“Is Collaboration the Key to Blogging Success?” plus 1 more

Is Collaboration the Key to Blogging Success?

Posted: 01 Aug 2011 01:03 PM PDT

This guest post is by Onibalusi from YoungPrePro.com.

I was looking up to the skies a few days ago and what I saw made me see how organized even animals can be. I saw around 50 birds flying from one tree to another and by the time they returned, each had a stick in its mouth—they were working on building a house.

This taught me a very important lesson about blogging, and made me realize that every single thing around us can teach us to be a better blogger.

If those birds could work in groups just to be able to build their house, then what about us bloggers? Why can’t we effectively use the power of collaboration to build our blogs?

The truth is that the number of new bloggers trying to build a successful blog single-handedly nowadays is stunning. We know that there are over 152 million blogs in the blogosphere, but we just can’t figure out how many are successes—as far as we’re concerned, the majority of blogs online are failures.

How do we then stand out as bloggers? What can we do to boost our blogs’ success rates, and differentiate our blogs from the 152 million other blogs in the blogosphere? The truth is we’ve heard the answer to this puzzle a gazillion times, but we’ve really never considered it to be that important.

The key is collaboration.

The importance of collaboration

You’ve probably heard that you should collaborate to build a successful blog at least once, but why on earth should you even try that? After all, you can claim all the credit for building a great blog alone!

Build a successful blog with super-human power

That power could be speed, strength, or everything else that’s involved. If you take a look at the case of the 50 birds I was talking about, you’ll notice how easily these birds can build whatever house they want to build in a much shorter period of time than if the work was done only by one of them.

It might be difficult for you to kickstart your blog, but the strength, cooperation, and wisdom of 50 additional bloggers can’t be compared. I know it is almost impossible to get that many bloggers to support you, especially if you’re very new. But the truth is that you don’t need 50 bloggers to support you to build a successful blog—three bloggers working with you towards the success of your blog will make a whole lot of difference.

Increase your reputation overnight

A lot of people will have told you it takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but do you know you can build a great reputation in a matter of years with the right tactics?

By associating with the right groups of bloggers at the right time, you can easily build a successful blog without moving an inch. Sometimes, all you need is just the endorsement of a highly successful blogger in your niche. Even if you don’t get the endorsement of an A-list blogger, getting the endorsement of two or three bloggers who are at the same level as you will make a whole lot of difference.

Social proof

The funny thing about getting people to endorse you is that you don’t need hundred people to endorse you before you succeed. You only need one or two targeted people.

We human beings are made in such a way that we are easily influenced by things and people around us, and you can use this to your advantage. If you can get the support and endorsement of two to three other bloggers in your niche, you can easily use that as social proof to get more bloggers to endorse you, and that endorsement from those two bloggers might mean the difference between readers thinking you’re cool, or that you don’t know what you’re talking

Ways to collaborate with other bloggers to achieve success

When people hear about collaborating with other bloggers in their niche, the first thing they try to do is send an email to a few bloggers asking them to be friends or asking the blogger to set up a regular link exchange campaign with them. If that’s what you’re about to do, then you might as well forget it. Below are a few ways you can collaborate with other bloggers in your niche.

Be there for them

We bloggers are one of the smartest people (okay, I’m a blogger and I’m baised—but my point is we also have common sense), so we take notice when people do something for us.

If you tell me to link to you today, and you tell me to tweet your post tomorrow, and you tell me to review your product next week, but I haven’t seen you share my posts or do me any favor in the past two months, do you think I will do that for you? The next thing I will tell you is, “No thanks, that’s a great offer but I don’t think it will work with my audience”—even if it will. But when you’re “always” spreading the word about me and telling people how awesome I am, even if I have a million followers and you only have one, I will be happy to spread the word to my followers about you.

Appreciate their work

When was the last time you sent an email to a blogger thanking them for their blog post? Just try to do it once or twice and you will notice that you will be able to get the attention of that favorite blogger of yours.

We bloggers love it if people say good things about us. We love to be appreciated, and some of us even love to be flattered. Giving us what we want will only put you on our radars.

