Overview
We have talked numerous times about how to get more traffic through backlinks to your website. One of the best strategies to do this is through blogger outreach. The benefits to a great blogger outreach campaign are immense and as an SEO and social media agency, we use this strategy daily for or clients. From more backlinks to your website to increase social shares and traffic, you can receive a tremendous benefit from a finely tuned blogger outreach program.
The challenge is that often most businesses have no clue how to do this correctly. We want to go through a few strategies to improve your blogger outreach, so you get links and traffic instead of insults and despair.
5 Strategies for Improving Blogger Outreach
Bring something of value
Do not just contact bloggers to ask something from them. Just like you, they lead busy lives. Bloggers do not want to be interrupted every 10 seconds to help another business get a backlink or social shares for their latest and greatest product. Instead, when you speak to them bring value into their lives. The old WIIFM adage holds true. People need to know what’s in it for them before they help you.
Make sure you either have valuable content for their blog or a way to help them increase their reach. That way, you are not just reaching out to be bothersome.
Start with gratitude
Another key to blogger outreach is to be grateful towards the blogger for their time and help. Do not expect them to help you, because you deserve it. Instead, remember everything your mother said about thank you and respect. How can people fault you for being grateful for their help? This might not be a strategy exactly, but a good way to improve any blogger outreach campaign.
Follow Up, Follow Up, and more Follow Up
The biggest key to success in business is your sense of consistency. That is the power of follow up. More than likely, not ever blogger wants to help with your campaign. For example, Digital Philippines stated out of 159 bloggers it reached out to for a round up post, only 38 of them responded. Another round up post, garnered 37 out of 99 bloggers. That indicates you need to follow up with a lot more bloggers in order to get the numbers you need for a post.
It also helps to follow up with bloggers more than once to ensure they received your message amongst all the other messages they receive on a daily basis.
Use Social Media
Every blogger worth their salt has a few social media accounts. That is where they grow their base, and garner traffic. Therefore, it makes sense to stay connected with other bloggers on social media.
Have a presence on the main social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Then pay attention to the niche networks as needed. For example, B2B blogs should join LinkedIn. B2C retail outlets should consider Instagram. While you want to connect with them through social media, spend some time sharing popular bloggers information on your own social networking feed. They might even reach out to you, because of all the help you provided them.
Here are some rules for the three major social networks:
Twitter– One of the best places to get other bloggers to share your content. With over 500 million Tweets going out every day, you have a lot of competition. The reason so many go out, however, is that they work. Twitter is an exceptional traffic driver for your website.
Facebook– Avoiding Facebook for most bloggers is like asking mountain climbers to forgo air. Not a smart thing to do. Most of them have their own fan page. Reach out to them through a message to their fan page to connect.
Pinterest– While Pinterest might not work for every demographic, if you have a strong female audience it is worth considering a look. They have a messenger service like Facebook for connections.
Be yourselfÂ
Here is the biggest secret to blogger outreach. Be yourself! Don’t pretend to be something you are not in order to impress your connections.  In many cases, we start reaching out to others and become ultra-professional and ultra-boring. It is okay to be professional, but you have to understand that if it comes at the extent of pretending to be someone else it will sound unnatural and weird.
Blogging is about creating content in your own unique voice. If you cannot convey that voice when talking to bloggers, it might be hard to translate your vision to readers.
Final Thoughts
A good blogger outreach requires some hard work and a positive attitude. Using the strategies we discuss here makes it easier for your campaign to succeed. Â The more you successful blogger relationships you create, the more you have the power to reach out to more authoritative and influential bloggers in your niche.
This can lead to some powerful allies helping you build your blog. If you want to know about how to use blogger outreach to build your blog, please feel free to contact Shout.
