Last week, I told you about a new series I was starting called “The Blogger-Publicist” Marriage where I interview top publicists on a weekly basis to find out what they embrace about beauty bloggers, and to unearth any pointers they have for them.

This week, we interview Meg Young, Online Media Manager at Alison Brod Public Relations. Find out what she has to say about her constantly evolving relationship with beauty bloggers across the country.

1. How do you enjoy working with bloggers?

MY: There are many positive aspects to working with bloggers, among the most positive are:

- Extremely responsive and fast in their response. I am always amazed by how quickly bloggers respond to our pitches and emails. If we are ever on a deadline, bloggers are incredibly helpful in ensuring their posts go up within that given time restraint. Overall bloggers show a tremendous enthusiasm and appreciation in trying our products.

- Bloggers are able to promote great products without having to worry about fitting them into space allotted, a specific theme, packaging, etc. There is no risk of having a photo editor cut a product because it doesn’t look right on a page.

- Bloggers have proved invaluable to us in promoting our brands via social media. They have driven countless followers and fans to our brands’ Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

- Blogs are a great resource for sampling through giveaways. Blog giveaways serve as a way to get product into the hands of consumers without having to pay a fee (which are equated with many sampling opportunities today).

- In an age that is so digitally-driven, blogs are able to provide a direct link to brands’ e-commerce sites to further drive sales.

- One of the things I enjoy most about working with bloggers is their ability to make adaptations to any posts (ie: if the name of a product is credited wrong or price is incorrect), which is obviously something that cannot occur in print.

2. What do you love about online media and reading blogs?

Much of what I enjoy I mentioned above; however, below are some additional points:

- Near instant gratification. Bloggers have the ability to post anything at anytime and the turnaround for write-ups can often be immediate. Fashion Week and Award Season are two of my favorite times to read blogs because of this instantaneous coverage. I can be watching Sandra Bullock walk down the red carpet live on E! and within minutes dozens of beauty blogs have already reported on her hair and makeup – fabulous!

- I love the personality and honesty in the content of blogs. Bloggers are able to truly express who they are and how they feel about everything (from food and fashion to beauty products and colonics). While I appreciate this sincerity as a reader, as a publicist who wants her clients portrayed in the best light possible, this can sometimes be a negative. The blogs that we work with regularly have a respect and understanding of this. So if by the slight chance they have a horrible reaction to a something we send them they will simply not feature it at all, rather than provide a negative review. We appreciate that.
3. What pet peeves do you have about working with bloggers?

- That there is no accurate resource to acquire traffic, unique visitors, etc. If you ask the blogger (him)herself, you run the risk of having the numbers inflated and the programs that claim to provide these numbers are expensive and contradict each other. As a PR firm, we are expected to show our clients something tangible (ie: numbers) and it is difficult to accurately determine these for blogs.

- Certain blogs have a team of testers and request multiple samples of each product in order to review. While we understand the need to try product the majority of our brands are limited with samples and cannot supply more than two samples per outlet. Often times this dictates whether or not a product will be reviewed.

- Determining which blogs are legitimate is sometimes a challenge. As ABPR’s online media expert, I am contacted by at least one dozen new blogs per week. The number of blogs we work with is well over 600 (ranging from beauty, fashion, celebrity, etc.), so there needs to be some sort of criteria each blog must meet in order for us to work with together. We have a standard set of questions we ask each blog to help us make this decision; however, it can sometimes pose as a challenge distinguishing which blogs are legitimate versus those just seeking free product…

4. Do you have any tips/ advice you would like to share with them?

- Always provide stats on your blog when you are able.

- We GREATLY appreciate when you send us the link to placement – THANK YOU!

- Please do not take it personally if we can’t provide samples. We want you to test our products, we truly do; unfortunately, especially with NEW products, we are very limited with the number of press samples we receive and are not always able to accommodate every request.

5. Do your clients treat blog placements more or less on equal footing now as traditional media? Or is there still a ways to go before they do?

Not the same as print, simply because the exposure is not as significant (in most cases). However, more and more our brands are realizing the power and influence of blogs and greatly value the coverage they do receive on them. Three years ago our clients never held events or executed mailings exclusively for the online media, whereas now these initiatives are regularly incorporated into their PR strategies.

6. Name a few blogs you read every day (need not be beauty only).

PerezHilton.com, NYMag.com “The Cut”, People.com, DiaryofaSweetTooth.com, MorethanMary.com, RawClarity.com, EOnline.com.

- Charu Suri

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