By: Kelly Smith; Photos by Brooke Dennis and Justin Hackworth for Alt Summit
The first step to getting noticed by others is to get noticed by yourself. If your goals are clear, you should have a few key brands that fit your aesthetic and that you truly want to work with. These are the brands that are worth waiting for.
Once you have identified who you want to work with, start researching how they work with similar bloggers. Here are five things you should consider before reaching out to sought after brand:
- Who has the brand worked with? What type of content do they share and re-share? What do they look for in a partnership? These might not be obvious things to locate, but if you were to find ten bloggers that they worked with on the same campaign and lined up each of their posts it would be more clear as to what the objectives were, what similarities the bloggers have, and what aesthetic they look for in a working partnership.
- Do you engage with their social media? Depending on the size of the brand, there might only be one or two people working on the social media team. If your brands truly align and you continue to share styled photos with their products, like, and participate through comments and conversation, they will start to notice and recognize your name.
- Study their Pinterest boards. What are their board names, what type of pins do they share, who do they follow, and how can you get in the game? Follow along and re-share, comment, and like their pins, and then start pinning quality content that align with both your and their aesthetic.
- Go ahead and say hello. Introduce yourself in a succinct email and state your interest in working with them.
- Head to a conference or event where they will have representatives. The best way to get your foot in the door after completing all of the above tasks is to meet face to face and talk real ideas, logistics, and get to know who and what they look for in a collaboration. Ask them what their goals are, how they assess a successful collaboration, and what their editorial calendar looks like.
Throughout this entire process you should be asking yourself: do my goals align with theirs, am I naturally similar enough to fit into their brand’s scheme while offering something unique? Now go ahead and pitch that perfect pitch and follow through with an excellent collaboration, project, and post.
