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Do you have blogging friends? I’m not talking about your real-life on online friends that know you’re a blogger. I’m talking about blogger friends, a blog tribe, a community of bloggers that you can count on.
What’s the diff?
Your friends support you. They know you blog, maybe even read it and share it for you because, well, they love ya.
But your blogger friends are those who are ideally in your niche or close to it. When they share your posts, they can help make that shit go viral.
Why You Need Blogging Friends
The viralness of your posts isn’t the only reason you need a blog tribe.
In fact:
- Bloggers “get it.” My husband supports me so much. He willingly lets me follow my latest whim or business idea. But when I start talking conversion rates, email lists and content upgrades, he has no idea. But other bloggers, they get it. And they especially get it when you need a hand or an ear because your traffic isn’t increasing or you freak out because people are unsubscribing from your list (the latter may or may not be me on a weekly basis).
- They help your blog along. Not only can your friends help share your posts with an audience that matters, they can give your blog a little push by leaving the first comment. Kinda like putting the first dollar in the tip jar.
- Blog collaborations will boost both your blogs. Collaborating is soooo much easier when you’re already online buddies. Trade guest posts, create a course together, host a webinar or workshop together.
How to Find Bloggers
The key to building a good blog tribe is to find the right bloggers. They need to be bloggers in your own niche. Yes, blogger friends in other niches are fantastic, but they aren’t going to really help you boost your blog. Let’s make some blogging friends that can support you and help your blog at the same time ‘mkay.
Here are 5 places to start your search:
- Good ol’ Google. It’s a great place to start. Search for blogs within your own niche, and pay attention to number of comments, social shares and social media followers. Ideally, you looking for bloggers who blog about similar topics and have a similar number of subscribers and followers. These bloggers are your peers, and are much more likely to reciprocate.
- Buzzsumo. Buzzsumo allows you to enter a keyword and look for blogs that are most shared, trending and even get the most backlinks. Like with Google, you want to use this as a jumping off point to find blogs and bloggers. Go back to their sites and check their stats.
- Facebook groups. Facebook is a great place to find blogging communities. Join relevant groups, but interact, provide useful info. And reach out. I’ve connected with many bloggers, traded guests posts and even discussed doing webinars together…all from meeting bloggers in Facebook groups.
- Twitter search. The search feature on Twitter makes it super easy to find blogging friends. Plug in your niche keyword and see who pops up. Dig deeper and see who those bloggers are connected to as well.
- This is a social sharing network designed for bloggers. The idea is to join groups, called tribes, of bloggers who write about similar topics. Your posts get automatically shared in these tribes, where other members can comment and share it on their social networks.
How to Make Blogging Friends
What do you do once you find these bloggers?
- Start by sharing their posts. I know this sounds way off from where you want to be, but trust me, it’s a process and it will work. You can’t expect to get something if you don’t provide something in return. It doesn’t work that way. So start simple. You follow them on social media. Share their blog posts. Join tribes on Triberr and share. If you continue to share stuff from the same bloggers, those bloggers are going to start to notice you.
- Start commenting on their posts to get more attention. You can also start commenting on their blog post to get even more attention. Leaving a thought out comment shows that you really know your stuff in this niche. Sharing the post is one thing, but commenting and proving that you know your way around the industry shows that you would make a good blogging friend and partner.
- Ask them to contribute to an expert roundup post. Asking another blogger to contribute to an expert roundup post is a huge compliment. It shows that you regard them as an expert in your niche. It also opens up a conversation because you are literally e-mailing them to ask them to participate in your blog post. If this goes well, it opens up a ton of other collaboration opportunities.
While blogging may seem like a solo thing, it really isn’t. To really succeed, you need to make blogging friends and build a tribe of bloggers who are ready and willing to share your posts, collaborate with you and support you on your journey.
The post How to Make Blogging Friends and Why You Need Them appeared first on Corinne Kerston.
