How to get big brands to outreach to blogs…from someone who’s gotten two to do it.

By , November 15 2010, 9:11 pm 1 Comment






Keep an eye on the smart cookies over at Handpicked Media (1.5m uniques in UK – HPM), they are doing interesting things with big brands and their independent blog collective. Recently snagging both Babyliss and Olay as clients (both working with bloggers for the first time) to create sponsored blog posts with a difference – namely mixing UGC and generally taking a more integrated/holistic approach to meet business objectives.  Members become an integral part of the campaign/brand rather than simple executers on a list by leveraging their entire networks and having long-term engagement with readers in a variety of ways rather than a simple hit ‘em and run strategy.




Babyliss worked with Handpicked Media bloggers to create a series of sponsored posts to promote three new women’s hair products; the Waving Wand, Root Boost and Big Hair plus men’s grooming product the I-Stubble. Using embedded ’How-To’ videos creating ‘of-the-moment’ hair styles using each product displayed within a written blog post and then asking questions to gauge feedback and product insight that would affect other elements of the campaign.  Each blogger was also given a product to giveaway to their users and all linked to specific purchase pages on the Babyliss website (all openly disclosed – company policy).




With a different type of promotion, Olay partnered with Handpicked blogs to promote their online Big British Beauty Poll using a series of integrated blog posts across a wide selection of blogs including beauty, female lifestyle and fashion. Bloggers took the survey, wrote about the poll and the idea behind it, and linked to the poll itself.  Olay saw a spike in sales and increased SEO significantly during a key sales period .





How’d they get them in you ask?  CEO for HPM and Editor of Beauty and the Dirt’, Kirsta Madden offered three tips about how she convinced these major brands to delve into the world of digital for the first time:




1)  Show them. “Initially with Olay we had been into the agency to give them our presentation on the change in the digital landscape, talk to them about what social media could do for them. We had to show them how important it was to include blogs in their outreach but not only that but how to do it properly and make sure the blogs were given a freedom to write their own content. That’s really important.  We wanted them to see how beneficial feedback, conversations and comments on blogs were to a brand. We got them to embrace Twitter and I think confidence grew with talking with our blogs and building relationships with them.”




2)  Think about the long-tail…and short-tail. “For Babyliss we knew that if a number of [members] were talking about the products on their blogs and Twitter at the same time it would build great awareness for them in both the short and long-term rather than just getting 1 or 2 sites that don’t engage with their readers and just post the video.  Each blog post had anything from 40 – 80 comments, which the client was thrilled with and increased SEO [throughout a key purchase period].”









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  • http://www.thebeautybutton.co.uk emma skipper

    We’re members of Handpicked Media and truely believe that their approach to outreach integration is the way forward.

    Why would our reader’s want to read a post written by a third party when they’ve visited our blog for our own opinions?

    This type of sponsored post integration is new to the UK market and has proven to be very succussful on our blog.

    Advertising accross social media only going to get more complicated, so it’s great that Handpicked are taking the helm and are available for advice and new innovations as to how to deal with the market.