On the inflationary use of lifestyle-blogger outreach
My dear ex-colleague Gerald Hensel has made some smart observations about lifestyle blogging having become such a normal part of brand activation strategies that its use has become somewhat, well, meh. While a few years ago, we would have pushed brands to embrace blogger-vetting of their lifestyle brands for credibility, it has become more and more a questionable practice at this point. Says Mr. Hensel
What was once a crazy and very different (very earned media) way to interact with this strange new world of social media has changed. Lifestyle bloggers have successfully become preferred members of the royal household of major car, fashion, and entertainment brands.
Mr Hensel cautions that this development is just a gradual improvement of our definition of paid media. And, for sure, the “paid media” part of this assessment seems like a correct assessment. After all, bloggers receive goods and services for their voice and reach.
However, I wonder if we should call this an improvement at all? If more and more earned media becomes just slightly improved paid media, we are, in some sense, back to square one, and people will unmask this development, and brands will once again risk their opportunity to create credible content experiences.
Hensel finishes his opinion piece by saying
We have a new class of bloggers. And this new class enjoys the industry’s growing interest in their services and knows what it has to ask for to stay happy.
True. And let’s just remember that these bloggers are where they are not because of the industry’s interest but because of people like you an me. And it is easier and quicker to squander this trust than you think. This fact isn’t helped by the tendency of Brand Management or Digital Marketing folks still inadvertently focusing on blog reach as main strategic metric instead of blog credibility or other grassroots soft metrics. So, when you do you blogger outreach, be sure of how well vetted your blogger outreach actually is with actual customers.
Read the whole thing here.
