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Oftentimes you’ll see the terms “blogger outreach“ and “guest posting” used interchangeably, even though the two are different practices that are distinguishable by one main factor: who is authoring the content.

In a typical guest posting campaign, marketers work with writers and designers to produce articles, infographics, and other content that blogs will be willing to publish. The marketing team then supplies this content to various blogs that are authoritative in the desired niche, acting as a guest author on the established blog in order to promote brand awareness and facilitate SEO improvements.

On the other hand, blogger outreach efforts typically involve reaching out to bloggers and asking them to write a review, news story, or article about a specific product or service. Now that we’ve explained the fundamental difference between the two, here are some other important points to consider:

Which Carries More Authority?

Since many blog readers tend to trust the main blogger who runs the site more than the average guest author, many people believe that blogger outreach is more effective. However, this is not necessarily true for several reasons.

First, you can distribute a lot more content as a guest author than you could if you were to rely solely on sponsored posts written by other bloggers, so you have quantity on your side with guest posting, which does make a difference to the search engines and for overall brand presence.

Second, a huge percentage of blog readers are not regular visitors – they simply stumble upon the page after a Google search, and many don’t even look at the author’s name, so simply being on a popular blog is often enough to establish authority in the eyes of the reader, even if the content is attributed to a guest author instead of the blog’s head honcho.

Which Has More Potential Per Post?

In terms of the potential of a single post to produce outstanding results, blogger outreach usually (but not always) provides the best results. If you’re only going to be distributing five articles, rather than implementing an ongoing content distribution campaign, it may be better to take the blogger outreach approach. Well-known bloggers have substantial followings that they can leverage to get your posts seen and taken seriously much faster than if you were releasing the same information under a pseudonym or relatively unknown guest author name.

Which is More Sustainable and Cost-Effective?

Obviously, there are only so many blogger outreach opportunities in each industry, and while the blogs themselves are limited commodities, guest authors can re-post on the same blog dozens of times, so there’s more longevity in guest posting. Once you’ve exhausted your list of bloggers who are willing to work with you, moving to guest authoring is almost inevitable.

Use Both as Part of a Balanced Strategy

In closing, while author identity plays a huge role in making blogger outreach a more prestigious option, this is by no means a competition between the two. Every balanced marketing campaign should strive to utilise a combination of guest blogging and blogger outreach to facilitate optimal results in the shortest possible time frame.