Why Do Brands Only Care About High Profile Bloggers?

I have been blogging as a hobby for over three years now, and have been lucky enough to have seen the benefits of promoting brands and monetization along the way. Generating traffic through persistence, as well as keeping up with the technological trends for updating my blog has enhanced my visibility; and therefore increased the amount of approaches in my inbox. 

Working in social media has definitely opened my eyes to the amount of work and self promotion independent bloggers have to do to get noticed nowadays. When I started blogging there was less competition, and the obvious appeared as niche to many. Now there are bloggers fighting not just to get traffic, but also free products and career opportunities. 

The big bloggers that started up a few years back are now the top dogs, and have influenced others to follow their lead and represent themselves online by blogging and posting continuous personal updates. My RSS feed is now impossible to keep up with. There are too many interesting people to follow! 

This lead me to thinking about advertorial and editorial deals via bloggers, and the constant noise of smaller bloggers trying to make it big. We are continuously hearing about Susie Bubble and Brian Boy who have had amazing opportunities to sit front row in fashion week, and have even scored great jobs. So is it only the high profile favourites that should receive this A list treatment? Or should brands start using the new 'niche' bloggers to target specific and localised audiences?

I personally believe both are worthy. Both have put hard work and effort into creating great editorial content so why shouldn't everyone have their time to shine? I think its due to the trickle down theory of idea generation, see my example below: 

- The designer / brand, or organisation will be the first point of call for premium bloggers to gain ideas and insight. 

- The 'premium' or top bloggers will publish stories similar to the well known designer, brand, or organisation. 

- The independent blogger will copy ideas from the premium bloggers in order to appear like them and gain popularity / traffic. 

Please note - I know not all bloggers do this, but personally I feel that this is something I do myself. 

This all relates to my interpretation of the 'bloggers hierarchy of needs'. See my example below: 

- The blogger will start off with knowledge (ideas and the technological experience of starting and running a blog)

- The blogger will then need a substantial network of fans and followers

- The blogger will be in need of creative flow for continuous posts and updates

- The blogger will need to gain popularity 

- The blogger will need to feel worthy (good enough to be invited to fashion week etc)

I think as time moves forward we will see a shift in the way the above theories work. Maybe the top bloggers will be looking for inspiration from the niche blogs as they gain recognition as influencers. Maybe the opportunities will change. Maybe brands will turn to the social audience instead of bloggers to help promote to the target audience. 

Stay tuned as I monitor the progress....