BlogHer ’10 – How to Run a Group Blog for Fun, Advocacy and/or Profit

We’re sitting in on How to Run a Group Blog for Fun, Advocacy and/or Profit at BlogHer ’10. This session is being moderated by Esra’a Al Shafei with Nadia Jones, Michelle Magoffin, and Grace Chu.

“Why start a group blog?”

The speakers all had a variety of reasons for starting a group blog. One wanted to keep adding more and more content. Another wanted to meet a milestone. Another just wanted to blog with her friends.

“How do you make sure your group blog is being updated on schedule?”

Nadia says that she and her co-bloggers have been friends for more than 10 years, so they are very involved. They don’t have a formal blogging calendar, so they’ll just determine it amongst themselves.

Michelle likes to make sure there’s at least one post per day, which is easier with 11 bloggers. Her blog’s guidelines state that each author needs to post at least once a week or once every two weeks.

Grace says it’s hard to force people to a schedule when there’s real life stuff going on. Her schedule is more informal as well. They do occasionally recruit new bloggers to help out.

“How do you handle problems with your co-bloggers?”

Michelle has had to ask a few authors to leave her blog. Even after auditions and guidelines and the whole introduction, not everyone always sticks with it. She’ll send an email to find out if there’s something going on and they need to take a hiatus. She does try to be diplomatic when “firing” someone, but she has gotten blasted on some of the other bloggers’ blogs after this happens. She even fired her own husband from the blog.

Grace has never fired anyone from the blog. The biggest blog fight she had, oddly, was over a post about cuddling. Her blog is for fun, not for money. She’s a lawyer during the day, so it helps her blow off steam.

Michelle blogs “for profit,” but it basically only makes money to sustain itself.

Nadia does her blog for fun, too.

Michelle’s blog was more like a conversation between friends when it started, but the format became more formal as she added more authors.

Nadia created her blog to celebrate diversity in the blogosphere.

Michelle would like someone to tell her the best way to market her blog. She mostly uses word of mouth marketing now. She uses Twitter and Facebook now, but she’s trying to be more interactive.

Grace thinks that the best way to get more traffic is to “kiss other Webmasters’ asses.” She got the most traffic after leaving a comment on AfterEllen.com with a link to a post of hers that made fun of Wellesly. Leave links and talk to other Webmasters.

The editor for the Savings.com blog says they post stories for savvy consumers, and their biggest marketing strategy has been to get included in Google News results and use SEO keywords in their headlines. Read and comment on other people’s blogs. Exchange guest posts with other bloggers. Use social bookmarking like StumbleUpon, etc.

Esra’a says that Google News works well for her group blog as well. And while kissing ass is effective, you want to make sure you’re relevant.

“What about ownership? Intellectual property?”

Grace says that her authors own the content that they write unless they sign a contract that signs over the rights to you as the blog owner.

“Do you pay your writers?”

Michelle does not pay her writers. Nadia doesn’t pay her writers either. There is some disagreement about enforcing rules and guidelines with bloggers who are writing for free.

Barbara wants to know about Michelle’s audition process.

Michelle says it’s to make sure that she likes everyone’s writing style, that she thinks that they’re funny, and that they fit with her blog. Auditions are held on her blog, where prospective bloggers post their auditions as a comment about a specific topic.

Esra’a encourages everyone to take donations on their blogs. She’s looking to hire an editor for each of her blogs to do some quality control, which she also recommends. It’s good to give something back to maintain the quality of their content.

Michelle says she’s not making enough money that she could share it with her writers, but if she was, then she would.

Question: How do you find other bloggers for your group blog? Is it taboo to edit people’s blog posts before they’re published?

Michelle says no, it’s not taboo. They edit to their heart’s content. People don’t get offended, especially if you tell people up front that their content will likely be edited.

Question: What platforms are you using?

Michelle uses TypePad. She used to be self-hosted, but she’ll never do it again. It didn’t work out for her, and TypePad meets all her needs.

Esra’a is a big fan of WordPress. Middle Eastern bloggers who blog on Blogger tend to end up in prison, apparently. She advocates for self-hosting for customization reasons. It’s extremely professional, but you have to take care of it and upgrade it often. Makes a big abotu TypePad.

Grace makes a warning about WordPress and worms. Don’t save your FTP password in your FTP program. Her blog was hit by a nasty wor.

Nadia moved from Blogger to WordPress. She can’t see how Blogger would work for a group blog.

Esra’a adds that there are so many plugins for WordPress to make things easier. If WordPress were a religion, she’d be very religious.

I have to apologize to my readers, because I’m really losing steam here. Lack of sleep is catching up with me, and I can’t keep up with the conversation as well as I could before. I will try to summarize at least.

Question: How has your blog evolved? Do you have any success metrics?

Michelle has a set of categories, but the most popular are the ones where the topics really resonate with people. Nadia’s blog got a lot of traffic from a post one of her authors published about coming back to work and finding out she was fired. It’s more and more common because of the economy. When you write relatable content, the readers will come.

Question about pageviews. I don’t think this is pertinent information that we all need to know. Basically more authors = more posts = more pageviews. Asking authors to post about their articles on Facebook will drive more traffic as well.

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.