Blog outreach and why it is important to affiliate networks.
Affiliate networks engage in blog outreach to communicate their message to the audience in the affiliate community. As a community affiliates are more computer literate than most spending all day on the computer. Yes we affiliate are geeks. Where do affiliates get their news, networks, forums and twitter Facebook and blogs.
Want to reach affiliates, bloggers tend to be social network power users who will post about topics and promote it on twitter and Facebook as well as other mediums. Bloggers do this to promote their content and promote their blogs.
Beyond this the larger bloggers tend to be well known industry figures with to varying degrees trusted opinions on affiliate marketing. Having them “endorse” your affiliate network can go a long way in shaping the overall image attributed to you.
Blog outreach goes further than our industry, when advertisers or the wider press are reviewing network they will Google the name of the network and the results will make a difference to the wider perceptions of the company. For networks seeking to work with large brands, raise money / please investors or simply raise their profile this is all important.
I asked some of my friends running the social media for Affiliate Networks for their thoughts.
Daneka Soudak said “At Adsmarket (www.adsmarket.com) , the efforts we make to get connected with the affiliate marketing community through social media tools like our corporate blog (http://blog.adsmarket.com), Facebook, and Twitter have been essential to our goal of providing an outstanding affiliate network partnership with our clients. It can be a challenge building the infrastructure to combine individual efforts from within Adsmarket and create meaningful, regular content, then coordinating that with outreach efforts throughout the blogosphere. As an affiliate network, however, we benefit from understanding our customer base better in their element (forums, other blogs, the twitterverse, etc.) rather than traditional market research, and being able to monitor and respond to "chatter". Blog outreach and other social media tools have become an indispensable part of daily business.”
“Building relationships with well-known bloggers in our industry is a great way to gain positive exposure with potential affiliates and advertisers,” said Tom Wozniak, Director of Marketing for Media Breakaway, LLC (the parent company of affiliate.com). “Any company can promote their business with banner ads and other media buys. Having respected voices speak well of your company is much more powerful and can have a real impact on your business. I am always looking for more bloggers to work with.”
“Social media has really allowed Neverblue to reach our target audience, instantaneously. By effectively utilizing social media we have been able to create opportunities and build relationships far beyond the online conversations.” Said Breanne Storey, Marketing & Communications Specialist at Neverblue.
What research do you do before you start working with an affiliate network?
Guest post by Murray Newlands affiliate blog
