2 – Who are you?

2 – Who are you?

I know, it seems like a silly question. You know exactly who you are right? For the last ten years, I have introduced myself to people at Tired Mummy of Two or BlogOn, half the time I actually forget to include my name. My brands have become so much a part of who I am that my personal identity pretty much doesn’t exist online and I am not saying that is a good thing. However, my brand personas are the ones that got the work and the real me, well, she isn’t quite as clean-cut as some of the brands are looking for.

I know some absolutely phenomenal influencers who are 100% unapologetically them, swearing and all and I love following their accounts. They make me laugh, they make me smile and they even make some money out of it, but and it is a big but, there are a lot of companies who will not work with them. If you want to work with the likes of Disney then you will need to stay clear of political comments, diet culture and swearing. You may be surprised that I have known content posted 6 months ago to be the reason that someone has been turned down for work and it wasn’t even paid work. For some brands image is everything so deciding who you are going to be to the outside world is important.

Now I am not saying that you need to change, just understand that the you that you share with the world is also the you that brands are looking at when they decide to work with you or not.

What is your niche?

Depending on your channels you may or may not have a niche, despite my blog having a parenting name I rarely talked about parenting topics so my blog was what was called a ‘lifestyle’ blog which pretty much meant it was full of any old thing. You could find random ramblings about days out, video games, reviews, gift guides, sponsored content about vaginal rejuvenators (that’s what’s in my header in case you were wondering, I get asked about it a lot). In fact, most of the content on their now and for the last few years has pretty much all been sponsored content or guest posts because I completely fell out of love with my blog. It is hard to write about being a tired mum of two when your kids are grumpy pre-teens, you have a full-time job and get a decent amount of sleep each night.

Having a niche can be amazing but it can also be restrictive. It is hard for a food channel to be able to review the latest toy or for a gardening channel to talk about the best pushchair. Having niche topics does make creating content easier and it also makes it easier for relevant brands to find you. Standing out can be difficult when everyone is doing the same thing.

Your niche could be a colour scheme, a particular preset that you use on your images, it could be that you write your content as your dog, whatever it is that makes you special is something that you should really think about and ensure that it fits in well with your content.

What is your elevator pitch?

For this week I want you to think about your elevator pitch, this is an exercise that I have used many times over the years and it really helps you to focus on your strengths and your selling points. Why should the people you are talking with choose you? An elevator pitch should be a brief way of introducing you, your channels and how you can work together in less than 30 seconds. Your pitch may change depending on who you are talking to and whether you are emailing them or meeting in person, but knowing what you want to get across quickly whilst grabbing their attention will really help.

The easiest way to create your elevator pitch is to break it down into 3 sections

1. Who am I? “Hi, my name is Laura, I founded BlogOn in 2013 but I have been an influencer for over 10 years.”
2. What do I do? “I have provided blogger outreach services for the toy industry since 2014 working on huge campaigns such as the launch of Hatchimals. I also host events to help influencers and brands work well together and I organise the BlogOn Toy Awards which is in its 6th year this year.”
3. What do you want? (try to end this with a question as it invites a response). “I think your brand would be perfect for the next BlogOn event, have you worked with influencers before?”

Now that pitch would change depending on who I was talking to but hopefully, it gives you an idea. One of my top tips if you are talking to a completely cold lead (in other words you have never spoken before) would be to ask if you can be placed on their mailing lists so you can keep up with all of their latest news. This works well for pr companies as it usually means that they take your details and keep them safe.

Why not write an elevator pitch on why I should work with you on my next outreach project in the comments below?