Investigating the failure of firm-blogger collaboration initiation: A blogger perspective
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Investigating the failure of firm-blogger collaboration initiation: A blogger
perspective
Marianne Sepp, Johanna Gummerus and Veronica Liljander
Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Introduction
Blog marketing is becoming an increasingly accepted form of marketing. In order to
communicate with end customers who read blogs and are therefore subject to blog marketing,
firms can either have their own employees blog or comment on blogs, or employ external
sources such as public relations professionals or private bloggers to do so (e.g. Smith, 2011).
Collaboration with private bloggers has become increasingly common in many industries,
especially in fashion and beauty where a growing number of companies have started blogger
outreach programs (Clark 2010). About 29% of people from the 18-24 years age group seek
advice from bloggers before they buy beauty products (Tesseras 2014) and therefore an
increasing number of companies are trying to persuade bloggers to talk about their brands. In
fact, recent research reports that at least in fashion industry, blogs influence readers positively
(Halvorsen, Hoffman, Coste-Manière and Stankeviciute, 2013). In this study, we therefore
focus on private beauty and fashion bloggers who are relatively independent of firms and
whom the customers therefore perceive to be reliable information sources.
Although some previous research on the collaboration between firms and bloggers
exists, the main focus has been on bloggers who have already chosen to collaborate with a
company, and the underlying assumption has been that the firm-blogger relationships are
predominantly harmonious and successful. Studies have focused on how bloggers incorporate
marketing messages to their blog (Kozinets, de Valck, Wojinicki & Wilner 2010; Kulmala,
Mesiranta & Tuominen 2013), how corporate collaboration enhances bloggers’ taste
leadership (McQuarrie, Miller & Phillips 2013) and how bloggers incorporate brands to their
personal storytelling (Kretz & deValck 2010). Furthermore, Uzunoglu & Kip (2014)
investigated how companies and PR-agencies pick out influential bloggers for their
campaigns. However, we know little of what can go wrong in firm-blogger collaboration in
general and their initiation in particular, although many firm-blogger collaborations fail at the
initiation stage (Clark 2010). Due to the focus on successful collaboration and brands that
bloggers willingly add to their blogs, there is a lack of studies investigating why and how
establishing collaboration (i.e. relationship initiation) fails. Such failures are costly and should
be minimized, or learned from, and consequently the underlying reasons for failure require
research. What are the factors that shun away bloggers? Could perhaps also bloggers learn
from these failed initiation attempts? These questions, as well as others, stand open.
To the best of our knowledge this study is the first to investigate what makes a
company’s effort to establish a relationship with a blogger fail. We do this by taking the
blogger perspective, looking into the reasons bloggers give for abandoning collaboration
suggestions. Consequently, the aim of this study is to examine collaboration initiation failures
from the bloggers’ perspective. Our results contribute to relationship marketing by exploring
the prerequisites and hindrances for firm-blogger relationship initiation and to social media
marketing literature by studying the barriers of firm-blogger collaboration.
Literature review
Relationship marketing (Berry, 1983) focused originally on the relationships between firms
and private customers (Gummesson, 2002), extending later to any two parties and networks
(e.g. Anderson, Håkansson & Johanson 1994; Grönroos, 2000; Håkansson and Snehota,1989). The network approach has been emphasized in the nascent marketing environment,
partially due to the rise of consumer networks in social media (Kozinets, de Valck, Wojnicki
and Wilner, 2010). It highlights the interconnectedness of actors, and outlines important third
actors, such as external part-time marketers (Gummesson 1991; 2002), who may act as
sources of word-of-mouth (Christopher et al. 2004). Bloggers can act as such third actors,
communicating messages with marketing content to their readers. Marketing where one
consumer is a middleman reaching a network of other consumers has been coined the
“network coproduction model”, (Kozinets et al. 2010), and it is characterized by the “use of
new tactics and metrics to deliberately target and influence the consumer or opinion leader”
(p. 72-73). In social media marketing, we however know very little about the tactics that firms
use to initiate relationships with bloggers and what makes bloggers reject the attempts.
Although there is limited information about the firm-blogger collaboration, previous research
on relationship initiation and blogger motivations can be useful, and we will discuss these
research streams next.
