Guest post: By Rotem Dahan, Community Director at BlogsRelease, andDani Finkelstein, Co Founder, BlogsRelease.

Customer engagement was a hot topic at this year’s #SMWF Europe. With speakers including Paul Gill from Oxfam, Josep Hernandez from Mondelēz International, Will McInnes from Brandwatch, Patrick van Straalen from Philips and many more who discussed attracting, engaging and listening on social media. With more and more marketers turning to the benefits of digital to increase their customer engagement, it’s fast becoming the truth that a company who is invisible on social media is almost invisible to their potential customers.

Brand awareness

With consumers increasingly exposed to ever growing pools of information and data; brand awareness is becoming more important than ever in the digital age.

Most digital marketers will agree that the first step to improving brand awareness is creating content. All of us consume content in every second of the day mostly without even noticing – whether it’s walking to work on the street or scrolling through Facebook, countless signs, ads and logos are part of the digital and physical landscape which is leaving a subtle but lasting impression on us.

It has been proven that the high level of available information has led to potential customers searching for further details, reviews, photos and videos on a product before they make a decision to purchase. Therefore it’s important that brands constantly create new content and reach out to influential bloggers to write product reviews.

Bloggers

Bloggers play a crucial part in brand awareness. The influence of a blogger writing about your brand, seen increasingly currently with video blogging and the use of influencer marketing, is incredibly significant. Brands must remember that it’s not “just a blog post”; bloggers and content creators are hugely active on social media and have strong word influence via social and word of mouth. It’s not surprising that 77% of internet users read blogs and 61% of US consumers have made a purchase decision based on a blog post (Source: IgniteSpot).

Regular blog content is also a fantastic source of natural SEO. Authentic content is more likely to appear first in search engine results, with bloggers providing an authentic voice, believed to be writing from their own perspective and experience rather than under influence of the brand.

Blogger Campaign

Encouraging bloggers to write and talk about your brand starts with reaching them.

Finding the right bloggers is an important and demanding job, brands need to focus on what style of blogger will give them the best results and kick start their engagement with their target audience. With the range of topics bloggers are writing on, sometimes niche bloggers that write on something very specific can be the most relevant to promote a product. For example; with a photography app, photography bloggers and tech bloggers will come up first on a google search, but are they really the best people to connect with? Brands need to think who will most likely to use their app; parent bloggers and fashion bloggers may be a better choice to engage directly with a target audience.

From my experience as a community director at BlogsRelease, product review campaigns will also provide you with a boost to your SEO and will increase your ROI. Authentic reviews have credibility when they are written by a third party such as a blogger, giving your product to bloggers to review can bring you valuable customer engagement.

Now that you’re convinced of the benefits of blogger outreach and product review campaigns, check out BlogsRelease – the #1 marketplace for brands to get product reviews from bloggers.

We have a special offer for #SMWF attendees: a FREE product review campaign on BlogsRelease. For more details click here.

Written by Rotem Dahan, Community Director at BlogsRelease, and Dani Finkelstein, Co Founder, BlogsRelease: the #1 marketplace where brands can get product reviews from bloggers worldwide. BlogsRelease are media partners of #SMWF Europe.

The post Are Bloggers The Key For Customer Engagement Success? appeared first on #DMWF Amsterdam.