[caption id="attachment_149" align="alignleft" width="400"] Are brands missing out by ignoring blogs?[/caption] A lot of the most well-known bloggers have been creating high-quality content for over a decade. Blogs aren't where it all began, but they're currently one of the most sought after routes for brand advertising, even beyond print media. In the last few years platforms like YouTube and Instagram have taken the internet by storm. Major chunks of advertising budgets have been focusing on working with Influencers across all ages from around the world. Why? Because brands want a piece of your audience. It's only natural to want to reach out and get a stronger marketing grip on their intended demographic. Thanks to analytics on most social media platforms as well as on Google, brands are able to focus their dollars on working with Influencers that they know are reaching their intended audience. Using these analytics the brands can single out exactly who they want to work with because those are the influencers directly impacting their target demo. It's not only a smarter move, it's a lot less expensive than a 30 second TV ad that very few people are paying attention to. But are brands missing out by shunning traditional bloggers and their blogs? The answer to our survey on the matter was nearly 99.9% YES, the brands are missing out. Lisa Rollins from Stitch in Progress wants brands to know that not all consumers are scrolling through Instagram & that social media posts are fleeting, "There are a lot of great bloggers with large audiences off of social media and brands are missing out on all of those buyers. Many of our blog readers are not on Instagram, so they never see any of that content." Because social media posts are so short-lived it's important for brands to think about and also capitalize on their future ROI. Roketa Dumas from Socially Acquainted wants brands to remember that "The great thing about blog posts are that they last. They might not get a lot of traffic today but that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to blow up into something greater next week, next month, or even next year. That blog post has longevity that social media just does not have. " [caption id="attachment_152" align="alignright" width="400"] Are brands missing out by ignoring blogs?[/caption] Several other bloggers co-signed that Instagram posts are fleeting while blogs carry on forever. "Remember that blog posts are playing the long game. Don't judge a campaign's success in the first days. Pins take awhile to get going these days, so a campaign that looks like a slow start can take off after a month or more." Melissa George from Polished Habitat states "My most successful sponsored post now has almost 2 million views and people continue buying the product every week, but it was 4 months before the post really took off. " In addition to that, because Instagram algorithms move so quickly and are constantly changing Huong Vo from She Sweats Diamonds wants to stress that "there is no guarantee that the post will even be shown - content is controlled by the algorithm that is in place, which also seems to change frequently and seemingly on a whim". On the flip side Kate Kelly from Life of a Ginger thinks it depends on the product. "For some things, an IG post is much more appropriate/effective than a blog post." Kate says, "with IG you are going to have more eyes on the item and that will (hopefully) have followers click through to a blog post, salespage, or ad."   [caption id="attachment_154" align="alignleft" width="375"] Are brands missing out by ignoring blogs?[/caption] But what about click-through? Instagram is not known as being a user friendly platform for all influencers to push traffic to your website. Recently it's been said that utilizing Instagram Stories is the number one way to send traffic to a site. However micro-influencers do not have access to the swipe up feature until they have over 10,000 followers or have a verified account. By only utilizing Instagram for brand advertising, your brand is potentially missing out on an influencer that maybe only has 2,000 Instagram followers but gets 100,000 unique blog impressions a month. At the end of the day Influencers want you to know that blogging focuses on building a long-term community. Karen from Familystyle Food says that "There's so many talented creators with tons of knowledge about their topic/niche, and they are getting lost in the noisy world of Instagram." Most importantly, it's imperative for brands to understand that "When someone Googles a topic, it's not Instagram that answers it." Like Rhona Brown from MomSkoop states, "Not everyone who is a consumer is on Instagram."