The best way to engage with bloggers these days?

[Coraltoes77]

What's the most effective/least risky ways to engage with bloggers these days in order to build links, gain exposure and refer traffic?  I'm in a competitive niche (weddings), and there's no shortage of high quality and unique content being offered to bloggers.

Currently, I do a mix of sponsorship, product giveaways, promotions etc.  But, also have some ideas in the pipeline, such as collaborating with other vendors on styled shoots, etc.  The latter is very time-consuming and, again, is something that has been done LOADS.  So, needs to be very unique to stand out.

Want to avoid things like guest blogs and riskier tactics. For obvious reasons.

Any fairly easy-to-do ideas that I've missed before I explore the more complex ones??

[Gavo]

A really commonly referenced blog post for link building because it is quite epic is: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

This may start to get you thinking about some ideas that you may be missing out on to getting links.

From what you're saying, it seems like you've got great content on your site, what may be missing are possibly the relationships. My suggestion to you would be to develop relationships with high profile bloggers in your industry and look to service them my serving their readership. Look to develop an organic relationship with these bloggers, understand how you can genuinely help them and what their audience is wanting. If you're content really is awesome and meets what their readers are wanting, and if you really have developed a real and meaningful relationship with bloggers that goes beyond just getting a link, they'll happily link to you.

[RickyShockley]

Twitter and Google Plus!

We've used Twitter to build relationships with authors/bloggers that pay off over and over again for our clients. We usually try to start of by following them and learning more about what makes them tick. Before we ever have an ask of any sort, we usually try to find ways to engage and help THEM over a period of weeks/months.

Use Twitter regularly and stay tuned in. You'll find ways to help them out by listening!

[George.Fanucci]

Voted +1 for Ricky's response, good suggestions. Have you looked http://www.blogengage.com/ for ideas? Depending on your market specifics, you may need to design more tailored strategies and tactics.

[Coraltoes77]

In terms of Google +, I need to swot up on this as I'll admit I don't have much of a clue!  Noticed a mozinar video about it, I think, so will look at that as a starting point.

Cheers for this: http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies.  I've had a brief look so far, but will look at the article more thoroughly when I get chance.