Hey everyone, today I’m here with a good friend of mine Brian Greene, from Officesupplygeek. Brian reviews home office supplies on his blog, and today he will share with you some advice for reviewing products on your blog and connecting with other companies in a professional way so you can review products for free.

Interview Transcript

Rob: Hey Brian glad to be doing this interview with you today. To start off this interview can we get a little bio about what you do, and what motivated you to start blogging?

Brian:

Sure Rob, thanks for taking the time to interview me.  Besides having a regular full time job, I also am the owner of the webiste OfficeSupplyGeek.com that focuses on unique and cool home office supply reviews and news.

I started the blog back in November of 2008.  There were a few things that motivated me to start the site, the first was my fascination with a pen review website called PenAddict.com that I used to (and still do) read every day.  Also, being an avid reader of that site, along with a ton of other technology, product review, and sports related blogs for the past few years really got me curious about the different platforms and applications that were used to actually run those blogs.  The final motivating factor was that I was always intrigued by consumer behavior and how product reviews play a role the decision making process.  Being able to leverage all of that into a product group that I personally have a lot of enthusiasm for gives me an opportunity to help others find great products that can really improve their efficiency and make their work life a little more enjoyable.

Rob:Very interesting start up you had here. What piece of information would you offer to someone interested in starting there own review site?

Brian:

Even with only about one year of experience writing product reviews, I feel like I could probably write a book on things to know about the subject, but here is what I think is probably the single most important thing to keep in mind:

Just because you are doing a product review doesn’t necessarily mean you always have to draw a line in the sand and declare your personal opinion on the product.  Of all the people reading your site, there will be a many different sets of user preferences and opinions that make up how they will feel about a particular product.

Explaining that a product has characteristics A, B, and C and talking about how of each of those characteristics impacts the use of the product can be much more helpful to your reader than saying, “I love/hate this product because of characteristic A” and just leaving it there.  Usually by presenting the information in that fashion, it forces the reader to ask themselves how THEY would feel about the product features and specifications and can be more valuable than just simply rendering your judgment on the product.

Ultimately you want the reader to become comfortable with the fact that reading your review helped them to make an informed decision, as opposed to feeling that they bought a product based on YOUR opinion and preferences, which many times won’t be the same as their own.  Having a reader that feels like you helped them make a good decision will make them much more likely to return to your site again when they are in the market for a product that you might have reviewed.

Rob: Honesty is the key. Have you ever reviewed a product given to you by another company?

Brian:

Yes, all of the products I review are from other companies because I do not sell or manufacture any products myself.  The products I review are about 1/2 purchased by myself, and 1/2 given to me by the manufacturer, PR firm, or retailer.  Getting free products to review from companies has been hit or miss, but two big factors that help are the typical price point for items I review (usually under about $25) and the fact that the review/blog market is not saturated in this industry.  I’m sure I would not have the same success in obtaining review products had I decided to do laptop or cell phone reviews.

Many brands like Sharpie, Uniball, 3M/Post-it, Avery and others  have been very generous in providing review samples of their products, but when I first started the site, I had to purchase most of the products for myself. It took a little bit of work in the beginning, but it helps to reach out to these companies and just ask if they are interested in sponsoring a review and/or giveaway by sending product your way.  You can find many of them, or their PR agencies on sites like Twitter and FaceBook.  I’ve found that contacting them with a short email explaining who you are and some quick facts to show the reach that your site has can open the door to a positive working relationship.  Sometimes the PR firms are the best place to start because they are paid to find these opportunities for the companies that retain them.  An added bonus is that they might even represent more than one company in the industry, so you are essentially able to start building relationships with multiple brands with just one email.

Rob: With all the social platforms out there, Email, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and so on, what would you say the most effective way to build a relationship with a company is?

Brian:

When it comes to relationship building and social media, I feel that Twitter is a great way to establish a relationship with someone in the industry that you blog about.  By using some of the search tools, you can find the folks that would be most helpful to you if you dont already know who they are.  Its also an easy way to open the door without that person needing to give up their email address, which people can be pretty hesitant to do.  Once you have that relationship established, its much easier to work with them via email.

Rob: I agree thanks to Twitter they have opened up a new effective way to communicate with others without releasing to much personal information. When approaching a company for a professional inquiry, what piece of advice would you offer to someone trying to “stand out” and get noticed through the thousands of emails the company probably receives. What would they have to do for the company say “this email is the one”

Brian:

It can be hard to get noticed, but I think the things that really increase your chances of being noticed and being selected as someone that they want to work with are to make sure that you keep the communication short and to the point.  You need to ensure that you include some brief info about your sites reach like unique visitors per month, RSS subscribers, even tiwtter followers or other social media metrics.  Additionally you want to make sure that all of the content on your site is of a professional quality.  Any company will want to see that if they put trust in you to represent their product that you will do so in a way that looks as good as possible.

