Sophie Benarab is the Head of Digital Talent Department and the co-founder of Made in Blog. Her vast experience as a blogger and her expertise of social media have made her aware of the impact of bloggers on internet. The Made in Blog adventure was born from the desire to support bloggers in monetizing their blog and allow advertisers to benefit from the power of recommendation of bloggers. Made in Blog is the first platform connecting bloggers and brands in Canada.

Made in Blog actively participates in the dynamism of the blogosphere by organizing various activities highlighting bloggers: the Made in Blog Awards which rewards the best blogs in Canada, surveys and graphics on the state of the blogosphere in Canada, organization of the 1st bloggers conference in Quebec – the “Campus Made in Blog”, the #mibchat and by  always offering more and more innovative campaign strategies to its clients.

This conference was the last of the day. Sophie closed the day by giving some advices to influencers to professionalize their blog and optimize their relationships with brands.

First, it is important to take the time to improve your audience on social networks, because it is often one of the few elements that allows brands to evaluate your audience. Also try to increase the number of comments on your articles and the best way to do that is to comment other blogs that you follow and like.

Put some thought into your design and be personal in order to be closer to your readers. Brands really appreciate the relationship that you have with your readers because it gives you a great power of recommendation.

Sophie also gave a lot of tools to help you save time and improve your blog:

• Canva to quickly and easily create designs for your articles or for your social media (with the ideal image format).
• Mailtrack.io to know in one glance if your contact has read your email, how many time he did it and when. It’s a must have if you are in contact with brands for partnerships.
• Google Analytics to see which articles, categories are the most popular on your blog. You can also see where your audience is from and what are the most effective social media. You will then be able to act accordingly.
• Hootsuite to plan the share of your articles on your social media.
• Viral Woot only for the Pin scheduler option which allow you to plan the pin of photos from your blog.
• BlogLovin to easily follow and comment your favorite blogs and also to get inspired.
• Rapportive, a gmail tool that allow you to connect with your contact on social media.
• An Image resizing tool to reduce the size of your images and prevent your blog to be slow.

Finally, Sophie wanted to recall some important points if you want to work with brands. In the case of collaborations involving remuneration, keep in mind that you are the seller, work hard, give the best of yourself to make a success of this collaboration. Campaigns with bloggers are often part of an overall communication plan including different services, it is therefore important to respect the deadlines given to you.

These are simple things that will allow you, for example, to establish long relationships with brands. And if a brand offer you a campaign, how to know if you should accept it or not? If you like the brand and the product, think long-term relationship. This may be the beginning of a long partnership, do not stop only at the price and maximize this opportunity!

Thanks again to Sophie for this great conference!