Search Laboratory Content and Online PR Manager Liberty Howard recently wrote a great blog post about the 3 R`s of working with Bloggers. Through interviews with bloggers, this post showed that relationship building is a must in our industry and the only way forward!
Low quality and boring content is not a recipe for a harmonious relationship between SEOs and bloggers – instead an effort needs to be made to actually get to know the people behind those sites and then try and help each other out. It should be a give and take relationship between the bloggers, us and other influencers of the industry.
In order to get to know the influencers and bloggers we work with, Search Laboratory try to attend as many blogger and networking events as possible, because lets be honest, without having met anyone face-to-face it is quite hard to build up a solid relationship. We have attended several blogger events in the UK and earlier this year I went to a blogger event in Germany, in order to get to know the people we work with on international campaigns.
The event FashionBloggerCafé organised by Styleranking, a very popular fashion community led by 10 people, was an official part of the Berlin Fashion Week in January. It is a mix of meet and greet workshops, guest lectures and discussions. This year more than 200 Bloggers were expected for this event. This was our chance to actually get to know some of the bloggers and influencers we have been working with over the last few months. Thanks to one of the organisers, Renae Schwabe, I was able to attend the event and had the opportunity to meet some really interesting people from the fashion industry.
The bloggers and writers that I met were happy to meet someone from Search Laboratory, as they have been in contact with me or some of my German colleagues for quite a while.
The event was great for networking and exchanging ideas. There were several sponsors at the event, presenting their new collection and products. There was an area where you could get your nails done and also an area for the more creative ones to design their own leather jewellery – not forgetting about the delicious cupcakes and sandwiches.
The guest lectures were really interesting and gave us an insight into the future of fashion blogs. It was said that the new trend would be the formation of blog networks with one landing page. The goal is that high influential bloggers would work together to build one big brand, combining their readers and their knowledge. and their style is the way forward. An interesting direction and I think we should try and be part of these formations and support the bloggers wherever we can.
It was also apparent that more and more bloggers do know about SEO, however they do not really understand how it works and what it is that we actually do. Often SEO companies are mistaken for affiliate programs. My goal was to explain to them what SEO is, what it is that we can do for them and how we can work together without going against Googles guidelines.
They were all interested and told me that what they want is to stay real to their readers, offer them exclusive and interesting content as well as getting more exposure for their blog – all things that we are able to help them with! This just shows me again that we as SEO companies need to make sure we educate the people we are working with about our industry and then try and find a solution for how we can work with each other so that both parties have an advantage from the collaboration.
The trip to Germany was a great experience and I am happy to have strengthened some of the relationships we have built over the years. Hopefully in the future we will be able to meet up with them again. Thanks to Styleranking for the organisation of this event and thanks to all the lovely people that I have met at this reunion.
My tip is get to know the people you are working with! Make an effort and genuinely show an interest in what they are doing. Try and meet up with as many influencers of your industry as you can and build up a network that everyone can benefit from. It is hard work to build up those relationships, but it is worth it, and the only way forward in our industry.
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