eMarketer released a very interesting study today on how Marketers rely on blog posts and social media sponsorships to reach their audience. At Made in Blog, we’ve gathered recent other studies with this one to illustrate how sponsored posts are undeniably one of the best ways for both marketers and influencers to shine.
Sponsored Posts
In 2012, 54% of marketers had used a sponsored blog post to get their message out, while 55.4% of influencers had published a sponsored blog post, making it the most popular medium among both groups. I am sure this really didn’t come as a surprise for any of you bloggers! Sponsored articles have shown to be the best way for brands to get to a niche audience that no other traditional tool has managed to reach as bloggers maintain a relationship with readers.
Sponsored Social Media
Moreover, the study explains how 55.5% of US marketers had provided a social media user with some compensation in exchange for a mention on the user’s social media channel. For instance, sponsored tweets were found to be used by 47.3% of marketers and 51.8% of influencers in 2012. We are excited to see how social media sponsorship is clearly becoming the way to go for both players! Brands are looking to work with bloggers more and more these days in order to promote their products!
The study also demonstrates that influencers clearly prefer money when it comes to compensation! Bloggers love to receive free products to test (and these are also necessary for them to write personalized blog posts) but in the end, they have to pay their bills, just like everyone else. Writing a blog post requires time, sometimes it even requires to attend an event, take photos, select them, edit them, etc. and all of this needs to be compensated financially. So yes for sending products but don’t forget to compensate bloggers in order to maintain successful relationships with these valuable media players!
At Made in Blog, we know why everyone is going crazy about bloggers and their editorial talents! Go take a look at our previous post “Blogs vs. Online Magazines: Publicity Gets a Better Response On Blogs”. Remember this whole talk about PSI? You didn’t forget what it is, did you? Here’s a reminder: Para-social interactions (PSI) are defined as the perception of having a face-to-face relationship with a media player. Yes, their readers often consider bloggers as friends and this is something so precious that any other traditional media tool cannot do.
Indeed, 42% of US Female Internet users feel like they know the blog writer like a friend and this is why according to the same study, the most helpful resource when making beauty product purchase decisions are familiar bloggers (61%).
Sponsored posts are also very popular because they are of high quality! Indeed, the quality of a sponsored article is the most important method to measure social media sponsorship success according to advertisers worldwide. A blogger always tells his very own story in relation with the brand or the product that is his testing and this is precisely what makes a blog post so valuable as the reader already knows the blogger beforehand.
All these various studies have made us very proud! We are indeed so thrilled to be working with bloggers and to see how they are so vital in marketing strategies of brands. Made in Blog enjoys a very individual and personalized relationship with every single of their members and we are ever so proud of them all.
