BrandBacker: Bringing Brands and Bloggers Together

A few weeks back, I got an email from Band of Blogs, a group that aims to help bloggers receive unique opportunities from the brands they love. This group aims to work as a sort of mediator between the blogger and the companies who are giving free samples for beauty, fashion and lifestyle bloggers (to test, review and blog about) and other opportunities that will benefit parties involved. Full access of the site isn’t available at that time though.

Just last week, the group sent out an email about their change of name to BrandBacker and the day after that, the site is opened for registration. Being the opportunity-grabber that I am (LOL!), I immediately signed up and explore what the site has to offer. Like blog directories, this site requires the blogger to register his/her blog and input relevant information not just about the blog but the blogger’s preferences as well. Bloggers are asked to input the blog’s description, blog categories, tags or specialties as well as blog demographics including languages, reader base, blog focus (women and men, mainly women, mainly men), age range and monthly traffic. Campaign preferences are also asked such as content types (brand/product write-up, contests, free sample giveaway, product reviews, videos and others), compensation types ( payment for posts, brand discount, free product samples or no compensation needed), mailing address (for samples) and paid post options (minimum price per post and payment method).

My dashboard

Given that the site is new (still in private beta), there are only five campaigns running and I believe that it will increase in the coming days. I requested to join one of the campaigns since it is the only campaign feasible to me (given my location) and it is still being reviewed until now. Once my application is approved, I will be writing about the brand and will be paid for it once my write-up is accepted.

I would definitely love to receive free samples or special blogger discount but then shipping to the other side of the world can be costly so I am kinda picky about the campaigns I consider sending a request to. For now, my campaign preferences is limited to paid post only until they’ve built their international brand offerings or I have found a way to get samples without costly shipping fees.

FYI, BrandBacker is based in San Francisco and built by GoMakelt Labs backed by grants from UC Berkeley’s Venture Lab and Start-Up Chile.

I will be posting more about BrandBacker as the time goes by so stay tuned!