I caught up with Bethanie, a fashion PR at a large digital agency and fashion blogger at bethaniejane.co.uk to give us some tips on working with PRs. She usually blogs about books, reviews, recipes and wish lists. I usually post on a Wednesday so keep a look out!
First of all, what does your job entail?
My job involves working in a large agency in Newcastle. I work with a number of brands to get the word out about their products and company online. To get this exposure I work with all kinds of sites, and publications, and also a lot of blogs! It’s a busy job but I absolutely love the buzz of it.
What do you look for when you’re finding a blog to work with?
When I’m looking for blogs, one of the first things is it must be user friendly and the content. If it’s full of adverts and sponsored posts I usually avoid it.
This indicates to us that a blog has no real passion for what they are doing, and just wants to make money! As well as this, we look for the usual domain authority, page rank and following.
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into your line of work?
I’d definitely say to get a lot of experience, it’s maybe a good idea to work with a charity too. They are always looking for people to maybe take over their Twitter for a day, or write a blog post for them. Volunteer work always looks great on your CV too.
What are your gripes about being a blogger and a PR?
I think the fact that a small portion of PRs and bloggers have pitched themselves against each other – we should be working together! As a PR I don’t like bloggers who think they are worth a lot more than they might be (£600 per sponsored post) or use the #PRRequest hashtag too much. As a blogger I don’t like PRs who send silly requests and can’t spell my name.
Do you think blogging has a future?
Definitely – brands are really seeing the benefits of working with blogs now and its great! Some of the bigger bloggers are pretty much celebrities now too, which is great for the blogging world as a whole!
Lastly, what advice would you give to bloggers looking to work with more PRs?
It sounds a bit strange, but don’t email us first thing on a Monday morning! We come in after a weekend to sometimes a hundred emails, so it’s likely to get lost in the pile!
I get a lot of work pitches from bloggers, and the ones that stand out are the ones that are personalized and don’t look like a template you’ve sent to 100 others but again not an essay. Secondly, be a real person and have a chat with us, we are real people too!
