Monday 28 May 2018

How To Get Invited To Blogging Events

SHOT BY FORDTOGRAPHY

I count myself a really lucky girl that I get to attend some of the press and blogging events that I do. This year has already been an absolute whopper – Last month I attended the Stefflon Don x boohoo launch party in London which involved a really frickin cool performance from the legend herself (the free cocktails weren’t bad either, seriously a free bar just never gets old), and more recently I had a gorgeous breakfast meeting with seven stunning ladies at the Bloomsbury hotel to talk about and celebrate the Dafi hair straightening brush. There are some phenomenal events that I sometimes can’t go to because of working full time and it fully breaks my heart when I see the insta stories that evening of all my best gals partying it up – I get maaajor FOMO at the best of times – but then again I’m quite hopeful that another fun blogger event or meet up will land in my inbox before too long.

Once again, I want to reiterate that I am SO lucky, grateful… often bewildered even to get these invites, and I would hate this post to come across as braggy because any showy-offy stuff just makes me majorly cringe. I’m just being really open and honest about my own experiences and sharing a few of my tips that might help new bloggers or people thinking about blogging when they want to start networking a bit more.

1) Be active online. If you want brands and PRs to get you onto your guest list of choice, first they need to know you exist. I know that sounds really really harsh and horrible (of course we all exist and are all special unique wonderful stars) BUT, if they aren’t seeing you in their feed, or you’re not tagging them in posts, or you’re not engaging in blogger chats to give yourself more of a voice, then how can you really expect anyone to find your blog/channel/contact details?

If I’m totally honest self promotion kinda makes me yack. God I hate it, really never have been a fan of blowing my own trumpet… I’m much more likely to make an apologetic whimper of a noise than a big ol’ fan fare. But treating yourself as an active member within the blogging community doesn’t have to be false at all, just be authentic and you’ll soon realise it’s a brilliant way to make a name for yourself. Be genuine and engage in other people’s images and posts and you’ll probably find that they’ll do the same for you. This is how friendships form and you make connections within the industry. And more often than not if one of your best blogging pals has an invite to a cool event they know you’d like then they might take you as their plus one… who knows! I just wanna be clear that USING PEOPLE for this kind of thing is obviously not cool and not what I’m implying here at all, so please don’t do that and then say you learnt it from a Georgie Philippa post or I may find a sudden decline in invites (or any emails at all for that matter) in my inbox.

2) Think about WHY a PR or brand would like you to attend their event. When you get gifted products to do a review or post on Instagram do you always do a good job? Do you email the company afterwards to let them know you’ve done the work and share the post with them? It makes sense for companies to reconnect with bloggers that they have successfully worked with previously, and if you’ve shown that you can reliably deliver what they are looking for then you’re going to be viewed a whole lot more positively than someone who perhaps hasn’t followed through with the work. If you’re the kind of person that actively takes quality pictures during an event and tweets using the right hashtags and shares behind the scenes snaps on your Instastories then you can completely understand why a brand will see value in you attending. Just think about the impression you give off to potential brands and make sure it’s the right one (there is no right or wrong here, but make sure it’s the right one for YOU and YOUR GOALS)

3) Be friendly and people will remember you. I only say this because that’s the reason that I remember people. After I go to an event or a blogger meet up, the people I connect with and keep in touch with are always the ones who took the time to properly meet me, chat to me, and usually make me laugh an awful lot. As soon as I have a good giggle with someone they become a million times more memorable to me. It’s seriously so great when you come away from an event with your own little girl gang and PRs who previously were just names and emails addresses are actually FRIENDS now. All correspondence from that point onward dramatically changes and 'kind regards' is now replaced with xoxoxoxox. It’s such a brilliant feeling making friends within the industry and in my opinion you really can’t go wrong with kindness and humour. I mean don’t start telling uncomfortable knock knock jokes to try and land some kind of pitiful gag (and again if you do please don’t reference this blog), but just loosen up a bit, have a couple of drinks and don’t take yourself too seriously. Authenticity is keyyyy. YOU GOT THIS.

4) Follow ups. Finally, if you have attended an event and met some cool people then just make sure that you keep in touch. Usually a follow on Instagram is enough but there's nothing stopping you from sending a quick email to show your appreciation and letting the person that invited you know you had a sick time. It takes a whole lot of effort making sure that an event comes together so a little note afterwards is a lovely gesture and is another great way to build up a good rapport with someone.

I hope this blog post has been helpful! Just remember that things don't happen overnight but if you work hard with a great attitude and you're consistently nice to people then it's going to take you a long way!

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9 comments

  1. That's absolutely true, every single word, I've been on many events and see it as a "sprinkle damn good pecan nut on the top of my shake" never take it for grand' and interacting will bring you always further as long as you stay you and don't fake things, hard work pays off!

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    1. So glad you think the same! hard work definitely pays off and when you stop looking for shortcuts that's when you usually see things happening :)

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  2. Great post!!! I have always wanted to get invited to a blogging event, so hopefully these tips will help me get there! :) Love your blog!
    -Jenna <3
    Follow me back? The Chic Cupcake

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