Wednesday 20 November 2013

Campaigns - How and Who with?

Firstly we shall explain the difference between messages and campaigns. Both of which bloggers can send to brands and brands can send to bloggers.

Messages:
Message a brand via the "Message Us" button located on the right of their profile if you have a question or just want to get in touch.

Campaigns:
To request to work with a brand you create a campaign via the "Work with us" button.

Who should you request to work with?
It's best to approach a brand you feel reflects your style and genre, this will increase your chances of having your campaign approved and for a collaboration to start. TIP - Make the message relevant to the brand, mention their name and things about their site. This will show you are genuinely interested and are not sending out the same message to every brand.


Choose a relevant title for the campaign you want to start with the brand. You have the option to suggest an item to review. In your campaign message you can express your interest in working with the brand and together you can work out the best way to work together and where to have the collaboration featured, e.g your blog and instagram.



When you receive a new campaign message you will receive an email notifying you of this on your email associated to your Blogger Programme account. Also on The Blogger Programme site in the navigation menu located at the very top a notification will pop up.
If you read a message but decide to come back to it later, marking it as an unread message might help to remind you to reply at a more convenient time. 

The status of a campaign is mainly for a brand to keep up to date with their different campaigns. As a blogger you can mark the campaign as complete once you have featured your post on the agreed platform. A feature coming soon will be the ability to add the links so the brand can easily find your post.

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Interacting on TBP

The Blogger Programme is a great community as well as a blogging network. We connect like minded bloggers with each other and also brands with the right bloggers to create a hive of social activity. We are all about connecting everyone with new people and sharing your passions - something that is of key importance to all of us!

Ways to interact:
- Add bloggers to your favourites.
- Explore other bloggers and brands favourites to find even more people to interact with, find this at the bottom of their profile.
 - Add images to your favourites from both brands and bloggers.
- Message both brands and bloggers to get to know them.
- Start campaigns with brands (See how and who with here).

The more you are active, the more you are helping yourself! Engaging with others is getting yourself out there to even more people. There are so many bloggers signed up which is great! Finding inspiration from like minded people, discovering new people you love and more! 

There is a different between blogging and being a blogger. A blogger interacts with others, is part of the community, supports other people and shares interest with their like minded peers.

How to add bloggers to your favourites:
On their profile page, on the right under "Message Me" there is a button "Add to Favourites".


How to add images to favourites:
Under each image there is a star, click this to add it to your favourites.

Also you can comment on pictures! Simply click on the image and underneath you can comment.


Future features on TBP:
- Brands can search by recently active bloggers
- You are notified when a brand or bloggers favourites you or your images

These aspect are important to us as it will help increase the sense of community and engagement. We are constantly thinking of improvements and new features for our site.

The Blogger Programme / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram @bloggerprogramme

Updating your stats & why

Updating your stats often for your social platforms is important as this represents accurately your following.
Note: Your stats are only visible to brands.

This is easily done through your profile. Next to your name click "Edit".
At the bottom of this page you can edit your stats. Here you can also remove and add your social platforms.


Where your stats show up:
- On your profile
- As a hover over your thumbnail in search results

The Blogger Programme / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram @bloggerprogramme

How to complete your profile

It is important that you complete your profile so you can present yourself in the best way possible. This will increase the chances of both brands and also other bloggers interacting with you.

A completed profile should consist of:
- Profile picture
- Social platforms you use added with stats
(It's good to update these often to correctly represent your following, see how here)
- Imagery added to show a range of what you are about.
- Content added with links to posts on other social platforms and also videos if you do those too.

Your profile picture is what brands and bloggers will first see, so choose something which best represents you and your style. Also your bio shows up so it's important to make it relevant and to the point.

An example below of how the search page looks. The bottom right thumbnail in the search results shows a feature visible to brands, where they can hover over your thumbnail to view your stats.



An example of a completed profile:
Here Leanne has showcased lots of imagery representing what she posts on her different platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Lookbook and in blog posts. A useful feature is the ability to order your images and so choose the first three which show up on your profile.

In content there are her recent blog posts, with the ability to view all to see older posts. Also there are lot videos from her youtube, and the ability to view all and decide which is shown as the default video.

A useful feature, to gather all your favourite brands and bloggers, appears at the bottom of the profile. Here they can easily be managed and even ordered to have your most favourites showing first!

Adding images and content has been updated so now it is possible straight from your profile page using the "Edit/Add" buttons for each section.


If you need help on completing your profile, refer to the below video.


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