To really get the most out of your influencer marketing strategy, first consider how influencers even became a thing. You might think of celebrities on Instagram as the original “influencers,” since so many people followed them and brands seriously wanted in on those eager audiences.
But the truth is that influencers go back before that – before Instagram even existed. The first influencers were pretty much never called influencers, because they went by another name: bloggers. From exercise to interior design to home cooking, bloggers were all over the internet before the social media craze, and they were great at it, garnering tons of niche followers who loved their work.
What you might not know is today, bloggers are even bigger than ever; the number of active bloggers is expected to increase to 32 million by 2020, a 12% increase since 2015.
While some have hung up their blogging hats, many are thriving. In fact, some of the influencers you know and love likely got their start on their blog. Today, we’re going to talk about why you should start partnering with the influencer OGs to maximize your influencer marketing strategy.
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1. Flexible and Diverse Content
First off, we’re not recommending you abandon your social media influencers. They’re still a vital part of your brand campaigns. Instead, we’re suggesting that there’s room for both in your influencer marketing strategy. The reason they can coexist so well is that they often bring different audiences and skillsets to the table.
Many bloggers – especially those that have been around for a while – have very different audiences than their social media counterparts. They generally have a large following that has been with them for a while and therefore trusts them a lot because they’ve proven their expertise through long-form content.
Bloggers simply have more space to work with, since blog posts can be as long, or longer, than feature articles in magazines. They can also include photos, videos, graphics and interactive elements that social media cannot.
And the best bloggers have established themselves as a knowledgeable, helpful and trustworthy experts in their niche in a way that social media cannot do alone. Seeking out these types of bloggers in categories that align with your brand gives you and the influencers the flexibility to create unique (and diverse) content.
2. Longer Content Lifespan
Because of that space bloggers have to work with, the longevity of their work is far greater than that of their social media counterparts – and even their own social media posts. While you might save an Instagram post or retweet later, they simply do not have the long-term lifespan of a blog post. In fact, a tweet lasts only 18 minutes compared to an evergreen blog post which lasts two years – or longer if it’s regularly updated and reoptimized.
Imagine if you operated a hot sauce company and you partnered with a trusted cooking blogger to create a recipe that featured your specific brand of hot sauce. Not only can you use that right when they publish it, you can also use it in your marketing efforts for as long as that blog post exists.
Even better, people can find it organically for as long as it exists – Googling a recipe blog post is quick and easy; scrolling back two years in an Instagram feed is not.
Regardless of your brand, partnering with a blogger gives you long-form content that can be used, reused and repurposed for a long time. This doesn’t mean it’s better or worse than traditional social media influencer marketing; it’s a completely different tactic, and when used side-by-side, they can greatly boost your ROI.
3. Better SEO
Long-form content has another bonus: it boosts your SEO.
How?
Well, one thing Google factors into its ranking algorithm is backlinks – links on other sites that lead to yours. While social media does play a minor role in ranking, these backlinks are essential for ranking. The more backlinks you have, the more Google trusts that your website is good enough for Google page one.
So when you collaborate with a blogger on a post, do you want visitors to click the link to go buy your product? Absolutely. Does that post last longer than a social media post? Yup. Can you reshare or repurpose that blog post for months or years to come? Definitely.
But equally awesome is that SEO boost that can help your own site – not just the blogger’s content – show up higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a long, long time.
How to Get Started
Even if you’re convinced, you may not know how to begin searching for bloggers who fit your exact criteria and budget. And even the best campaign strategy in the world is meaningless when targeted to the wrong audience.
The best way to tap into that ideal audience is to use a platform like Perlu that gives you access to the right audiences via the right bloggers. With Perlu, you can filter bloggers by domain authority and see how active and connected each blogger is to ensure you find only the best. You can also check out bloggers’ collaboration history to make sure they fully align with your brand.
The most important thing is to find the right bridge between your brand and your audience. Sometimes social media influencers are the perfect bridge, but if you’re looking to take it to the next level, seek out bloggers with niche audiences that align with your brand.
