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Sponsored Post Information

Sponsored posts are the perfect way to get the word out on your event, product, or destination with the name of a reputable media outlet behind it. These posts reach a targeted network of outdoor enthusiasts across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. They are located on the home page of our site, which gets about seven thousand page views per week alone.

Sponsored Post Overview

You probably already know, but just in case you don’t, a sponsored post is a piece of media-rich content that runs on our homepage for a week. We offer six weekly sponsored content placements on our home page. Each post resides at its on unique URL, which is the same as the post’s title.

Sponsored Post Formatting

We like to keep it as simple as possible. Sections of information, broken up by images and headlines, maybe a blockquote, followed by a video and your logo(s). All content must adhere to AP Style guidelines, but don’t worry, we’ll give it a look over and make any formatting changes you may need. Our general sponsored post content requirements are as follows:

  • 600-900 words
  • Contextual hyperlinks
  • One featured image
  • Up to 8 body copy images
  • One blockquote
  • One video (optional)
  • Logos

We cover these in more detail in the following paragraphs. Have a question or a special request? Feel free to contact us today! We do our best to accommodate all content.

Here are some great examples of existing sponsored posts on our site:

Get Outside on the Alabama Gulf Coast

Why You Should Visit Virginia Beach This Fall

Roanoke – Virginia’s Blue Ridge

Overland Expo

Submitting Your Content

All content must be submitted via email in a .zip folder as an email attachment, Dropbox link, or Google Drive link.

  • Accepted text formats: .doc, .txt, .rtf, .pdf
  • All hyperlinks must be embedded in the content
  • Link to video must be in document (Youtube or Vimeo)
  • Images must be at least 750px wide and 450px high
  • Accepted image formats: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .tif
  • Accepted logo formats: .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .ai, .eps, .pdf

Download a sample sponsored post here!

Content Guidelines

The content must be relevant to the readers of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine. We’re sorry, but your new Chic Fashion Show or the Moonshine Boogaloo at Cooter’s Alligator Farm don’t really fit here. We reserve the right to turn down any content that our readers may not find valuable.

Hyperlinks

Linking out to your website, landing page, and/or social profiles is a huge part of why we offer sponsored content. Not only are you driving referral traffic with your links, you are building a high-quality contextual backlink to your site for SEO. It can be keyword specific or brand specific, either way, it will live on the internet forever because we never take the post down!

Image Guidelines

Every post has a featured image. This image is what shows on the front end of the website and across all social shares. It’s important that it is eye-catching and relevant to your post. Please title your featured image, “featured-image.” To view a sample featured post format, download it here.

For embedded images, it’s best to break up each section with a photo and a headline. This lets readers easily digest the content and enhances the overall look of the post. If a user sees a sea of text, they’re paddling for shore. Images are a great way to connect with our audience and showcase a product, destination, experience, lifestyle, or event.

We request that you designate image placement in your sponsored post document. For an example, download one here.

If you need help with your images, have no fear! Our creative team can help you resize images to fit and work perfectly with our formatting guidelines.

Blockquotes

Have an awesome piece of text you’d like to jump out at our readers? That’s a job for a blockquote. It doesn’t have to literally be a quote. It can just be a line of text taken out of the article or something you make up altogether. For example:

“Whoa! This is a blockquote which is great for sharing a little bit of callout text and really capturing our reader’s attention with some cool words!”

Keep in mind, you don’t want blockquotes to be too long. It should only be a sentence at best.

Video Guidelines

A number of our clients love to include videos along with their post. This is great because our readers absolutely love videos. Whether you’re looking to share a brief promo video about a location or an in-depth product review, we don’t care how long it is. We do, however, only limit one video per article to keep our load times as low as possible.

We can only embed videos from Youtube, Vimeo, or Instagram. Do not send us your video file as we cannot upload it and host it for you. Please link to it in your sponsored post content and we’ll take it from there. Check out the example file here for placement.

Logo Guidelines

Keep your branding consistent with your message by embedding a logo at the bottom of your post. We allow up to two in case there are multiple parties and/or sponsors you’re wanting to feature in the post. Of course, there are always special cases. If you need to include more logos, let us know and we’ll do what we can to accommodate.

Beef Up Your Post

In an effort to help maximize the exposure of your content with our brand’s backing, we have several additional methods for your post to reach a larger audience of outdoor enthusiasts. Along with your post, we can:

  • Share on Facebook and Boost (over 57k followers)
  • Share on Twitter (over 7k followers)
  • Link from an Instagram Story (over 58k followers)
  • Share in our email newsletters (over 40k subscribers)

More on those great ideas to come, but in the meantime, feel free to contact us to go over these options.

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