Welcome to our monthly feature The PR Desk! Written by PR professional Heather Travis, it guides bloggers on the ins and outs of navigating the world of PR agencies and brands. This month, Heather explores using the concept of "think global, blog local" for your blogging brand.
We’ve all heard the saying, ‘’think globally, act locally”; well who knew you could apply this same logic to your blogging brand?! Yes, it’s time to think global, blog local, my friends.
As content creators and influencers seeking to grow our brands we often seek out the biggest fish to partner with. With good reason too! Working with the big national (or multi-national) brands means they usually have great budgets, they usually have large social media presences to amplify your content, and working with them adds instant cred to your blogger status. All of this is great.
Here’s the downside. Everybody wants to work with them. Which means your voice is just one of the crowd and you get lost in the clutter. And if we learned anything at FBC2015, it’s about finding your niche.
Guess what? Your niche might just be your very own neighbourhood.
Before we chat about the benefits of blogging local for your brand, let’s first address the elephant in the post: compensation.
Working with local partners like restaurants, markets, small farm producers, or independent artisans means they won’t likely have a big budget, if any budget at all. I encourage you to think bigger picture and longer term for these relationships (well, all relationships actually!).
A feature on five restaurants within five blocks of your home might give you five great date night meals and have oodles of local search traffic finding your post, boosting your readership and getting you known as a go-to resource for great local restaurant reviews and photos. Maybe they also provide your name to the local BIA (Business Improvement Association) as a recommended promotional partner. Maybe the BIA hires you to provide new photos for the website. Maybe the increased traffic to your site boosts your revenue from ads, or allows you to boost your rates for the bigger fish partners. And maybe it leads to much bigger opportunities down the road. Think big, start small.
Bloggers Going From Local to Global
There are lots of great examples of bloggers who followed this route and, as a result of blogging locally, now add eating globally to their resume (both literally and metaphorically).
Joel and Dana from Well Preserved — Joel and Dana started off very local with their Kitchen Parties in Toronto and their food philosophy is all local, but they’ve grown it into a global subject and recently published a cookbook, Batch.
Meghan Telpner — Meghan started off blogging and doing local TV appearances, while teaching cooking classes in her Toronto loft kitchen. Now she has two best-selling books and an on-line culinary academy with students all over the globe (32 countries currently).
Mijune Pak of Follow Me Foodie — Mijune started out reviewing Vancouver restaurants and now, as a result of her hard work and proven track record, she travels all over the world for culinary tours and events.
Tiffany Mayer of Eating Niagara — Tiffany is extraordinarily passionate about the Niagara region and showcasing its culinary scene. What once was a passion project became a passionate life with a book deal, steady freelance writing work and her recently launched food-related podcast, "Grub."
We all need to learn to walk before we can run, and blogging locally is a great way to build our brands. If you deliver quality content the world is your oyster.
More Reading
- PR Desk: Be Your Brand
- PR Desk: A Guide to the Essentials of a Good Pitch
- PR Desk: Five Things to Do Before You Pitch
- PR Desk: Establishing a Relationship with PR Agencies
- PR Desk: How To Find the Right PR Contact
Need Help With Your Branding?
Heather will be running a session at FBC2016 on Key Messaging For Bloggers – How To Get Your Message out to Readers, Brands and PR Agencies. Brittany Stager will be running a session on Visual Branding for You and Your Blog. You’ll learn everything you need to know about getting your personality and message out to the people you want to reach!
Heather Travis is a PR professional and lover of all things creative. She has extensive experience developing and implementing integrated public relations and marketing programs for agricultural brands, producers and processors, as well as high end sporting goods. She’s a DIY junkie with a mean power tool addiction, and can often be found painting, refinishing, and scouring both junk yards and antique markets for her next fix … err, piece of content for her blog heatherinheels.com. Find Heather on Twitter @heathertravis and Instagram @heathertravis.
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