Another approach if you dont have a good deal of existing content or an established blog with lots of followers is to write about or review products from the company that you might be targeting.  So if you want to establish a partnership with them, publish some content about them and use that when you reach out to them as a way to highlight how you understand their product(s) and can position them in a good light while also attracting consumers to it.  By publishing the content before you reach out to them,  you might also get yourself on their radar because any good PR firm or marketing team will use multiple tools to alert them as to when their products are mentioned online.  If you take this approach you will also want to make sure you have a good tracking program in place so you can see if your content has drawn the attention of the company you are writing about.  I use statcounter.com and you can see the ISP, which is often times the name of the company, so that is a huge help in knowing if you have the attention of someone at that company.

Rob: That’s some great information you offered there, I like how you suggested to write reviews about products for the company your trying to target. What was one of the biggest mistakes you’ve made when you started off reviewing products?

Brian:

Id say the biggest mistake I made in the beginning was not planning far enough in advance.  I would often find myself scrambling to find products to review, and it put me in a bad position in terms of having time to properly maintain the site, respond to comments and emails, and do the planning that I should have done before I started.

The best advice I could give in this area is to make sure you have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 weeks worth of posts written and ready to go before you actually go live with the blog.  This is also very helpful to do even once the blog is live because you never know when you might get sick or have something come up that will prevent you from keeping up with your blog.

Rob: That’s some good advice. What would you say you like most about the internet lifestyle?

Brian:

I think that in my case it is a little different because I have a full time job.  This helps to reduce some of the worry of trying to make a living off my blog alone, however the drawback is also that I dont have as much time to work on things as I’d like.  Overall though I find it to be a good mix of being able to generate a little bit of extra income, while still having the security of my actual job.

An additional benefit though is that this has given me the opportunity to do some work in a field that I enjoy.  It gives me the confidence and security of knowing that if I ever lost my full time job, Ive got many contacts that I have made through the blog that could potentially help me should I need to begin a new career search, or decide to really ramp up the blogging activity.  Again, the flexibility of the whole situation is what I find most valuable.

Rob: Is there anyone you look up to as inspiration or for guidance? If so you can name more than one.

Brian:

I would say the biggest inspiration was Brad who writes a blog within my niche called The Pen Addict.  I have been a reader of his blog for a long time and you can really see the enthusiasm he has for pens, which translates into some really great reviews, and he always makes it a point to interact with all of his readers which I think is huge in keeping people engaged and returning to the site because it shows that you value their readership and input.  Since I have been reading his blog, and writing my own now, I have had the chance to communicate with him a few times and he has always been super nice and just good and helpful person to know.

Additionally I think that from a pure blogging perspective, Darren Rowse and Robb Sutton have helped me to learn a ton in a short amount of time.  I specifically remember reading a lot of great tips from Darren on how to improve results as an Amazon affiliate.  Although I’ve only recently started reading Robbs work, the information I  have learned from him really stands out from some of the other stuff that I’ve seen, especially when it comes to product reviews.

I try not to get bogged down by too many “experts” because if you read enough, eventually it will all contradict itself.  I find that keeping up with what those three are doing helps give me great insight from multiple perspectives, and by learning from them to make my own decisions (not just blindily following thier successes) I’ve been able to become more successful

Rob: Great people, I know Darren and Robb personally and they’re great people. Before we tie up this interview, are their any plans business or personal that you would like to share with us before we close off this interview?

Brian:

I do have some thoughts around expanding what I do online and possibly offline too, however I still have many things that I need to perfect and get right with my current project.  One thing I think that is important though is reinvesting the earnings from my site to further improve the content and experience for my readers.  Simple things such as purchasing a premium theme, better photography equipment, more products to review, and some helpful design and analysis tools really make a difference in the end product that I put out, which in turn increases readership, and makes my blog more appealing for advertisers, and those who want to partner with me.

Rob: Great Brian, I wish you the best. I would like to thank you for coming down to Robswebtips and taking the time to share with us this great information and cheers to your success!

Keep in touch with Brian

Enjoyed the interview? Be sure to keep in touch with Brian -

Website: Officesupplygeek
Twitter: @Officesupplygee

Photo Credit: Brian Greene

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