“95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.”
The quote above belongs to New York Times article and I can imagine many bloggers wish they had read this article before launching a blog. Because most of them didn’t quit as soon as they fail, they kept fighting until the bitter end, but too bad for them, they end up wasting their time, money and effort.
Ok, stop right there! Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to say you should give up without a fight but if you start without a strategy and do the same thing that 95 percent of bloggers, the result is obvious. You didn’t think people will start reading your blog eventually as long as you keep adding articles wearing your pajamas, did you? The world is getting professional, including bloggers. When I send collaboration requests to housewives with blogs (What? They have more Instagram followers than we do!), they ask about my marketing budget. I don’t think they quite understand what marketing is but still, it is impressive how they value what they do and we must be as passionate as they are if you want your blog to survive.
The study mentioned in New York Times article clearly says 95 percent of bloggers missing a very important point or strategy that other 5 percent bloggers have and that is collaboration. I have seen many blogs with shitty content and shitty design but they could still drive traffic somehow. Google normally punishes websites with poor readability and design so they can’t be driving traffic from Google but again, their monthly visitors were outnumbering our visitors. If they can’t drive traffic from Google, what’s left? Yes… social media and other blogs.
Collaboration is one of the most effective methods that helps both sides. Most website owners disregard the importance of partnering with other website owners while even the biggest YouTube channels are collaborating to grow together with other channels. If you can’t see the fact that Fine Bros is featuring other YouTube channels, let me give you a more obvious example. Wisecrack YouTube channel has currently 1.5 million subscribers while Film Theorist YouTube channel has currently 3.7 million subscribers but that doesn’t stop them from collaborating;
• Wisecrack is promoting Film Theorist at the end of the video:
• Film Theorist is promoting Wisecrack at the end of the video:
They are creating exactly the same kind of content but instead of competing with each other, they choose to work together to become stronger. I think I’ve mentioned enough evidence to convince you to collaborate with other bloggers but how to do it?
If you have read the other blogs while trying to find collaboration ideas, I am sure you have seen things like “brainstorming”, “mastermind groups” or “thinking outside the box”. But if you could have thought of something already, I am pretty sure you wouldn’t be here so don’t worry, I am not going to say things like that. The ideas I am about to explain are much more concrete than those so you can easily use them with other bloggers. Finding bloggers is another matter but we can come to that later, for now, let’s focus on creative collaboration ideas.
Should You Write Guest Posts?
First of all, guest posting is a not a good place to start with if you have less than 100,000 monthly visitors. Because less than 100,000 monthly visitors usually means around 10% returning visitors so only 10% of them are your regular readers. You can find returning visitor rate of your blog using Google Analytics:
So, even if you have 100,000 monthly visitors, you actually have about 10,000 monthly unique visitors. That means 90,000 people visited your blog for the first time and they don’t care about you. They are just trying to understand if your blog is worth reading and if the first thing they see a guest blogger asking them to visit his/her own website, they would probably do as Robert Downey Jr. says:
However, this isn’t the worst of it. Do you honestly believe that people will create the best content they can just to put someone else’s website? The main objective of bloggers for guest posting is stealing readers from your blog. You get some readers from them and they get some readers from you and everyone lives happily ever after…
Ok, I’ll cut the crap and tell you what you need to do. Most of them about social media accounts and that’s because they should be. Social power and having fans is the most guaranteed way to keep your blog alive so most of my theories are based on collecting fans from social media websites.
1. Criticize Each Other
Constructive criticism of course. Content, design, social media accounts… it could be about anything.
I know the feeling, as a blogger you have to do everything including writing articles, sharing posts on social media and trying to fix your blog but you should know, you are not good at everything. It is hard to see mistakes when you spend 4 hours on something, right? But there could be some details that could go unnoticed and a small advice can save you and your blog’s life.
There are many ways to collaborate for sure but I think this is the most important one.
2. Follow Each Other On Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and Google Plus
If you are not a “follow-for-follow” hound, find another blogger like you and follow each other. This may seem simple but after you follow each other, you will see the differences or similarities between your strategies and it is easier to see mistakes from outside.
3. Instagram Repost
Every week is way too frequent for Instagram if you ask me so every month would be a better choice.
On the first day of every month, repost one of the pictures in your partner’s Instagram feed. Don’t forget to encourage your followers to follow your partner like “Be sure to follow @partnername”.
4. Like Each Other’s Facebook Page
Like your partner’s Facebook page “AS A PAGE” because when you like it as a page, it will be visible under “LIKED BY THIS PAGE” tab on your pages so you are also announcing your partner on Facebook.
You can like a page as a page by clicking •••More -> Like As Your Page button in the Facebook page of your partner.
5. Feature Each Other On Facebook
I would say every week is great for Facebook but you can talk the details with your partner.
Every Monday, share 1 posts from your partner’s Facebook Page.
Visit your partner’s Facebook page, pick a post and then click Share -> Share to a Page button. Therefore, you are not only sharing articles from your partner but also promoting his/her Facebook page.
6. Retweet On Twitter
Featuring each other on Twitter every month is nothing because most people tweet at least 10 times a day so, again, every week would be enough.
Every Monday, retweet 1 tweet from your partner’s Twitter account. You can also add comment while retweeting, it’s up to you.
7. Pinterest Collaboration
Share Pinterest templates with each other. You both are wasting your time while preparing those templates and you just keep using the same template every damn time. If you don’t have any template, prepare template with your partner. If each of you prepare 2 templates, you’ll end up with 4 templates.
Before sharing your Pinterest templates with others in PSD format, share and ask for PNG format of the template. You might spend hours to prepare that gorgeous Pinterest templates but the people you are trying to work with might not feel the same way. If you don’t like your partner’s template, don’t hesitate to tell it but also don’t push it too hard. You are trying to start a sort of partnership, you are not the boss here.
Reshare, retweet – why not repin? You can decide the frequency with your partner but Pinterest can drive large traffic to your blogs so be sure to use it.
Got Anything Better?
Other bloggers might have better methods than we do to collaborate with others. If you are a blogger and think your methods are better than ours, you can share it in the comments.
We are also looking for bloggers to collaborate with. If you don’t like these ideas, no problem. If you have more creative ideas that can work both of us, why do we have to fail just like other 95 percent? Let’s grow together and leave our mark on Internet!
