Top Tools And Tips For Blogger Outreach

The Internet has indeed given such power to consumers that "going social" has become a requirement for businesses. This has made blogging an essential part of any business' marketing strategy, as it allows you to reach a targeted audience and establish your expertise in the industry.

Aside from maintaining a company blog, you may also want to engage in blogger outreach, which involves reaching out to influential bloggers in your niche. If you sell fashion accessories online, for example, you could give fashion bloggers a $100 gift certificate they can use on your website in exchange for featuring your business on their blog. Here are a few blogger outreach tips to get you started:

1. Choose Your Bloggers
   
   Finding the right bloggers to reach out to often requires considerable time and effort, so you'll have to be very patient. The best way to start is to do some research on Technorati or on Google Blog Search. Draw up a short list from your research and then check out each blog on your list. Read a number of posts on each blog (along with the comments under each post) so you'll get a feel of its influence and relevance. At the end of your research, you should have a final list of bloggers who have the most relevance to your business and influence on your target market.
   
   
2. Get to Know Your Chosen Bloggers
   
   Please note that blogging and blogger outreach are all about the relationships you build. Therefore, you should take the time to get to know your chosen bloggers before you actually approach them with your proposal. Familiarize their "About" page, engage with them on the comments section of their blog, and try to gauge if they're open to PR approaches.
   
   
3. Approach
   
   Once you've successfully engaged in productive conversation with your chosen bloggers and determined that they are indeed open to PR approaches, you can make your approach. The key to approaching a blogger is to be transparent and up-front with your proposal. A personalized approach is also preferable, particularly one wherein you show familiarity with their blog by referring to recent posts. More importantly, you should emphasize that the blogger isn't under any obligation to give a positive review of your business. Assure them that your intention is to get an honest review from them.

Of course, you should never forget to thank each blogger when he or she finally posts his or her review. There are also tools you can use to make blogger outreach a lot easier. Here are some of them:

1. MozBar
   
   This SEO toolbar is available for both Firefox and Chrome. It provides you with a number of helpful metrics such as Page Authority and Domain Authority. It also boasts of other features like Back Tweets, no-follow highlighting, and links to such sites as Quantcast, Compete, and Alexa. As mentioned above, the first step you need to take is draw up a list of blogs you'd want your business to be featured on. MozBar can be very helpful in this respect, as it allows you to get a SERP overlay of Page Authority and Domain Authority. This, in turn, allows you to quickly check the quality of each blog.
   
   
2. BuzzStream
   
   This tool allows you to automatically filter through a blog site to locate pertinent information. It also allows you to identify the sites that currently link to your company website. This will definitely be very useful if you're doing blogger outreach from a PR-based or link-building perspective. The fact that it allows you to set up email templates also makes the tool extremely valuable in terms of productivity. When you send out emails on the BuzzStream interface, you'll be given a full history of the interaction you've had so far with the party you're sending the email to. Any note you may have added will also be shown. Perhaps the best news about this tool is that it is continually being developed and improved.
   
   
3. InkyBee
   
   This is a new tool and is, in fact, still in beta form. However, it has already proven valuable to a good number of businesses. One of its biggest advantages is an excellent interface, which you seldom see in such tools, along with the ease of use. You simply need to click on "Add Delivery Job" and then provide three keywords, and the tool will search for relevant blogs for you. You may then add selected blogs to your main list and the tool provides access to information such as audience size, posts per week, and engagement. It even allows you to scan for social accounts, which definitely makes it a lot easier to determine which bloggers you should reach out to. This tool is definitely worth watching out for.
   
   
4. Follower Wonk
   
   It may be a good idea to use known influencers and authorities in your industry as a starting point for blogger outreach. This is where this particular tool can assist you. It allows you to easily identify the influencers and authorities in your industry. Using keywords, you can track, compare, and analyze a blog's followers to see if the blogger qualifies as an influencer and/or industry authority.
   
   
5. SEM Rush
   
   You may think this tool doesn't really have much to offer in terms of blogger outreach, but that's not necessarily true. Remember that blogger outreach relies heavily on your ability to identify the right blog sites - this is where SEM Rush can help you. This tool can easily identify blog sites that recently took a hit from an algorithm update and therefore don't have much traffic. Such sites won't give you any significant return on your blogger outreach investment, so it's best to avoid them.

Bear in mind that the tools discussed above are just some of those you can take advantage of for now. You can expect new tools to pop up at any time and some of the tools discussed here may no longer be ideal a few years from now. At present, though, these may be the best tools for you to use owing to their straightforward nature and the fact that they help you maximize results. Investing in them will certainly save you a significant amount of time, effort, and stress!


About The Author: Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver company that provides SEO services to businesses across North America. If you would like to invite the author to write on your blog too please contact www.pitstopmedia.com

Did you find this article helpful? Do you engage in blogger outreach as part of your marketing strategy? Please let Emma and myself know by leaving us your valued comments.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DereksHomeAndBusinessBlog

You can also follow me on Twitter @djones1509, Google+ and on Facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/djones1509
https://plus.google.com/104849975941505117776

Until my next post on Wednesday on why the Alexa toolbar is such an effective business tool, have a great and productive week ahead!

© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.