It’s all about lipstick, dresses, and fancy underwear when it comes to the UK blogging community. This is one conclusion that can be drawn from the biggest ever survey of UK bloggers, conducted by communications software company Vuelio, in conjunction with Canterbury Christ Church University.
The survey of more than 500 UK bloggers found that over three quarters were female and that they tended to concentrate on traditionally female interests such as beauty and fashion. Blogs written by men covered a broader range of topics, ranging from stereotypically male pursuits such as sports and gaming to traditionally gender-neutral areas such as food (there are twice as many male food bloggers as female), and health.
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Those interests were further reflected in the social media UK bloggers use to promote their sites. While Twitter was ubiquitous for both genders, female bloggers were much more likely than their male counterparts to be found on Pinterest and Instagram, while men were twice as likely as women to use LinkedIn and, perhaps surprisingly, more frequent users of Facebook.
Although a third of respondents described blogging as a hobby, more than a third said they blogged either professionally or with a view to commercialising their efforts in future. Most said that, while they had good relationships with PRs and brand managers, they often felt second-class when compared with journalists working in traditional media.
How should brands work with bloggers?
This is the big questions for PR practitioners taking their skills beyond media relations to engage with blogging communities instead. Being a blogger myself, I contributed to these survey results and could understand some of the frustrations bloggers have with PR pitches.
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Some are atrociously bad, often without regard of what the blogger gets in return; especially in terms of the value of content, bloggers are not second-class to journalists. The results revealed that more than two-thirds of bloggers agreed that they were all-too-often asked to support brands for very little in return.
“It’s clear from the number of pitches our respondents said they received that PRs and brand managers recognise the enormous potential of UK bloggers,” said Kristine Pole, programme director at Canterbury Christ Church University and co-author of the research. “But there also seems to be a fundamental disconnect, when you look at the efforts PRs are putting in compared with what they’re getting out, and the often mismatched expectations of each side.”
Almost two fifths of respondents received six or more pitches from brands every week – but only 30 per cent of bloggers said that more than one post a week was the result of brands coming to them.
“When you think about the subjects that occupy the majority of UK bloggers, such as fashion and beauty, and then look at the enormous audiences for their sites, and finally consider the extent to which traditional media relies on PR in these areas, it’s hard to see anything other than a huge opportunity,” said Vuelio’s Head of Content, Chris Wheeler. “The bloggers want to make the effort to improve their relationships with brands. If brands can better understand bloggers’ expectations of these relationships, it has to be a win-win.”
If you work with bloggers or are tempted to start, I highly recommend you download the full UK Blogger Survey 2016 here.
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