Being an avid reader of blogs, I have noticed a trend in recent years toward sponsored posts. In class we talked about how brands are using influencers for marketing. This trend can be seen as companies are increasingly turning to bloggers to promote their products. They give these people free products to review and give away on their blogs. But why? WebBizIdeas gives three main reasons and I’ll explore them below.
1) Reviews and giveaways inexpensively increase market exposure.
According to the article, some popular bloggers can charge $500 for each paid post. While it’s a nice amount of money for a blogger, it’s cheaper than a celebrity campaign. Beauty bloggers like essiebutton have over 103,000 followers on bloglovin’ that cosmetic brands can reach.
Essiebutton’s blog that focuses mainly on beauty posts.
2) They get people talking about a product socially.
Posts on blogs give consumers the chance to leave comments. If the product is particularly expensive or new, it’s helpful for consumers to hear about others’ experiences with the products, whether it be the blogger or other commenters.
3) They increase mentions of their company name and product name online for SEO purposes.
Back to my essiebutton example. At the beginning of the year, she reviewed the Tarte Amazonian Clay Airbrush Foundation on her blog. Google the product name and you’ll see her blog post on the first page of results. The best part for Tarte? People know it’s a raving review without even having to click through.
Google “Tarte Clay Amazonian Airbrush Foundation”.
Bloggers are certainly a great medium through which to more subtly advertise products. Companies get access to that blogger’s influence and audience, while bloggers get to enjoy free products and share great content. Win-win!