Beauty blogger Valerie Chan from Ponikuta offers this guide to PRs in her guest blog:
"Back in 2010, about how PR should approach beauty bloggers which was featured on Social Diary and beautydirectory. Since then, so much has changed in the past two years in terms of the beauty industry, and the numbers of beauty bloggers has since mushroomed all over Australia. There are even industry awards for beauty bloggers - go bloggers!
In my post, I wrote about how to pick the right bloggers for your client/brand (it is very relevant and I am still shocked to see many brands don’t do this), and this time around I thought it would be appropriate to talk about how to run an event with bloggers. Since I have had experiences in organising events like MBBE, attending beauty events and working with PR in organising events in Melbourne, I do have my two cents worth on this topic.
Here's my advice for PR companies on planning an event in Melbourne:
Location – Location is key. In Melbourne unlike Sydney, certain areas are almost impossible to catch a cab. In Melbourne, it is generally always preferred to have events in the CBD area and there are no shortages of venue in the CBD area. I almost always cringe when my event locations are hard to get to, away from civilisation and not accessible via public transport.
Remember that beauty bloggers, unlike beauty editors, don’t often have the budget to catch a cab to everywhere we go. Do your research or consult the locals when in doubt.
Timing – In Melbourne, a lot of us beauty bloggers work full time and over time *cue face palm*. I guess you don’t necessarily want bloggers to sneak out of work to attend your event and have to rush back to work. So after-hour events are, unfortunately, the best way to go. Anything from 6pm – 8pm is great on work days and weekend events are always welcomed.
In terms of sending out invites, be sure to allow a minimum of two weeks prior to an event, not the day itself or two days before the actual event.
Reason – Always explain what the event is about. Is it for a new collection launch? Is it for brands to meet bloggers? Will there be experts on hand to interview? You want bloggers to come well prepared, researched and armed with questions to get the most out of your event so please let us know what the event is about. The number of times I have received an invite without a proper introduction or reason for an event is appalling.
We all run a campaign with an objective, so run an event with the same clear objective.
Research – I cannot stress this enough. We study prior to going into an exam and this is no different. You will need to do your homework. At least read one post or glance through the blog to know who you are speaking to. There's nothing worse than mistaking a blogger for another blogger. Believe me when I say this happens to us a lot. You wouldn’t do that to beauty editors now, would you? Take the time to know your bloggers, know who you want to develop a relationship with, and know how your brand will fit in with those blogs the best.
This includes finding out each blogger’s niche and how they prefer to engage with PRs instead of a mass send-out to 100 emails you can source online.
Reaching out – This ties in with research and knowing who to reach out to. Ask people within your industry and seek guidance through word-of-mouth recommendations. Tweeting about wanting to invite bloggers to an awesome event you’re planning is definitely a no-no. It shows that you don’t care, don’t bother to do research and are plain old lazy.
If this is your first time reaching out to bloggers, be sure to introduce yourself instead of taking a blanket approach of sending out invitations to as many bloggers as you can find on Twitter.
Here are examples of some of the unsavoury instances that we’ve (collective feedback from MBBE) experienced in the past:
- Given less than two hours notice prior to an interview opportunity.
- Invited to an event at the counter and were encouraged” to purchase products shown to us, complete with pushy SA.
- Sidetracking the event by stories” that were not relevant to the actual product launch, hence running overtime.
- Running blogger sessions back to back.
- Run blogger events at make-up counters and have random walk-by customers enter and participate without any crowd control.
- Spend two whole hours talking up a product launch and send bloggers home with samples sizes (which offer one to two uses).
- Promising bloggers they'll get products to trial at an event and never following up.
- A PR didn’t do her research and invited beauty bloggers to a launch that was not relevant to their blogs and proceed to badmouth said bloggers for not attending her events, including mention of their nationality.
- Promising to cover interstate expenses which came out of the blogger’s pocket and never got back to the blogger after the event.
- A PR invited and organised an event via email from Sydney. No one from Sydney attended the Melbourne event hence the SA/marketing person from the brand had no idea who the bloggers were.
- If you get fewer RSVPs than you expected it could be due to one of two things: (a) you’re not engaging beauty bloggers correctly, or (b) bloggers are being respectful that their blog topic is not suited to the coverage expected from the event. Not all of us beauty bloggers are in it for the freebies."
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