Because relationships are two-sided, relationship initiation depends on the needs of
both parties and how collaboration supports these. Relationship initiation studies (Dwyer,
Schurr and Oh, 1987) outline the relationship development as a process that starts with
awareness (recognition of the other party as a potential exchange party), after which follows
exploration. During exploration, both parties consider the pros and cons of the collaboration,
including expected obligations, benefits, and burdens. The benefits may stem from similarity
of values, beliefs or personality. According to Dwyer et al., several aspects are necessary for
successful relationships initiation: the parties must communicate effectively, negotiate roles
that correspond to their inputs, and form expectations for promising future interactions. These
factors thus relate to communication and negotiation of the collaboration content. The study
of Edvardsson, Holmlund & Strandvik (2008) add characteristics of collaboration which
move the relationship initiation process forward: time (timing of activities), trust (in people
and firm) and service offering (its distinctiveness in comparison to alternatives). The
relationship inhibitors entail bonds (structural and perceptual ties that create inertia), risk
(estimated difficulties in the co-operation and possible negative outcomes of it) and image
(perception of the seller). In a blogging context, bloggers can be expected to evaluate similar
collaboration characteristics for themselves but also from the perspective of the blog readers.
Furthermore, marketing via blogs can vary from contract-based (where obligations and
benefits are set) to open sponsorship (e.g. handing out merchandise with loose obligation),
meaning that different types of firm-blogger relationships exist. Collaboration can also restrict
to one-time marketing cooperation, but at the initiation stage this may be difficult to define, as
the first collaboration may either lead to the beginning of a long-term relationship or end it in
its bud.
Regarding blogger openness for collaboration, Smith (2010) identified three important
aspects. First, bloggers are well aware of firms’ attempt to persuade them. For bloggers,
collaboration decisions in general create tension, because the blogger needs to merge his/her
roles of blog community creator with that of commercial actor (Kozinets et al. 2010). Because
of their dual role, bloggers have both private and community interests to guard (Kozinets et al.
2010). Bloggers perceive a variety of social gratifications of which many stem from the
interaction between the blogger and the readers (Sepp, Liljander & Gummerus 2011). Often,
the bloggers experience an obligation to their readers (Halvorsen et al. 2013; Smith, 2010).
Bloggers see their blogs as a “personal medium for self-expression, community connection
and sharing opinions” (Smith, p. 176). Second, the bloggers expressed the wish to receive
neutral information rather than carefully crafted marketing communication. Third, the blog
content may vary due to the evolvement of bloggers: in the introduction phase the blogger is
mostly testing out, in the community membership phase the blogger’s main concern are thereader connections, and in the final phase, autonomy, the bloggers experience ownership over
content creation. (Smith 2010)
Finally, Hinz, Skiera, Barrot & Becker (2010) compiled literature and summarized
four general viral marketing success factors from the firms’ perspective: 1) content in terms of
message attractiveness, 2) structure of the social network, 3) behavioral characteristics of the
receivers and the incentives suggested and 4) seeding strategy, referring to the choice of
targeted recipients. Consequently, marketing collaboration initiatives may be assessed in
terms of their alignment with the self, the expectations of the blog readers, the communication
style of the firm, as well as the maturity of the blogger. Table I summarized factors which,
according to previous studies, may influence bloggers’ decisions about collaboration. Our
study will explore which factors lead to bloggers rejecting firm-blogger relationship initiation
attempts.
Table I: Factors that influence bloggers’ decision to collaborate or not
Blogger characteristics Blogger motivations such as image building, satisfy Sepp et al. (2011)
vanity, offer good content
Blogger personality Smith (2010)
Blogger style Kulmala et al. (2013)
Blogger maturity/experience Smith (2010)
Previous obligations (structural and perceptual ties) Edvardsson et al. (2008)
Blog characteristics Congruency with the central themes in the blog Segev et al. (2014)
Blogger-reader Reader expectations Smith (2010)
relationship Mutual trust Halvorsen et al. (2013)
Firm characteristics Image of the firm (held by the blogger) Edvardsson et al. (2008)
Service offering distinctiveness (blogger perception) Edvardsson et al. (2008)
Firm-blogger Mutual trust Edvardsson et al. (2008);
relationship Valtakoski (2015)
characteristics
Collaboration Obligations Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987)
characteristics
Benefits offered , stemming from similarity of
values, beliefs or personality Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987)
Burdens Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987)
Risk (estimated difficulties in the co-operation and Edvardsson et al. (2008);
possible negative outcomes of it) Valtakoski (2015)
Timing of activities Edvardsson et al. (2008)
Communication Message attractiveness See Hinz et al. (2010); Chiu et
characteristics Efficient communication during which roles are al. (2014)
agreed upon and expectations for future interactions Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987)
are set Valtakoski (2015)
Personal relationships between the company Hintz et al. (2010)
representative and the blogger
Seeding strategy i.e. firm choice of targeted
recipients (bloggers)
Methodology
In order to examine collaboration initiation failures in firm-blogger relationships from the
blogger’s perspective, we interviewed 14 beauty and fashion bloggers in Estonia (for choice
of context, see Sepp et al. 2011). The interviews were conducted in the native language of the
informants and one of the authors. All of the bloggers wrote their blogs in both Estonian and
English and had readers from countries beyond their own. Beauty and fashion bloggers where
chosen because companies in the beauty industry are actively collaborating with bloggers(Clark 2010). The informants were chosen purposively using intensity sampling (Patton
2002). Initially 20 Estonian beauty and fashion bloggers with most followers on Bloglovin
and Google reader were identified. Out of these bloggers 14 agreed to be interviewed. All of
the bloggers had at least three years of blogging experience and were actively collaborating
with numerous brands, being among the leading bloggers within their country and niche. The
bloggers wrote mainly about fashion, beauty, health, design and other similar lifestyle topics
and had an active readership. These blogs had between 750-4500 visitors per day and the
bloggers wrote 10-30 blog posts per month. All of the respondents were women, aged 18-28.
