Everyone says you should have a blog in order to get noticed! You want to grow your craft business, but there’s not enough time in the day. What to do? Team-blog!
Collaborative artisan blogs like Collective Creatives rock my world. Many hands make light work, so the individual artists have more time for creating.
Multi-author blogs like this also make great reading! You get a steady supply of fresh perspectives, and nobody burns out from constantly having to write something interesting. With the pool of writers involved, the blog gets updated often, so readers find it a lively place to visit.
(A different solution to lightening the load of blogging is to have periodic guest bloggers. That approach might sound better if you want to keep control over your own blog. But then you’ll have to keep track of articles that have been promised to you, so the job of managing the blog just gets bigger.)
The Collective Creatives blog I mentioned has about a dozen members, and I assume all of them are able to log right in and post a piece by themselves. Any “co-editor” like this should also be able to edit any posts or comments that need sprucing up. So, all of the blog duties can be shared.
Art Bead Scene is another group blog that seems to always be lively, with five editors contributing on a regular basis. Each has her own strengths, including a specialization in a particular kind of beadmaking. When you set up your team blog, think about what each potential member can bring to the experience. Will each of you be responsible for posting on a different day of the week? Or take care of whole weeks, in rotation?
The Blogging Queen wrote a good post on the question, Should you join a team blog? She does a great job of bringing up the main questions involved:
- What will be the common theme (idea) of the blog?
- How will you achieve a common “voice” or tone?
- Will a team blog be beneficial to your own craft business? Put some thought into choosing your co-editors!
Have experiences with team blogs? Questions about how they work? Want to recommend a favorite one? Leave a comment below!
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8 Comments
Thanks for this great idea and this informative article. I’d love to join in this group blog writing. My website is for work at home jewelry artist moms who work so hard as an artist, a parent and an entrepreneur all at the same time.
I like to see them successful in this hard job.- Dita.
OOps I forgot to give the na,e of my site. It is :http://www.Bead-z-mommys-business.com. Thanks Dita.
Any other WAHM jewelry makers here to join up with Dita?
Great post, Dave – synchs right up with a topic that’s been on my mind lately!
I heard some good feedback about this post on Twitter as well. We definitely aim to provide you with useful info here! Dawno, what’s your related topic? Your take would be valuable…
Well, I posted about the long tail a day or so ago, and I’ve been thinking about how some of us way out near the tip of it might more actively support each other beyond blogrolls, etc. Not exactly team blogging, but certainly collaboration of some sort – there are a lot of different ways to approach it – many of which you’ve mentioned above. I just have to find the one that works for me and see if anyone else would be interested in coming along for the ride…
Good post about The Long Tail there on your blog!
Thank you!