Stephanie Azzarone Talks Brands & Bloggers

When Stephanie Azzarone talks, brands listen – especially those that want to work with moms.

For those of you not familiar with Stephanie, she is the founder and president of Child’s Play Communications, the first agency to specialize exclusively in public relations, social media and word-of-mouth communications for products and services targeted to moms. 

Stephanie is creator of Child’s Play’s award-winning Team Mom™ blogger network, publisher of the newsletter Marketing Communications: Moms, the voice behind the blog Mom Market Trends and the winner of the 2010 Social Media Innovator of the Year Bulldog Award. 

She has written about or been quoted on the subject of marketing to moms in dozens of publications, from PR Week to USA Today, and has spoken at numerous conferences on the subject. Her clients have included leaders in their fields, such as Warner Bros. Consumer Products, Hasbro, Hewlett Packard, Parents magazine, Sylvan Learning Center and Universal Music.

Stephanie talked to ShePosts recently about the mom blogger demographic and what trends lie ahead for 2011.

You work with a lot of large brands that have an interest in the influential "mom" demographic. Why are mom bloggers so valuable to these brands?

It’s taken some time for brands to recognize the influence of mom bloggers on moms’ purchasing decisions. We recently completed a survey, with the NPD Group, on that very subject. It showed that 79% of all moms with kids under the age of 18 were active in social media, and that about one in four had purchased a kid’s product as a result of a social media recommendation. Blogs – rather than Facebook or Twitter – were the most influential channel among these moms. Simply put, moms pay attention to the opinion of other moms in social media, and that impacts a brand’s bottom line.

What advice would you give bloggers who are interested in beginning to work with brands?

Build the quality of your blog and the number of your readers before approaching brands. And don’t fake your numbers – marketers will check them against industry sources before they do anything else. Once you’ve reached a reasonable level, drop an email to a company or brand introducing yourself; at Child’s Play, we keep the names of all such contacts on file for future reference. In the process, tell us what makes you special.

Also, always include as much information as possible about yourself in your About section – what city you’re in, your professional background, and how you would like to work with brands. Be sure to update your brand background as that experience grows.

Bloggers will want to know: what constitutes that “reasonable level” of unique visitors that should be achieved before reaching out to brands?

This is going to vary so much depending on what a brand is looking for. If they simply want to get exposure, 1,000-2,000 unique monthly readers could be sufficient. If they only want to work with bloggers who have an established presence, then I’d say the starting number might be between 5,000 and 10,000. Keep in mind that it is always possible that certain brands are more interested in niche audiences – e.g., parents of twins, or moms in a specific region – and in such cases, the numbers could be lower.

Where do you see things headed as far as how, and how much, bloggers are compensated for their work with brands?

Payment for posts, per se, is not something that will catch on widely, and certainly not among those bloggers who have established a reputation as leaders. Marketers who have been involved in social media for awhile went there to begin with because of the trust factor – moms trusting what other moms have to say about a product/brand. That reflected well on the brands they chose to blog about. If bloggers all start getting paid for their comments, why should I, or other mothers, believe what they have to say? And if that happens, what’s the point in working with bloggers vs., say, creating visibility in a popular magazine?

Except in certain circumstances, a sponsored post just doesn’t have the impact that an independent opinion does. However, I definitely believe that bloggers should be compensated – and fairly – for any other social media work they do on behalf of brands, whether that’s writing content for a Web site or hosting a Twitter party. For bloggers who want to earn money from a relationship with brands, this is the way to go.

How do you determine the metrics for success on a blogger outreach campaign?

Reach is key – we look at the numbers first—not just blog reach, but also tweets and Facebook posts resulting from a campaign. But we also know that a post that has gotten lots of comments is more impactful than one that has not, and that the opinion of someone who is well known and respected in social media circles is worth more than someone who may have larger numbers but is not otherwise part of the “scene.” In more bottom line terms, because we always include a link to our clients’ sites when requesting reviews, we track the increase in traffic to the site, to see if readers actually acted on blogger recommendations.

Let’s talk about trends with bloggers and brands. We’ve seen a proliferation of product reviews and giveaways with bloggers/brands. Do you see that sort of outreach activity continuing heavily in 2011, or will other collaborations emerge?

The trend will continue, but there will be changes. Brands will become more selective about the bloggers they deal with. As more moms blog, it becomes clear who is professional in their approach, and who isn’t. Companies and agencies will edit their lists and confine their outreach to bloggers who have proven that they can be relied on – those who post about a product that they’ve agreed to blog about or attend an event to which they have RSVP’d, or otherwise demonstrated genuine interest in brand partnership.

It’s with these bloggers that more companies will increasingly pursue other collaborations, including paid opportunities—advisory positions, ambassadorships, event-hosting scenarios, and the like.

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