I have been basking in the glow of enthusiasm and excitement after having the pleasure of working with Bigger Bubbles Marketing on their new webinar series on Marketing and Public Relations.  Please contact Clare at Bigger Bubbles if you are interested in this 6 week online course.  I highly recommend it to anyone who might be feeling a bit overwhelmed when it comes to thinking about what it takes to plan and implement a PR and Marketing plan for your venture.  I will be sharing more information later on too, so watch this space and or do get in touch if you are interested in being part of the next one.   The course takes places on Friday mornings via Skype for 6 one hour sessions.

Part of my presentation included discussing the merits of bloggers when it comes to social media marketing.   It struck me that bloggers are the gateway to the rest of the social media world.  Especially if you are a brand looking for affordable marketing buzz.    Aside from personal bloggers, there are blogs dedicated to every single niche topic you could possibly imagine.   That means there are bloggers who write about what ever your product or service does.    Not only are these bloggers your target market, their audience is your potential customer base – your leads.   Not only do bloggers blog, but they are deeply integrated into the various social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter with their own audiences.     Bloggers use those channels to promote themselves and their content and hopefully that content includes your brand.

If you are a total novice when it comes to social media and uncomfortable with engagement on the various channels, I think reaching out to bloggers is probably your first step when developing a social media plan.  Of course, you will probably need to master those other social media channels in order to reach those bloggers, but now you have a project or a reason to talk to me.  

This leads me to another venture I am currently involved with.   In Vancouver I am putting together a one day conference – now probably in late April – that will be called Connected West.  You can follow me on Twitter at @Connected_West for more information about the plans for this event.

If you are a BC business interested in the hows, whys, and whats about working with bloggers, this could be the one day event for you.  This could be the perfect way for you to connect with bloggers in your niche who could become your online marketing partners.   There are so many ways for bloggers to work with brands, so many ideas that are useful to both sides of the agreement.

If you are a blogger in the Lower Mainland interested in working with brands and not sure how to connect, then this is the event for you.  Here is your chance.

If you want more information about attending Connected West, please do contact me.  More concrete details about the day will be coming up soon, but if you want to make sure you can attend or even better, be a SPONSOR, do get on my email list.