Co-creating content with bloggers and YouTubers

It’s exciting times if you work in public relations; over the last five years bloggers and YouTubers (vloggers) have grown their audiences and they are now an important channel for communicators. I’m not in the camp that believes bloggers and YouTubers have replaced journalists; I think journalists play a different role and, in the main, produce a different type of content.

PRmoment and Vuelio put on an event last week looking at how brands, YouTubers and bloggers can work together to create great content.

Here are my top six tips of when content partnerships work and when they don’t:

1. Go where your audience is (Mischief PR’s Lucy Hart’s words not mine). It sounds obvious doesn’t it? But too often PR folks start with the content piece and then think about the audience. That often makes things harder than they need to be (those are my words, not Lucy’s!).
2. All the successful case studies we heard about were long-term brand YouTuber partnerships, they weren’t short-term, “stick-on” type brand associations.
3. They were genuine. Without getting too deep, we’re all on a bit of a journey with influencer endorsement – from the influencer, to the brand and the audience. It may seem obvious, but the audiences are opinionated and have brains! So they are not going to fall for a non-genuine endorsement if doesn’t fit with the normal content theme for the YouTuber or blogger. So for example, The FA’s work with Theo Baker (via Mischief PR) was successful because Theo’s readership wanted to hear about The FA Cup.
4. Increasingly, these endorsements are paid for. Embrace it. Plan for it. But make sure the YouTuber declares that it’s paid for. (See point 3)
5. The agents of YouTubers are useful, but tend to quote you a higher price than if you go direct.
6. You may well get better levels of engagement with micro-influencers – they are better value for your investment and spread your risk. Only the big consumer brands can afford the mainstream influencers now anyway, they are really expensive.

We heard a couple of case studies on the night from Mischief PR and Theo Baker, Tin Man and YouTuber Robin James and Hope&Glory’s work with Adidas Facebook PT. As I watched and listened to all three case studies I did pause to think about how far PR has travelled in the last five years. We spend far too much time as a profession focusing on our shortcoming rather than our successes.

Here are those videos

Adidas

 

 

 

The FA

The full results of the Vuelio Blogger research are available from here
Vuelio UK Blogger Survey results

Our event partners Vuelio deserve credit for recognising the emerging importance of blogging some years ago and they now have some excellent multiple-year research that charts the growth of blogging and its increasing importance as a communications channel. Here is a link to the research

What social media channels do you use to share or publicise content from your main blog

What is your primary reason for blogging

How many unique visitors do you have a month?

What are the main ways PRs pitch to you?

In a typical week, how many times are you approached to promote a brand?

In a typical week, how many pitches directly result in or inspire posts on your blog?

What is the most important factor when deciding whether or not to endorse a brand?

Views on the commercialisation of blogs