Tips for Bloggers Wanting to Partner with Brands

Would you like to partner with brands and provide amazing giveaways to reward your readers?

There are four important steps to successful brand partnerships and giveaway promotions as a blogger.

Step 1: Sign Up with Third Party Networks

Companies to sign up with in order to start working with brands:

1. Business 2 Blogger
2. Social Fabric
   • Apply to be member; Enrollment is sometimes open and  sometimes on hold
   • Apply for shops you’re interested in
   • 100’s of bloggers apply, anywhere from 5-20 accepted
   • Has a great community to network with bloggers
   • It’s not just about stats
3. TapInfluence (formerly Blog Frog)
   • Apply to be a member
   • They target blogs they feel are a fit for the campaign
4. Pollinate Media
   • Seeking 20,000 monthly pageviews+
5. The SITS Girls/Massive Sway
   • Understand bloggers
   • Watch our hangout on Massive Sway
6. Mom Central
   • Send out mass newsletter
   • Typically a small item + gift card (ex. Amazon) or a large item (with no compensation)
   • Blog post is typically the only requirement
7. My Blog Spark
   • Unpaid
   • Work with large brands
   • Gets you larger opportunities with their PR Company Coyne PR
8. One 2 One Network
   • Started by Barbara Jones
   • Unique campaigns
9. Bzz Agent
   • In home parties (Example: you + 10 coupons)
   • Earn points for participating
   • When it appears in your dashboard, you accept or decline
   • Use these opportunities to create content for your blog and to prove your ability to work with brands to create great content
10. Team Mom
11. Mom Bloggers Club
    • Group for bloggers on their website that provide opportunities
    • Infrequent, but nice opportunities
12. Mom Spark
    • Sign up
    • Forum
    • There is a group within the forum to sign up for opportunities

General Guidelines About Working With Third Party Networks

• Don’t write for free
• You should compensated somehow for your time.
• You can “grandfather” existing relationships to exclude charging fees or send them a notice before a campaign starts, if you want to begin charging. You can choose to just charge new brands.
• Keep in mind that free work can lead to paid work. Just be sure that the brand or PR company is one you want to nurture a relationship with.

Repitch Email Template

Once your blog and its traffic are establishd, you will likely receive 100’s or 1,000’s of emails daily with these type of requests.

Instead of hitting delete, reply with your repitch. Even if they don’t reply, they are now aware that bloggers don’t work for free. They know that if they want to work with you, they need to have a budget.

Kelli Miller of 3 Boys and a Dog uses this “re-pitch” email template:

Thanks so much for your interest in working with 3 Boys and a Dog. We have many options to help you gain brand recognition for the parenting community of 3 Boys and a Dog readers and beyond. Due to the fact that any free product has to be claimed as income and income tax is assessed, there is an insertion fee at 3 Boys and a Dog. We have many different advertised here as outlined in this Google Document <link to Google Document>.

Attached: Media Kit which includes Stats and Fees

Quick Breakdown:

*product review/giveaway – description – $____

*sponsored post – description – $____

*Twitter party – description – $____

*Contest notice

We also offer text links, graphic ads, social media blasts, multi-week campaigns, brand ambassadorship, Pinterest campaigns, and multiple blogger events.

You are more than welcome to give out this information to your colleagues as well. Please look over the information carefully and ask for any additional materials you may want to see. I look forward to working with you.

-Kelli

P.S. Not what you had in mind? Business 2 Blogger allows you to list your blog for free. <insert affiliate link>

What is a brand ambassadorship?

The relationship is usually defined by the brand. Some brands just want social media promotion, while others want more. Kelli says that she wants to receive/be paid a premium because she is:

• Eating, sleeping, breathing the brand
• Promoting on social media
• Promoting in personal life
• Indicating a belief in the brand, product, and service

Keep This in Mind About Brand Ambassadorships

• If you evangelize about one brand, then become an ambassador for another brand, you are a sellout to your readers and they will not trust you
• If the brand doesn’t spell out what their requirements are, you need to “teach them how to treat you” and outline what you are willing to provide
• Negotiate terms before you accept the work (don’t change the terms after you’ve agreed on ambassadorship).

 

Step 2: How to Deliver the Content to Your Readers

The better your post, the more likely that brand/PR company will want to work with you, and it will likely attract other brands.

For reviews or product placements

Images:

• Show your product in action (ingredient in a recipe, on your desk, your child wearing it, etc.).
• Request pictures for sponsored posts (if you receive high resolution photos, reduce the file size so that it is not taking up too much space on your blog).

Disclosure statement:

In order to comply with the FTC, you must publicize that you accept products and money for content. Example of Crystal & Co.’s disclosure. You can get your own here. Your blog should have a site wide policy and may be required to list a disclosure within sponsored posts.

For giveaways

Some sponsorship with brands, include them offering a giveaway to your readers.

Create a template to be more efficient.

Entry options to consider for readers to enter your giveaway:

• Visit brand’s website and come back to tell me a product that you liked
• Tweet – follow me and brand
• Tweet this message: RT @kellibmiller you can win ___ #brandname
• Follow me and brand on Facebook
• Like this post
• Bonus options (great ways to grow your communities):

1. Sign up for my newsletter
2. Like me on ____ site
3. Subscribe to YouTube channel
4. Follow me on Instagram
5. Leave a comment on any other post that is not a giveaway to get more exposure to your other content

How to Moderate Giveaways

1. Rafflecopter 

• Widget that you add to your post
• Moderate entries
• Random winner picked
• Displays winner

2. And the Winner Is plugin

• WordPress plugin (Have you seen Why You Should Use WordPress and which WordPress Plugins you need?)
• Template for setting up new giveaways
• Button to click to close comments
• All regular post comments and giveaway comments are mixed together
• Picks winner

3. Manually moderate using blog comments

• Manually review all of the blog comments
• Run the risk of missing comments or having a lot comments that are Spam
• Use Random.org to pick a winner

Information to include in giveaway:

• Email template for winner
• Use your Amazon affiliate links to the products mentioned in the giveaway
• Require that the brand/sponsor ships to the winner. Restrictions? US, Canada, worldwide?

See How to Promote Your Giveaways video.

Action Items:

1. Apply for membership in the networks listed

2. Apply to any opportunities that fit

3. Craft your repitch

(Steps 3 and 4 coming tomorrow.)

 

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