18th Nov 2015 by Andy Barr

10 Yetis Insight - Andy and & Lauren talking through influencer engagement best practice

Andy and Lauren chatting through best practice for influencer identification and engagement.

The full transcript is below.

Andy: Hi my names Lauren and I’m an Account Manager at 10 Yetis Digital

Lauren: Hi I’m Andy Barr and I’m the MD and Founder of 10 Yetis Digital

A: So today as part of our monthly newsletter we’re doing a little video about influence engagement and outreach and how to find the best people and the best person to speak to is Lozza because she does so much of this for us and is absolutely brilliant at it.

L: Thanks Andy, means a lot.

A: What a way to start.

:: Laughs ::

A: So I thought the first thing to talk about is the fact we’ve done quite a few campaigns recently so over to Lauren if you want to talk about Optical Express.

L: Yeah, we’ve been working with Optical Express for quite a few months now. One of the key fundamentals is sort of SEO and Link Building for the website and I’ve been talking to vbloggers and bloggers, securing videos, tutorials, sort of reviews of laser eye surgery and we’ve had some really good results. We’ve had Lisa Gregory who actually had the laser eye surgery herself and made a great video about it and we had Poppy Rawson who made a really, really nice beauty tutorial sort of outlining the different styles of make up that suit different styles of spectacles that Optical Express carry so yeah, some really nice videos for Optical Express.

A: I think it’s really interesting from our side to see the sort of move away from brands just concentrating on, you know, the heavy hitting media and you know, looking more towards influencers now.

L: Definitely, and I think it’s been sort of quite a heavy talked about thing whether vbloggers and bloggers should talk about if they are being paid and if they are sort of advertorials rather than if they are just sort of reviews from the heart. But despite obviously both the videos saying that they had teamed up with Optical Express they still obviously hit all the audiences, were getting great feedback from their engaged followers so I don’t think its had any negative impact at all.

A: And so i think, we’ve done campaigns like this now for probably the last five years so people like National Trust and Superdry more recently where we’re doing some stuff in the fitness, emerging fitness blogger arena but I think one of the things that we have been totally shocked about is the volumes of traffic that these bloggers are kicking over, so we look at the Daily Mail and it probably only sends over 300-400 unique visitors but bloggers you know we can see thousands.

L: Yeah it’s really a massive up and coming thing and I think something that PR’s probably do need to focus a bit more on because often blogger outreach is sort of put aside as something to do when on a week when you’re not concentrating on focusing on journalist, you’re not sending in a press release, it’s something like a side project when I actually think it needs to have sort of its own basis and there needs to be constantly worked on because its about sort of building a relationship with the vlogger and bloggers and a lot of the time its their full time job so its all they're doing and their only source of income so you really need to make sure that you’re finding the right sort of people to represent the brand you’re working for and not just going to whoever maybe has the biggest followers or whoever has the biggest following because their audiences might not necessarily be who your brand say Optical Express or super Dry is trying to target so its really about doing the research.

A: And I think that leads on nicely to you know how we find influencers and I think how PR people are far better placed that seo and social people in finding bloggers because you know we take the natural look at things rather than just concentrating on numbers and I know you’ve got a good example of a well known brand who almost let a blogger slip through their fingers because they didn’t understand.

L: Yeah because obviously it’s no fault of their own, what they’re looking for is sort of the ones that is going to get them the best seo benefit, the ones whose going to get them the most views and the most followers but I think it’s sort of taking a look at who has the most overall appeal and who is having the most engagement and maybe hasn’t got the oldest blog so doesn’t have the best domain authority on their website or blog but has the potential in maybe a year or twos time with the way that they are going and the way that they are growing at the moment to be sort of one of the worldy bloggers or vloggers so it’s sort of looking at the thing as a whole rather than facts as it stands now.

A: I think that’s exactly right because we PR’s hopefully can kinda see that, we see the real life influence so we know that SEO’s don’t come out of their offices, you know they have a monitor tan you know they’re just plugged in to spreadsheets where as PR’s probably get a little bit more and go and meet journalists, bloggers, influencers so we know for example that X blogger has maybe got a DA of 20 because they’ve just moved from being a journalist to becoming a full time blogger so on paper that doesn’t look so good but in the real life where people have a drink, maybe a porn star martini and get out, we know that person is really influential because they’ve got that ready built community. I think that that’s what we can bring over your traditional SEO or social aspect.

L: I think it’s really important as well to actually look at what they’re talking about in their every day lives and what their blogging and what their vlogging about is actually what their talking about because I think its really easy to tell if the vlogger is just in it for the money or in it for sort of the free stuff and if they actually care about the brand and I think that is it with Optical Express, we actually found vloggers who were really passionate about what they were doing and talking about and it came across in their vlogs and to their audiences.