I’m not trying to say that you should email a blogger and start telling him or her that they’re your god—that will only raise an extra flag and put you on the “beware-of list” for that blogger. The best thing to do is to send a simple and polite email, perhaps highlighting interesting points in one of their articles so as to show the blogger that you really read their posts.

Even though there are media like Twitter and Facebook, I still think the best medium to use for this kind of contact is email. I know that Twitter might be the easiest way to get in touch with your favorite blogger, but that is also its weakness. A lot of people use it, but very few people use email to send heartfelt thank you messages to bloggers (or at least, few compared to Twitter). The end result is that it might take sometime for the blogger to get to your email, but since you don’t really need a reply, it’s okay. And it’s enough to get the blogger to notice you.

Beware of this!

Those birds were helping each other.

We must do the same as a blogger.

You won’t go far by trying to exploit your fellow bloggers for attention, or links, or anything else, so don’t even try to go that route. It might work in the beginning, but it will end up biting you.

The best way to succeed in your endeavors as a blogger is doing everything you’re doing genuinely. When you focus your efforts not only on contributing value to your readers, but also to your fellow bloggers, you will end up getting great results for it.

Onibalusi Bamidele is the founder of YoungPrePro.com, a blog where he teaches people how to write for traffic and money. Get his free 7 series eCourse on How to Build a Successful Online Writing Business

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Is Collaboration the Key to Blogging Success?

Dancing Naked Down the Street

Posted: 01 Aug 2011 07:04 AM PDT

This guest post is by Carol White Llewellyn of Family, by Choice.

On July 7, Going Gonzo, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Blog, by Enzo F. Cesario, struck a chord with me.

His post reminded me of a creative writing course I took with the indomitable Dr. Abraham Rothberg, who passed away earlier this year. Dr. Rothberg was a wise man who advised, “when you write well, you’ll know it. You’ll feel more naked than if you walked nude down Fifth Avenue in New York City.” The Bronx native went on to assert that few New Yorkers would even notice. I’d add that writing well is really more like dancing naked down the street. When you do that, people do notice.

Cesario speaks about the importance of writing honestly … writing uncensored … writing naked. I admit that I have a hard time doing this. It’s only in rare and unguarded moments that my writing dances naked. But I always feel it when it happens.

Sometimes writing naked means voicing criticism. For those of us indoctrinated with the adage “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” criticism may never become integral to our writing. I like to think that’s okay. I can’t help but feel that if one writer doesn’t feel comfortable in critique mode, there’s probably all too many who relish it.

Sometimes it means sharing personal information and feelings. Like mine, your family mantra may scream, “It’s nobody else’s business what happens in our family.” To write “the truest sentence you know,” as Ernest Hemingway always advised, you have to overcome this.

Often, it means breaching your own privacy. I had my online identity stolen a year ago by hacks trying to scam funds from friends and followers, so I fear opening myself to more of the same. Jump the fear.

As for editing, sorry Enzo, I disagree. Less is more. It polishes the diamond. There was one adoption post on my blog, Family, by Choice that I rewrote three times before I felt okay to share it.

There are some topics, and some posts, that lend themselves more to openness. It’s the very rare writer whose words are an open door to their soul. At best, most good writers have to be satisfied with a swinging door.

Be prepared for the sting. You can’t dance naked without running into some hornets. The very first post I wrote on adoption was slammed by an anti-adoption advocate. She’d been adopted by an abusive family and she was vehemently opposed to the institution. After I got over the shock, I was delighted that she’d taken the time to write. I invited her to offer a counter-view. She didn’t. At least I knew the post hadn’t been met with apathy.

All you can do, day after day, week after week, is put yourself out there, warts and all. And on occasion, when the weather’s right and there’s a song in your esprit, your words will dance naked down the street. You’ll be surprised how many will notice.

Does your writing dance naked down the street?

Carol White Llewellyn writes the blog Family, by Choice for which she also produces a cable and online TV program, and The Finger Lakes Travel Maven (travelmaven.wordpress.com), which incorporates occasional video and for which she has begun producing cable TV specials.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Dancing Naked Down the Street