Photography by Mtickzgraphie
I did a poll on twitter last year on if brands and bloggers( influencers) in East Africa are doing a great job of working together and/or whether we need to work more on it and here are the results i got based on the few people that took the poll.
Do you think brands in East Africa have/are working with a lot of Influencers
— sakrii (@lehautestyle) June 23, 2016
As bloggers or social influencers, do you always approach brands to work together or they approach you first?
— sakrii (@lehautestyle) June 23, 2016
What i got from both polls is that , influencer marketing is not dead and at the same time as most people voted, it could be better and we as bloggers and influencers need to approach more brands and give them your ideas so they can work with you since that is where it all begins. You can not always wait for brands to approach you go ahead and email them ( i will talk more on this some other time).
So here are 5 Ways how bloggers(influencers) can work together with brands.
SPONSORED POSTS
This is when brands pay bloggers and influencers to create content and write about their campaign, product or brand on their blogs / social platforms. Bloggers will create the content, based off the product/campaign suitable for his/her readers so that they can promote your brand. For example a shoe brand is working on a new shoe design campaign, the brands will work with the blogger by providing details of the campaign and maybe a hashtag on it,the blogger will then create creative content on their blog talking about the shoe in a way that his/her readers will be able to grasp the idea and be compelled to buy the shoe. Since the target after all is to find more customers and have the shoe campaign reach a lot of people, the blogger will do that by posting it on their blogs where they have readers that share the same niche and trust his/her opinion.
PRODUCT REVIEWS
Studies show that before a customer purchases a certain product or service they search for reviews on the product first to see what has been said about the product. Brands can collaborate with bloggers through sending them products and paying them to review them honestly in their own opinions for their readers . Whilst some of the readers may know about the product of your brand,some may not have heard about your brand so when they are reading about it from someone they trust,they will want to try the product from your brand just based off the review from the blogger.
AD SPACE ON BLOGS
Some brands wouldn't want to give bloggers and influencers their products to review so the next best thing is to allow bloggers to host a giveaway for them. This way both the blogger and the brand will gain something , in which the blogger will give back to their readers and the brand will have free advertising of their product or even grow a following or subscribing list depending on the type of giveaway one hosts.
EXPERIENCE / SERVICE REVIEWS
Experience review is different from product review in some ways, if you are like my blog you also may have a lifestyle blog where you get to share your experiences of places you've been or services you've experienced. I.e Hotels , lodges, Spa,restaurants and one of my favorites travel agencies. In order to understand this whole concept for either the brand or a blogger reading this i will give out an example or an idea on how this will work, say a hotel is working on holiday packages and they want to get the message to people ofcourse advertsing it on tv/radio and their social media accounts saying they have new holiday packages is what they would do first, but another way to tell people about the holiday packages is by working with bloggers who are real people who can give their own honest opinion on the packages by either spending time there ( depending on the package offered) they get to spend and experience what the hotel has to offer in terms of the package and then share it with their readers. As I mentioned above most people reasearch about a place or product and check out the reviews and if they get to see how one experienced a certain service it motivates them to buy the package since they saw the full experience by reading it from the blogger.
I know this was a long post but i hope in one way or the other it has brought more light into this matter concerning bloggers and brands and how we can work together. I love to see more brands work with us because we are the future of marketing and advertising.
Wearing :
Hat : Styleyoursoul
Denim Jacket : Denimandstaples
Jumpsuit : theplugtz