Only female informants were included because there were no influential male beauty and
fashion bloggers in the country. Previous studies about fashion bloggers have also
concentrated on female bloggers (McQuarrie et al. 2013; Kulmala et al. 2013).
Narrative interviews (Riessman 2008) were conducted with the bloggers where they
were asked to tell about their experiences of being contacted by firms or collaboration with
them. The interviews were semi-structured (Patton 2002) and covered a list of topics, but let
the informants freely direct the conversation. The interviews lasted between 30-75 minutes
and resulted in approximately 10 hours of recorded material. The interviews were then
transcribed and analysed. All of the informants reported more than one incident where the
initiation of collaboration/relationship had failed. The data analysis started by identification of
different themes in the data (Silverman 2006) and then based on these themes, the categories
of reasons for failure were derived (Spiggle 1994). Additional iteration of the data and
categories was performed to reveal the dynamic nature of the actions, that is, to separate
categories that preceded other categories, (Spiggle 1994) before finalizing the results.
Findings and discussion
All of the respondents had experienced success and failure in establishing initial
collaboration. In accordance with the aim of the study, to examine collaboration initiation
failures from the bloggers’ perspective, our analysis concentrated on the failures. The
bloggers gave several reasons for the failures of firm-blogger collaboration initiation, and
perceived these failures to stem from firms’ poor planning and communication of
collaboration. The bloggers provided more frequently examples on failed relationship
initiation with big, often multinational companies, while there were more success stories of
collaboration with smaller firms and startups.
First of all, the bloggers perceived that in many cases, the firm sent the same
collaboration offer to several bloggers within the same interest area and market (in this case
lifestyle blogging). This was perceived to be a problem for three main reasons. First, the
bloggers aim at providing original material to their readers, who follow many similar,
competing blogs. If the firm message is pushed through numerous blogs, the bloggers fear
that they are not able to provide their readers with distinctive, interesting postings. Secondly,
the bloggers reflected their identity vis-à-vis the other bloggers whom they believed or knew
were contacted by the firm. Some of the respondents for example expressed feeling insulted
by receiving the same offer as other, much less experienced bloggers. This finding may be
due to the respondents being leading bloggers within their field, and expecting more
appreciation from the firms contacting them. Furthermore, in some cases the bloggers
perceived that the other bloggers who collaborate with the company differed from them in
style and taste, and refused any collaboration with the firm because of this. Third, the
bloggers expressed their wish to feel special or original, but receiving the same offer as
everybody else contradicted with this endeavor.
Secondly, in some cases the blogger refused collaboration because the firm, the brand
or the product did not fit with the blogger personality or the blog. This finding is in line with
previous research reporting that bloggers wish to maintain and enhance their image throughthe blog, and do this by selecting content (Sepp et al. 2011). In some cases, the object that the
collaboration regarded simply did not fit the blog area. In other cases, the object did not fit the
blog style or the reader characteristics (such as youth product for elder readers or vice versa).
Third, in some cases the respondents felt that the collaboration could not be
established because the firm tried to dictate the terms of collaboration, and treated the blog as
a medium for paid advertising. In these cases, the bloggers felt that the firm did not recognize
the role of bloggers as autonomous actors. Instead, the respondents told how they failed to
establish relationships with firms, for example, because they were asked to guarantee a
positive review, use the exact wording proposed by the firm, or because they were expected to
provide a media plan where all the blog posts with their content and date of publishing would
be presented. This may be a sign that some firms think of bloggers as professionals with
whom they can agree on precise terms and conditions. The companies in our study showed
little interest in negotiating the terms of collaboration.