A: And I think the panel that Lauren was talking about earlier where we had big ticket fashion bloggers in their from cosmo, fashion mumbler, hannigail you know they said actually if we’re actually interested in a brand then we’re more likely to do more for it, you obviously get paid but you know, give newsletter mentions, give social media mentions but you know, let’s take it back a step Lozza and so you’ve got a dickhead MD and he comes to you and he says “I want 50 emerging fashion bloggers” what do you do? What’s the first step of that for you?

L: The first thing for me is to go to twitter, I mean I think that, well, for fashion maybe Instagram and twitter both, I think you’ve got to look at it from a whole perspective, bloggabase, go through bloggabase and check and really just see who sort of the people who I’m already following and the people who I’m influenced by myself sort of personally are following as well and not necessarily focus on the numbers.

A: And I think one of the interesting things because obviously I run the agency but I don’t do any real work. One of the things I’ve found most interesting was when we were doing the stuff with Superdry and we needed to identify 100 emerging sport and fashion bloggers we went to bloggabase, the best blogger software out there, and we pulled off say 1000 names and we spread them around the team and we checked every blog, every social account you know, we used things like fakers.statuspeople to catch out people who had bought views, sorry bought likes and you know, we really did drill down and that’s essential. Too many people go to the likes or Gorkana, pull off a list and send it over to client and hope for the best and I like that fact that we go that extra mile.

L: It’s all too easy to lie in a media pack and say you’re getting a specific amount of unique monthly visitors when actually the real answer is a lot lower.

A: And yeah that’s one of the things you have to watch out for. But so we’ve found a list and we’ve kinda got that all done what do you feel, you know for me for the next steps, that’s to try and build the relationship.

L: Yeah, I think definitely sort of engage with them on sort of a personal level not just a I’m a PR, you’re a blogger how can you help me, how can I get you free stuff. Actually create relationships because a lot of the time the sort of bloggers and vloggers I’m talking to are my age, their sort of in their early 20’s, their talking about the same TV shows I’m talking about on twitter, their watching the same films, their eating the same food so there’s always that platform on twitter to sort of build up the relationships then hopefully the day comes, one day, it might not come, but if it does when maybe a brand I’m working with could use them or that could sort of help them at all as well as they help the brand then it sort of, the idea of me is already in their minds so they will email me back. But I would never DM.

A: Not on a first date.

L: No not on a first date and never DM asking a blogger or vlogger for some help because that is a way to get unfollowed.

A: I think that one of the things I learnt from that panel was that Hannah was saying that she got What’s App’d by a PR and that was just like take the shame.

L: ::Shudders:: Yeah

A: But also one of the things where the penny finally drops for me on the panel that these guys, we call them bloggers we’re scared of them because we’re worried that we’ll end up on some snarky Facebook group like dickhead pr’s that have done a bad outreach. But one of the things I found really interesting was that people like Hannah said, well actually very similar to a journalist, because you know, she is a former journalist.

L: Yeah

A: I’m not interested in a relationship long term, I’m, you know, if you’ve got a good story you come to me, I don’t care about that. And that kind of made me thing, actually yeah this is just the same approach but to a different audience.

L: Yeah, I think that an interesting point that Hannah has actually made on her blog as well is that the different reactions she got from PR’s after moving from being a journalist to a being a PR. Her followers went down, people just aren’t as engaged because they don’t think that, that relationship is beneficial mutually anymore when actually, if anything I think for a blogger or vlogger it’s more beneficial because they’re not writing for some publication they’re writing for themselves.

A: But that’ll be the SEO people again, they’ve thought well she’s come off Gorkana, well, she’s still on there but she’s not down for doing metro and all that so actually we’ll take her off our influencer list but the reality is she’s far more influential now than she probably was because she’s writing for a mix of people and she has her own platform where she’s doing amazing things.

L: Yeah cosmo last week, her listicles on the metro are still like some of the most, I still see some of her listicles from like last year still on like facebook, people share them, the big one about the reasons you know you’re in your 20’s that was everywhere so obviously she is the kind of blogger that you want to be knowing, people like her.

A: We’re loving her off now, aren’t we?

L: Yeah

A: We seem a bit infatuated. But I think, so we found out how, in the video so far we found out how we identify people, how we sort of build that relationship and I guess it sort of leads on to that murky area then of do you have to pay for stuff.

