Throughout the year many brands these days like to collaborate with a range of bloggers, to help support their marketing efforts and get the word of their brand out to a wider audience.
With so many bloggers of different niches in today’s landscape, many bloggers, particularly the newer ones are asking the question; “what are brands looking for in a blogger?”
Having worked in the influencer industry for over 5+ years and now forming The Blogger Pack where we work as a blogger directory and intermediary between both bloggers and brands, I can honestly tell you that there isn’t just one thing that brands are looking for. It all depends on the brands ethos and business objectives.
But nevertheless, there are some common themes brands do look for that bloggers should be aware of – not all of the below are an obvious thought. Some can be measured and unfortunately there are some that are completely subjective to the individual. Here are the top five things brands are looking for in a blogger from our perspective.
1) Traffic
As you start out with your blog, it’s only natural that your blog statistics will be low. It’s crucial you measure your blogs traffic by installing an analytics widget, with the most popular being the free wordpress version or Google Analytics for more in-depth results.
Brands are looking for blogs with higher traffic, as they know more people will read the message they are trying to communicate and drive people to their site, should a link be included. Traffic can be increased through social media support, keyword optimised posts and collaborations with other websites, which could offer increased exposure of your blog.
Top blogger tip: Create a media kit that is easy to update regularly. Put it on your site, on an easy to find page such as ‘contact’ so brands can track down your blog stats with ease.
2) Domain Authority
Domain Authority is a score that Moz developed to measure and compare how well a website is ranking within Google search engines, so is very much an SEO measurement.
You can get a score between 0 and 100. The higher your blog is, the stronger and more authoritative your website is, meaning more brands will want to form collaborations with you. Improve this score through collaborations with other websites, creating quality relevant content to your website and ensuring a consistent output. Keep in mind this will be a slow growth, so don’t give up easily!
Top blogger tip: You can find out your blogs domain authority (DA) for free using this Moz tool. Simply insert your blog URL.
3) Social Following
Social media is of course crucial to growing your blog and for a brand is now more important than ever as will help to get the word of their brand or product out to new audiences. The more engaged your audience is, the more likely a brand will want to collaborate with you as it shows more interest from your audience in what you are posting.
Top blogger tip: Really think about the platforms you want to be on – it’s not necessary to be on them all, but you do want to grow your audiences on the ones where you are present as a blogger and focus on engagement.
4) Good Quality Posts
With so many bloggers out there, brands aren’t just looking for any old post these days. They want to be ensuring high quality in whatever they are being mentioned in whether a blog or social post.
Part of what makes a good quality post is the authenticity and uniqueness of a written piece, image or video. Ensure your blogs are meaningful with plenty of information to really add value to your audience and teach or show them something new. Think about how your blog is positioned and consider how you are standing out there from the crowd. Why should a brand want to work with your blog specifically?
Top blogger tip: Stay strong to your niche and who you are as a blogger, this will always come across in your posts, and brands will see the difference in your posts and blog offerings.
5) Reliability
Finally, reliability is an important one for brands – you don’t want to be getting a bad reputation for being an unreliable blogger in the business.
It’s easy to be seen as reliable – simply answer your emails regularly, post when it’s agreed, show up to events if you say you’ll attend and don’t let a brand down once you’ve committed to the campaign in question.
Top blogger tip: If you do for some reason need to drop out, be polite about it and communicate with them about any issues you’re experiencing.
So as you can see, the top five things a brand is looking for in a blogger is very subjective and ranges dependent on the brands objectives, size and industry.
My advice to you as a blogger would be to stay true to who you are, your blog niche and don’t get sucked into every brand collaboration that doesn’t represent what you and your blog are about!
Do you have any experience with working with brands? If so, were there any different collaboration requirements that you’ve experienced?
Kate is the founder of The Blogger Pack, a free comprehensive online UK blogger directory increasing blogger visibility and facilitating brand matches. For more information see www.thebloggerpack.co.uk and connect on Twitter.
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