic reviews have credibility in Google, especially when they are written by a third party. If you can engage with bloggers successfully, you will increase the visibility and credibility of your company substantially.
For more information about engaging with bloggers, or if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Bamboo Nine today. Do you have any tips for engaging with bloggers that have worked for you? We would love to hear from you, leave a comment below!