Are bloggers worth working with? Could they help your business?

This is a question I get asked a lot as the blogosphere continues to grow at a frightening rate – are bloggers worth working with and could they help your business?

The short answer is yes… BUT…

In short, the answer is a HUGE yes. But there’s a big but. You have to work with the RIGHT bloggers. The wrong bloggers are a complete waste of your time and energy. Sounds harsh, but let me explain.

The RIGHT blogger is key to your ‘success’

I get a lot of people contact me, offering to help my clients by promoting their products to their amazing social media network and on their blog. Sounds great – you send over the product, they review it, they take pics, maybe a video, the clients shares it too, you hit all their followers and yours. Brilliant, yes? Well if that person has actually got a following, if they can write, if people care about what they have to say, and if they can take a picture, it is. If they can’t, it’s no flipping use at all. Even worse, some take the product and then you spend hours and hours chasing them to do what they promised they would. That’s just plain boring and plain annoying. And even if they do create an amazing piece of work, the amount of energy you’ve put in to get them to generate it has left a sour taste. It’s annoying.

And when you find the right blogger?

But let’s look at the other side. A blogger who genuinely likes your product and has an interest in you and it, who writes nicely, has a really good, engaged following and does what they say in a timely fashion? It’s brilliant. It’s a superb way to promote a product to another area of your target audience. One great example of a good blog in the country and equestrian circuit is A Girl About Country – by the lovely Harriet Edwards. Harriet has a good, engaged following on Instagram and her blog is really nice. A great example of an equestrian and photography vlogger and blogger is Sophie Callahan. Sophie has a really impressive following across a number of platforms, takes lovely pics and creates really engaging content too. Check them both out.

Are bloggers making a big impact?

I was recently reading about London Fashion Week and how bloggers (good bloggers), were treated incredibly well – the same – if not even better – than magazine staff. Was this wrong? I don’t think it was at all. Yep – it put some people’s noses out of joint, but think it through. Bloggers with good followings, with engaged audiences, have a HUGE reach. They publish content quickly that perfectly appeals to their readership and people lap it up. So they help spread the word, by creating content that taps into the worldview of their audience. Just like a magazine does. But they can write it from a more informal angle. They can talk about things mags don’t/can’t/don’t want to. So tell me, why wouldn’t you treat these people as royalty? If you want as many people as possible to know about your product/service, you work with people with a good reach, good style and that fit your company profile and ethos. Bloggers can do this and then some.

So, can blogging help your business?

Working with the right bloggers can do massive things for your business, but finding the right bloggers can take some time. But is it worth the effort? When you find the right people and they work their magic, increase your exposure and generate interest and sales, it’s worth every single second.