Last year, I assumed the job of Director of Marketing at TwirlyGirl. My mandate was to increase internet traffic to our retail site as quickly as possible and with a minimum amount of expenditure. Because TwirlyGirl produces such a unique and creative line of clothing, I knew the answer was to turn to mom bloggers. These bloggers, or influencers, as they’re often called, are writers who maintain a blog or website to inform their readers about products, trends, recipes, and more.
Finding a blogger willing to review a TwirlyGirl dress is easy. After all, we let them keep the dress, and their daughters love them. However, we can’t just give dresses to every blogger who asked for one, or else we’d go out of business. We needed to find the best mom bloggers who would give us the most bang for our buck. That means good social media engagement and carefully following our keyword and linking requirements, to maximize our SEO push.
Over the year, we gave dress samples to literally hundreds of bloggers. Unfortunately, I learned that sending samples to bloggers has the potential to be a giant time suck. Some bloggers didn't post on time. Others completely neglected our keyword requests. Others even spelled our brand name wrong! Then I had to spend time reminding them, correcting them, and often imploring them to give us the type of post that they had agreed upon. Remember, once that dress was in their hands, they held all the cards. As troublesome as some mom bloggers were, others were absolutely terrific to deal with. They were professional, trustworthy, and skilled. At the time we sent out our products for review, all of these mom bloggers had a Google Page Rank of 3 or higher.
TOP 10 (in no particular order)
- ASweetPotatoPie: Not only did she provide a great review, but she continued to share and interact with us on social media, long after her review was posted. A pleasure to work with.
- MommiesWithCents.com: Working with this blogger was complete a pleasure. If only they were all this good! We sent her a dress with posting instructions, and a two weeks later, her review was posted. No mistakes. Just a thoroughly professional job. And in only 14 days! That’s unheard of in mom blogging circles!
- LiteraryWinner.com: At first we were skeptical that this site would be a good fit for us. After all, the name implied a focus towards reading. However, we couldn’t have been more delighted with this blogger. Not only did she enlist the help of her daughter to make this adorable video youtube.com/watch?v=hfVikP7kqrU, but the review actually generated a good deal of business for us! A terrific return on our investment.
- MommyHasToWork.com: Here’s the top reason to use this blog to promote your product: She has terrific reader engagement. It means she has relationship with her fans, and they trust her opinion. Look at all the comments she got on our review. That’s gold!
- Blog.EarthFormed.com - This blogger was terrific. Her site is beautifully laid out, we love her style, her ethic, and what she stands for. She even took the time create a wonderful youtube video for us. youtube.com/watch?v=oQFnTKptERo That's above and beyond.
- ABCsAndGardenPeas.com: This is one of the top mom bloggers, for sure. Check out the long list of comments she got on our review. Believe me, very few bloggers get this kind of engagement. Clearly she has a special relationship with her readers. As a merchant, this is exactly the kind of site we love to be featured on.
- ChiilMama.com: Talk about a blogger who really wants to please. This woman really bent over backwards to make sure we were happy. Her video of her daughter speaking about the dress is absolutely perfect. Finding someone like that is rare, so run to her!
- MomLessOrdinary.com: If you’re looking for a blogger who’ll post and share across various social media platforms, this is the one for you! Facebook, Google +, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Vine, and YouTube, she’s capable of spreading the word.
- CleverHouseWife.com: Yet another blogger who’s very easy to work with lots of shares and cross promotions. She has close to 37,000 Facebook fans, 22.4k Twitter followers, and 556 followers on Google +. Get her to repost on Google +, that’s a lot of SEO authority.
- LollyGagBlog.com: This is really a special blog. The woman who runs it is an extremely talented writer. Reading something that’s well written and insightful makes all the difference to a reader. We were blown away by how she completely got our brand. You would’ve thought she was sitting in on our team conferences! Just read how well written this review is. With lots of engagement in the comment section, it’s clear that her readers appreciate her as well.
5 BONUS MOM BLOGGERS (in no particular order)
As this article was being written, we encountered 5 more top bloggers. They were so great, we just had to add them to our list. That's right, our list of the Top 10 Mom Bloggers to Promote your Products has 15 names on it. Talk about added value!
- ParentingPatch.com: If social media promotion is important to you, don’t neglect this mom blogger. She has 12.8 followers on Twitter, and she promoted TwirlyGirl every day for a month! Plus she has 20k fans on Facebook and 634 people in her Google + circles. That’s a ton of impressions!
- A1nettiebeauty.blogspot.com: We sent her a dress, and in return, she made us a music video on YouTube! Because our dresses twirl, there’s no really better way to advertise than by seeing them in action. youtube.com/watch?v=NEAhyxRA_J0 The extra effort this top mom put forth is much appreciated.
- NewlyCrunchyMamaOf3.com: All mom bloggers will tell you they are PR friendly. But all that really means is they’re willing to give you a review in exchange for a free item. This blogger, on the other hand, is truly PR Friendly. She’s accommodating, helpful, professional, and very easy to work with. On top of that, her blog has a Google Page Rank of 4. That’s a lot of SEO authority that she throws around. Get on her list, and Google will be pleased.
- SavvySavingCouple.com: This blogger was a last minute add, but she definitely deserved to make the cut. Not only did she meticulously follow our keyword requirements and links, her review was live less than a week after she received the dress! No reminding, no prodding, no hassles. And like all good bloggers, our review got tons of engagement from her readers. That’s traffic that’s being driven right back to our website. Awesome!
- Sweetiesfreebies.com: So this was a first for us. We sent this mom blogger a dress to review, she did a great job with her review, and everyone was happy. But within hours, our Twitter feed was blowing up with people retweeting her review. It seems that the woman who runs this blog is in some kind blogging circle with other mom bloggers. Suddenly, our review was being seen not by thousands of people, but by tens of thousands of people. Maybe more! This isn’t new to the blogging universe. There are plenty of services that will provide this, but usually you have to pay for them. She did this for free! If Twitter is an important medium for your business, then you should definitely throw this blogger in the mix.
So, if you have a product that you want to promote, save yourself a lot of time and aggravation. Start with this list of Top Bloggers. Reach out to them. They might be exactly what your brand is looking for.
*Michael Jamin is Director of Marketing at TwirlyGirl, which sells cute and unique dresses for girls ages 12 months to 14 years. TwirlyGirl is proudly Made in Los Angeles, CA.