Determining The Value of Blogger Relations

My last post on PR/Blogger Relations prompted this response from a client: “I don’t understand the value of bloggers from a business perspective.” He went on to say that it seems inexperienced bloggers can be extremely disruptive to businesses when they are misinformed or inaccurate. Anyone can be a blogger, how do I know blogger outreach will be beneficial to my business?

Excellent questions. The short answer is you can never be 100% sure it will be beneficial and that’s no different than traditional media relations. But blogger outreach should be a considerable component in your PR efforts and here is why:

Let’s start with the value of bloggers to business:

Blogs are growing in popularity and power (influence). This is a fact. A 2008 State of the Blogosphere study conducted by Technorati, the #1 Blog search engine reports that blogs had between 77.1 and 94.1 million unique visitors in the US alone. I didn’t take the time to find a more updated number. We can assume quite safely that this number has grown dramatically since then.

Bloggers blog to share expertise. Through their knowledge and influence, they become thought leaders in their subject matter, and garner a loyal following.  A loyal following subscribes to the posts (again, no different than a magazine or newspaper). My mom loves to cut news articles of interest and mail them to me. That allows her to share the article with an audience of ONE.

Now, subscribers share the posts with their individual audiences via social bookmarking sites such as delicious and stumble, and facebook and twitter. The audience has potential for exponential growth.

Let’s talk about travel blogs specifically. One of my favorite travel blogs is The Vacation Gals because they tell great stories and blog about a variety of wonderful destinations and adventures for families, girlfriend and romantic getaways.  Kara Williams is the Coloradogal. Here is what she had to say in response to my question, what value do my clients receive in working with bloggers?

1. We usually write for more than one online outlet :: more links for your client, higher search engine ranking results. (i.e. travel bloggers often guest post on others’ blogs, even if they are not actively pitching other sites for paid assignments).
2. We’re de facto travel agents for our readers (and our friends/family). At The Vacation Gals, we often get, “Where should I go for my honeymoon in Florida” or “What’s the best theme park for preschoolers in California?” If your clients are top of mind (if we’ve visited) we often recommend.
3. We’re blogging as we go – instantaneous coverage (no six-month lead time for print magazines)
4. We share the same goal as you and your clients — we want eyeballs to our blog (more page views=more we can charge for advertising); you want eyeballs to the coverage of your hotel/resort/destination. (LG comment: I love this part – it goes back to our relationship of collaboration. it’s about helping each other, it’s not a one-way relationship)

Tom Johansmeyer echoes Kara’s Number 1 above via twitter. Clicks for the client. You have very measurable impact via clicks to your website, retweets, and the level of interaction. You can see his blogging genius at top travel blogs Gadling and Luxist (to name a few).

I’ll add a few things here: Blogs have very real and large readerships, the stories stay on the web forever driving traffic to your site and coming up in searches.

Vetting the bloggers. Now to part two of the question and making sure the blog and the blogger are the right fit for you as the business owner.

Reading recommendation: The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. In this book by Tamar Weinberg, she tells a story that not only illustrates the influence of bloggers, but also the power they have if they are inaccurate or misinformed. In a nutshell, Engadget (an influential gadget blog) reported (falsely, it later turned out) in 2007 that Apple was delaying the launch of some new products. Engadget was the only news source to report this, and Apple’s stock plummeted, costing the company a reported $4 billion.

It can happen to the best of us, and certainly this is a real and valid concern. Here is where you rely on your ever competent and knowledgeable PR lady (shameless plug) to ensure you are entering a mutually beneficial relationship. (See PR/blogger Relations Manifesto).

Your goal in media outreach (whatever that media format may be) is to find influencers who have the power to drive their audience to take action and purchase your product.

Steps to do this include:

• Subject matter and fit with audience
• Level of audience interactivity on blog, twitter and facebook (if appropriate)
• Reputation, quoted in other news sources? guest blogging elsewhere? (means exposure to new audiences)
• Important: it’s not the job of the blogger to give you exposure. You are helping them with content for a story that is of interest to their readers. No one wants to feel like a pawn in your marketing scheme.

Some of you have asked me for links to other top and favorite travel blogs. Here are a few:
Deliciousbaby
WorldHum
National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel Blog
Elliot – (Chris Elliot’s blog)
BrooklynNomad

There are way too many great ones to list here, and I hate to leave out friends and colleagues, so please add your favorite to the comments section.
Any additional value points to add regarding bloggers?

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