Working With Influencers: A Q&A With Hege In France
It’s common knowledge that developing relationships with influential personalities to promote your brand is key. This new age of marketing positions you and your product in trend channels, reaching potential customers you may not otherwise have been able to connect with, be it design, tech or fashion.
Whilst there is a crossover between celebrity sponsorships and influencer marketing, micro influencer campaigns are created to tap into an existing community of engaged followers. These influencers are specialists in their niches, and often have a high volume of engagement with their followers.
Known for her Scandinavian outlook on interiors and impeccable taste in design, Hege In France has taken our inner stylist’s world by storm with her constant feed of inspiring home décor ideas across Instagram, Pinterest and her blog. With over 295,000 followers on Pinterest alone, one of her most popular pins at 3.3k shares is from a collaboration with one of our clients, Clearwater Baths.
We have seen phenomenal results for brand awareness and click-through campaigns when working with Hege and as she is currently working on her 70s home renovation, we thought it would be rude not to bring together a Norwegian stylist with beautiful pared-back style and Norwegian natural stone specialist, Lundhs Real Stone.
We caught up with Hege to chat blogs, influencers and why your brand should be collaborating….
Tell us how you got into blogging?
I was living in France at the time (hence the name of the blog!) and we had been living in our new home for 6 months without internet access. I had been renovating and painting furniture for a while and decided to start a little diary of what I was doing, so that’s how I learned about blogging. I really didn’t know much about blogging at the time, so it was a steep learning curve.
What does a typical working day look like for you?
I take my son to school and go for a walk before I start properly, but before all of that I check Instagram and my emails and deal with anything urgent. I work with lots of different brands, so I often do styling, content writing and photo editing. I love the fact that my day isn’t set in stone and I’m not stuck in the office too much. I like working from home. My work is really varied and I really like it that way.
Who are your biggest influencers? What inspires your style?
I love everything from Oliver Gustav. It’s not the bright white walls I blog about on a daily basis, but I love the character of everything they do. It’s totally unique. I also love blogs like AMM and September Edit. There are also lots of lovely UK Scandinavian design blogs that I follow. Trends definitely have a big influence on me and as I see things all the time that inspire me both on the internet and in magazines.
Is it essential for brands to collaborate with bloggers, if so, why?
YES! People really like to see how to use products and bloggers can help with that. It’s also important to show products in a home setting. I think people like to imagine what it would look like in their homes and get ideas and inspiration from it.
Has the shift in brand advertising to digital /social platforms changed your role as a blogger?
Definitely! I’ve been blogging since 2011 and things have changed a lot since then. When I first started out brands didn’t do a lot of collaborations with bloggers and now some brands rely heavily on bloggers and influencers to promote their products. I use Instagram and Pinterest a lot these days. Some brands don’t even ask for a blog post, they only want content on Instagram as that is their main market, so not everything I do is on the blog.
What type of networking works best to drive traffic to the blog?
Years ago, I probably would have said commenting on blog posts, but I think people do that less and less. I certainly get a lot more comments on my Instagram posts than I do on the blog. Things like being featured on other blogs help and being nominated for awards. Getting out there and going to events is also important.
What tools do you find indispensable for creating content on your blog?
Lots of props, Photoshop, Pinterest and my camera. Not in any order, but they’re all important. Working as a stylist I have a large amount of props that I use. Green plants are also a big must for my styled blog post photos.
We know how important it is for you to keep your collaborations and sponsorships on brand, is that hard to do?
I normally take a good look at the brand image and try to match my styling to what works for them. The key is to keep to the colours and tones they are using. It can be hard, but I think it’s important to say no if you don’t think the collaboration will work with your followers. It has to be a good match.
How do you see your blog / social platforms developing from here?
I have some goals I want to reach in terms of numbers and would love to see my Instagram account grow a lot more.
What’s the biggest challenge for any full-time blogger?
To find enough paid work..
What would you have done differently with the knowledge you have now, if anything?
That’s a hard question. I probably would have bought a good camera from day one. That and made my images the same size. When I first started I used tiny images and they don’t look great.
Any advice for aspiring bloggers?
It takes time, but if you stick to it you will get results.
Looking to work with Hege and like-minded influencers? Get in touch with us to see how we can help your brand reach out!
August 4, 2017 9:13 am