Fourthly, in some cases the bloggers felt that the communication style of the firm was
wrong. Previous studies support that bloggers prefer an informal and personalized
communication style (Smith 2010, 2011).
Figure 1: Reasons behind collaboration failures according to bloggers
Conclusions, managerial implications and future research
The purpose of this paper was to investigate bloggers’ perceptions of the reasons for
why firm-blogger collaboration fails. Our findings contribute to relationship marketing by
introducing bloggers as a vital stakeholder in a network and highlight the reasons for failure in
establishing blogger relationships. Our theoretical part identified six potential reasons for
failure: characteristics of the blogger, the blog, the firm, the firm-blogger relationship
collaboration, and communication. Our empirical findings revealed that from the bloggers’
perspective, the main reason for failure is the communication from the firm. Choosing the
wrong tone of communication or contacting too many bloggers without paying attention to
their seniority was seen as a common mistake that firms do. Previous studies on bloggercollaboration and social media marketing have mentioned similar causes for failure (Smith
2010; Hinz et al. 2010). Thus, factors that may seem relatively trivial for firms play an
important role in bloggers’ decisions about abandoning collaboration attempts. Furthermore,
it was found that bloggers felt that firms do not understand their role as blogger and therefore
set unfeasible requirements on the prospective collaboration. Furthermore, actual negotiation
was perceived as non-existent, as collaboration suggestion were perceived as given (take it or
leave it) and no efficient systems for negotiation existed. These findings have implications on
relationship marketing and on how to understand bloggers as an actor in a business
relationship.
Our findings are interesting when contrasted to those found in previous relationship
marketing research that has focused on dyadic relationships between customers and
companies or between companies and companies (e.g. Dwyer et al. 1987). Our study shows
that knowledge about establishing business relationships applies in many aspects also to
blogger-company relationships, but that there are some special characteristics that firms need
to take into account. Differently from b2b relationships (Dwyer et al. 1987), bloggers have to
be considered as unique, often non-professional actors with a dual or even multiple roles.
They are partly equal business partners but also the company’s customers (when consuming
or testing the firm’s products/services). In addition, they are middlemen between the company
and the blog readers. Even in the course of the relationship initiation the bloggers’ role shifts
between an individual customer, a professional business partner, and a middle man. Bloggers
prefer to be approached as business partners, that is, with a personalized approach. Like in
business relationships, bloggers evaluate the image of the firm, the distinctiveness of the
offering and possible perceived risk (Edvardssson et al. 2008). On the other hand, bloggers
tend to avoid strict contracts, to keep the freedom of expression in their blog, which is
different from a b2b relationship that may come with certain burdens and obligations (Dwyer,
Schurr and Oh 1987). In this aspects bloggers cannot be treated as traditional business
partners but rather as individual customers.
Another important aspect of establishing relationships with bloggers is that it happens
in a social media setting where the bloggers are connected to other bloggers. Differently from
b2c or b2b relationships bloggers’ relationships with firms are not confined to two parties
only but get affected by the firm’s relationships with other bloggers. Bloggers were found to
closely observe the actions of others. For example bloggers take notice of what other bloggers
are offered and evaluate the firm’s attempts to collaborate accordingly. This aspect makes
blogger relationships different from other types of business relationships. Previous studies on
blogger motivations support this finding as bloggers seek to socialize, satisfy their vanity and
build their personal image (Sepp et al. 2011), and at the same time keep their readers engaged
(Smith 2011).
Our study also offers some managerial implications on how to improve collaboration
with bloggers. For the social media managers it is important to keep in mind the dual role of
the bloggers and understand that the bloggers prefer a personal approach but are not willing to
accept strict terms and conditions. It may be a good idea to let the bloggers choose from a
variety of products and let them decide what to say. In that way the final message would be
also more interesting for the readers. Furthermore, when choosing bloggers for collaboration
partners, the managers should pay attention to the hierarchies between the bloggers and try to
contact the more experienced ones before others.
Future research should focus on the types of relationships that bloggers form with the
brands/firms they blog about. In addition, there has been inadequate research on brands that
bloggers avoid talking about or brands that are generally disliked in the blogosphere. It would
be particularly useful for firms to understand how brands end up being generally shunned
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