L: Yeah and obviously that is the big question and I think that when we work with brands who obviously, have the capacity to sort of give away free things or offer free treatments then it obviously going to give that interest. But then at the same time maybe some sort of bloggers or vloggers with maybe less of a presence at the moment will just be happy to maybe take some information, some advice, some sort of feature work or some text, anything really, they wouldn't necessarily want the money but maybe sort of a mention on their own social so maybe it would be sort of you give us a link on your blog and we’ll mention you on our twitter that has sort of 20,000 plus followers so it’s sort of mutual benefit.

A: It’s the same as you wouldn’t go to cosmo and ask them for a free full page ad, would you? You’d pay for it and that’s essentially what you’re doing with bloggers but I think the grey area with is there because if the blogger is say interested in you then yeah, they might be more willing to do something for free or for gifting where as I think if we’re entirely honest, if you were a, we haven’t got a cash back client, so if you were a dull cash back site and you went to a high end fashion blogger and wanted some content around vouchers or the excitement around vouchers to be honest, that doesn’t fit with your natural copy, you’re gonna want paying for that people it’s not as nice as writing about the latest fashion trends of X brand.

L: Yeah and they’re always, always going to be thinking about how their coming across to their followers…

A: Yeah

L: And they don’t wanna maybe be perceive as a cop out or someone who is just doing anything for the money which is just, I think I have seen some bloggers where it’s really obvious that they’re being sponsored or they’re being paid to promote a product that normally they wouldn’t think twice about talking about on their social media platforms and it just makes me think, oh well, you’ve sort of sold out a bit. Fair play you’re getting paid for it but I don’t think it really wanna read your blog anymore so…

A: I think that bloggers as well, the thing that I’ve learnt is that they’ve got this, there’s still a bit of confusion, so they all know they’re supposed to declare if they’ve been paid for the post or if they’ve been gifted things, I think the grey area is and as I understand it the Irb? have said look if you give a link, sorry if you give a link because you’ve been paid then you should make that a no follow link. Now the bottom line is and I learnt this last week, the vast majority of bloggers that I spoke to don’t actually know how to make a link no follow. You know, they’ve got their wordpress login and they’ve handed over the advertising side of it to maybe an ad company but they don’t really know how to do that, it’s still a real grey area, do you give a link, do you not give a link.

L: I think you should always give a link.

A: Yes, yes so do I. And one of the other areas that I was quite interested in is that most of the big bloggers I spoke to actually give copy approval and that’s something…

L: Yeah

A: that I’ve never, in my historic PR days

L: Especially, if you dare ask a journalist for…

A: oh my god.

L: Copy approval they just…

A: Well, we wouldn’t be sat here chatting

L: No

A: We’d be dead in a stream. But no, I think that’s one of the big things, where bloggers are giving copy approval but that also brings a problem as well because brands are so protective of what’s written

L: Yeah

A: They don’t let the content flow naturally

L: And I think that, that was one of the learning curves with the Lisa Gregory video because obviously there was a lot of points, that rightly so Optical Express wanted to make sure remained in the video but at the same time we very much wanted it to view as a review for the audiences like anyone of her other videos that’s not obviously sponsored. So it was finding that line between making sure that all the points were hit and all the mentions were made and links were given etc but still showcased her personality and it came across as very much her style and I think was where we really got it right with that video.

A: Yeah because I think one of the things I’ve heard brands saying too much or bloggers what they’re saying is that the natural conversation if you love something will be “I love this make up, it’s brilliant” but there’s always, it’s just nature and the way humans behave, there will always be something that’s like “this make ups brilliant, it’s absolutely fantastic but maybe I didn’t like the colour of the packaging” and that’s where brands need to take a step back and go, “alright” just let that go because that’s how people talk.

L: Yeah and that’s when you see the good social media brands as opposed to the bad ones when they only retweet and they only reply to the good or the positive comments and they either ignore or they try and do a sneaky DM so they don’t have to make it public the criticism or the negative comments where as I always appreciate it if I have made a complaint to a brand if they have really publicly responded to me so their followers can see that they’ve made a mistake of they’ve done something wrong and their working on it then I always think that that’s a lot more honest and transparent. And the same with brands and bloggers as well I think it should be.

A: Ok so let’s wrap up, what’s your number one tip for blogger identification?

L: Do your research, don’t think it’s just like a half arsed job, it’s a really, really important thing

and don’t be sort of disheartened if they never get back to you because they’re busy and sometimes they even have full time jobs so it’s just sort of working at it and building the relationships. That was more than one.

A: We’ve covered them off, there’s nothing left for me to say other than thank you very much, Lauren our PR and outreach superstar and we look forward to speaking to you again next month.

L: Next month? Ok Yay!

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