In our new digital world, building social media influence and maintaining a good online reputation is an integral part of good B2B PR and marketing.

Your social media marketing plan should include ‘blogger outreach’ – a programme of work to develop relationships with influential bloggers who will recommend your products or services to a wider audience.

These online recommendations can help build trust amongst your target customers and increase your brand awareness and sales. Another benefit is that if the bloggers include mentions of your products then they will also include a mention of your website in their articles. These high-quality links to your website from influential bloggers will boost your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Although blogger outreach is a tactic most commonly associated with the B2C sector (beauty bloggers and YouTubers are increasingly popular), it also holds significant value as part of your B2B PR and marketing.

Third party recommendations will help you to appear sincere whilst increasing brand awareness and credibility. According to a survey by Demand Gen, 72% of respondents looked to industry peers to help them make B2B purchasing decisions. A recommendation for your company (or your products/services) from an influential blogger will undoubtedly make a good impression and progress your prospective customers in the sales cycle.

Below are our 3 steps to engaging with B2B social media influencers:

Find your influencers

The first step in blogger outreach is to identify your target blogs and the ones which professionals in your industry are likely to follow. This can be achieved through a simple Google search based on criteria such as:

• Relevance of content – good quality niche content which is consumed by your target audience is extremely valuable
• Regularity of posting – this shows how active the blogger is and that they are likely to be aware of new and current trends in the industry
• Quality of content – it’s important to work with bloggers who create content which position them as thought leaders in their field

Connect with bloggers

Networking is crucial to connecting with bloggers. You can do this by sending a direct message to an individual blogger or by sending out a message to a whole network. LinkedIn is proven to be an effective tool for engaging with influencers and finding out more about the topics they write about.

Although blogger outreach is driven by a business goal, it’s important that you inject personality into your correspondence. Make sure you do your research and then contact the blogger individually rather than sending out a mass correspondence which comes across as cold and impersonal.

Maintain the relationship

Maintaining relationships with bloggers is the most important part of any influencer strategy. Instead of simply stopping any contact once they have helped you achieve a particular goal, regularly share their content, comment on their posts and ask them if they would like to contribute any content for your own social media or website. A nurtured and sustained relationship will be more mutually beneficial for both parties in the long term.

At Genesis PR, we work with our clients to identify and engage with the relevant influential bloggers for their industry or business sector. We help them to build brand awareness, improve their online reputation and grow their business.

Please get in touch to see how we can develop an integrated PR and social media marketing plan for your business.