This topic is a little sensitive for some but we all know that there are all sorts of bloggers/journalists/PRs/Brands out there who may genuinely want to connect with you because of your personality, your style, similar interests or connect with you just because they did some research on your statistics. It’s a very grey area on intentions and I guess everyone goes through different mind sets when starting a blog and when you have made something of yourself and feel like someone is trying to take advantage of you. We can get very paranoid and second guess someone who is trying to connect with you but sometimes we need to think outside the box as well as being a bit smart. I totally understand if someone who’s just started out a blog and want loads of followers straight away! I am not one to shy away as I remembered only have 17 followers and it was a little embarrassing when my work which involved social media asked how many followers I had. So I probably tweeted 150 messages to beauty bloggers to follow each other and after a few hours of copy and pasting the tweets to many bloggers; I managed to hit 100 followers. Great, I had a healthy number of followers on twitter but that was just all for show. Much sooner after that; my friends were asking me whether I use twitter much and I say no because I cannot relate to any of the conversations on there or have anything to say. This then prompted me to realise that I had all these hard earned followers with no substance, no interest. So I cleansed my following list ( I really feel bad that I’ve asked them to follow me and now I have de-followed) and keep the ones I am interested in reading and engage with. I realised I love talking about food and things to do in London and these are the interests I am really engaged with. Since this change; I have grown my followers progressively due to mutual interests and now I check my tweets when I wake up, before I go to bed and everything in between. Sometimes; it is fun to tweet your favourite restaurant and ask them a silly question because I was hungry and bored! For instance, I tweeted Bunnychow: “If you weren’t a loaf, what would you be and why?” They love the good humour and responded: “I would be a cookie, but not an ordinary cookie, but a cookie monster!”
So I totally get it if newby bloggers trying to up their following; but naturally you would find bloggers out there whom you would share that same interest and engage with one another and build a community (not gonna lie, it can as easy as days or as hard as months/years).
Having good statistics (basically social following and influence, Page Rank, Page Authority, Domain Authority to name a few) helps to be honest. Couple of years ago it was all about your page rank and/or page authority and how your blog post will help assist the ranking for a brand you are collaborating with. Now, there seems to be a shift where social influence seems to be just as important as ranking. Again, people blog because it is there passion, and there are those that wants to build a business from it, and those who wants both. Nothing wrong with it but as long as you work hard, engage with your audience with quality content (content is king) your stats will grow as a result of it. But who am I to give advice; it’s so much harder in practice and I am still working hard to find my feet and write quality content. Having good statistics means your inbox will start to flood with email collaborations from brands, PRs and other bloggers. How do they know? It’s all about your ranking and influence and by scouring through the net (there are millions of blogs out there) they will find you and put your link in a special generator that gives them all the perfect numbers to decide whether you are influential enough to help assist the ranking of a competitive keyword or build enough awareness for a brand campaign (and convert).
Why are PRs pushy and rude?
Sometimes, there are newby PRs who may come across a little rude which I can forgive if this is their new job. They learn from their mistakes (hopefully) and realise that we are all people and there is no need for rudeness if they get a little pushy. However, we kind of have to remember that PRs have huge pressures on them; they have a lot of expectations and delivery from their bosses and the clients themselves at such a short turnaround. When PRs getting pushy and desperate, or chase you for a blog post it’s because someone is giving them grief to deliver so that I totally understand! They wouldn’t be pushy for now reason at all so I do sympathise, however I totally disagree if PRs feel like they are entitled over you and expect things that weren’t outlined at the start. It’s all about building relationships, not a short term spin on a project where they are all nice and dandy with you and then once you’ve written their post they get cold or all of sudden unreachable. I really hate arrogant PRs and if you ever engage with them; don’t hold back because they really need to be told! I was helping my sister out before and came across an email to promote their brand and I asked for a fee as my sister is a full time blogger and her income comes through blogging. The PR guy lashed back saying other bloggers do not charge and that me asking for a fee was offensive and that we should be grateful. What normal person would think this arrogant message is acceptable? I had to blast back and I know that blasting back it won’t have an impact unless I speak with his manager because his attitude stunk bad and made a complaint. The PR guy got back to us and apologised and blamed it on “personal issues” which affected his performance at work…I am sorry, if you have issues in your personal life that is no excuse to behave that way. Anyway, take no mercy for those who talks to you like dicks!
Nevertheless, I had wonderful experiences with PRs too which benefited both parties. There’s not a lot of praise for the PRs as it is very easy to write about negative posts about them. PRs really help out to give us the opportunity to collaborate (if it is in your favour too) which otherwise you wouldn’t have if you didn’t get approached. I like to approach PRs and brands directly and they are more than happy to collaborate (given you have offered them a valuable idea to collaborate) with you. We are all busy individuals and too many blogs out there; get yourself noticed because otherwise; they won’t know who you are. Before you know it, you get invited back now and again down the line because of the genuine relationship you have built.
I can happily say that I have made some genuine friends from the blogging world and I couldn’t be more grateful. You know who you are and hopefully I will meet more from around the world. May x
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