Should I use my "personal" or "website brand" account to interact and build relationships with influencers/bloggers in my industry?

I say to pitch the idea or 'outline' first. Have someone (on the payroll) responsible for sourcing opportunities, then ask your bloggers to pitch ideas. (For consistency's sake - consider bringing them together at a daily or weekly meeting?) From there, pitch the ideas to the brands or agencies and paid the bloggers per post to flush out their ideas. Pay-per-post is only successful / economical when the strategy is already developed.

Do the opposite. Think about it from their point of view. They get requests like these all the time and most of the time the request comes from random people they don't know. That would be kind of annoying right? You get an email from someone you don't know but they want you to do something for them? You'd delete that email too. Best way to get their attention...get a referral from someone they know and trust. Get someone else they know and trust to introduce you (this is the whole reason I built my business www.reverralriver.com). Referrals work the best. Second best way...develop a relationship with them before asking for anything. Don't email and ask for something right away. You wouldn't ask someone to marry you on a first date would you? Develop the relationship slowly. Give them value before ever asking for anything in return. Over just a few short weeks you could easily establish a relationship to the point where you could actually mention an "ask" which should be very open-ended and create absolutely zero work/friction for the person you are asking. One of my favorite techniques to warm-up a relationship...just email and tell them you appreciated (insert an article they wrote or service they provide, whatever, just stroke their ego). Tell them you're a fan and often point people their way. Then go way above and beyond and find their physical mailing address (it's not that hard to do) and send them a small gift or hand-written postcard in the mail just to say thanks. Then email them once you know they got it and just say thanks again. Then start emailing them various articles or things they might think are valuable, I'd say no more than once every 4 days. Connect on LinkedIN and message them funny pictures or GIF's. Show them you're human. Make them laugh and smile and just say "Hey I appreciate all you've done so just wanted to return the favor and make you smile (insert funny GIF here)". Then, once they know who you are, don't ask them directly to partner...ask them if they know anyone who would be interested in partnering. Below is a template I've used with great success...and the beauty is that they will often ask for more info and get interested themselves, but usually only if you have offered them some sort of value to stand out amongst the crowd. --- Hey (prospect first name), Hope you laughed at the last GIF I sent. I was just wondering if you knew anyone that would be interested in a partnership/affiliate opportunity… Real quick summary… I’m building a SaaS that automates the process of asking for referrals…it uses artificial intelligence to find potential leads in your existing customers network and makes it super simple for your customers to make the referral (one click of a button). If you know anyone that has an audience of people that would benefit from something like this I'd be grateful for an intro. I won't let you down I promise if you can make an intro. I’ll draft up all the marketing material and do all of the work, so all they would have to do is say “ok”, hit copy, paste, and send and I’d be happy to pay them 25% commission for life (or if there is another payment structure in mind I’m happy to talk about it) So what do you think? Can you help me out? Thanks, Parker ---- If you found this useful please upvote. Book a call with me if you want to know more or if I can help further.

it should be noted there is a difference between “ambassadors” and “athletes” butThe most common method I’ve seen is through the use of a discount code. Whenever the ambassadors code is used upon checkout they typically would receive the discount amount. Ex: customer purchases $100 worth of product and uses ambassadors code (am15) for 15% off total order. The ambassador would receive $15. Other perks are usually they will be provided a code that they can use for their personal use, as well as early access to new releases and such. As far as what they’re required to do is more often than not they essentially have to post an add for the brand on their social media platform a specified amount of times. (Per week/per month).

1. Be relevant. 2. Be personal. 3. Be clear. 4. Show what's in it for them. 5. Be appreciative.

Paying bloggers for direct advertisements is a bit of a grey area. It's grey because loads of brands are doing it, but it's such a difficult thing for advertising regulators to monitor. Check out this guide so you're aware of the guidelines and risks: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/bus41-dot-com-disclosures-information-about-online-advertising.pdf You should also be aware of the SEO risks to your business. In short, if you get caught paying bloggers to write about your company and those articles contain links to your site, you're at risk of receiving a manual penalty from Google. See this for more: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en Risks aside, those tactics you noted are fine, and can work great. Depending on your product or service, You might want to consider signing up for a variety of the affiliate networks out there such as ClickBank or Affiliate Window. Lastly, the best way to get them writing about you is to make them a part of your growth. Find relevant bloggers in your niche and recruit them as your product testers and focus group. If they feel a part of it, and your product or service genuinely enhancing their lives (or the lives of their readers), why wouldn't they write about you?