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Now it’s time for Collaboration That Pays with Letitia Barr, Jessica Rosenberg, and Kelly Whalen. They are thanking us for being here instead of in the traffic building session. (Small crowd this afternoon.)
We’re here to learn how to make money and expand our empires. (Laughter.) Our speakers met at a blogger event organized by a company that wanted to feed hungry children, and they realized that they wanted to continue working together because they meshed really well. Two years later, they’re still working together.
They use writing prompts, talk about their personal stories, run online events, and they do include a charitable component. Charity is appealing to brands to get involved. There is power in numbers, in collaboration. Not only do you get a great professional network, but it helps move you away from the isolation of blogging. With the variety of topics their blogs cover, they expand their reach outside their individual spheres.
Why work collaboratively?
- Moving from individual to collaborative blogging
- Challenges to blogging collaboratively
- Q&A
The key thing has been that they all get along very well, and it’s not all about work. (This is something we’ve been building with the Tech Valley Bloggers family, which you’ll be hearing a lot more about when we have our official launch!) Spending a lot of time talking to each other can be hard when you’re not together in real life, but things like Skype can help a lot. They keep mentioning Skype, and they swear that Skype isn’t sponsoring this session.
There isn’t necessarily a leadership role in a collaborative setting. Most of us have very strong personalities. Make sure everyone’s voice is heard, and each person can take leadership in a different aspect of the collaboration.
Not every collaboration is going to work flawlessly, but the group dynamic is a learning experience. Defining goals as a group can be difficult, but you learn to be flexible.
Trying to figure out who gets paid how much for their contributions can be tricky. They say they have a very complex mathematical formula they’ve derived to figure it out, and they have a guy they trust to do the math. The business aspect is something you need to figure out: contracts, forming an LLC, etc. Many of the bloggers have their own LLCs for their blogs, and the group should also have either an LLC or another form of corporation.
Pitching Companies
Assemble a Media Kit that includes information about everyone in your group. You have to be able to trust everyone with your numbers, your URLs, your contact info, etc. One person should take the lead as the contact for each project. Do you have a finders fee for your campaigns? What if you share the same contact with others in your group?
Do not go in with assumed expectations. You can’t read each other’s minds. If you expect something to happen, you need to verbalize it. Keep everyone in the loop on the same Google Doc concerning deliverables, etc.
Demonstrate to the brands that you work with that there is a return on their investment. Give them the permalinks to all of your posts in your summary report.
Be ready to step up for your partners when real life happens. If someone was taking the lead, but something happens with their kids or their health that sidelines them, it’s good to have other people who can take the reins in their stead. This is why you need to have everything in a shared format.
Their collaborative site has a dedicated page for each campaign. They also have a shared Twitter account and Facebook account.
Your niche can be stretched to talk about any topic you want to address on your blog.
Roles within their group: campaign manager, project manager, web, graphics, social media. (Campaign manager and project manager each get 15% off the top for their contributions. Their graphic designer gets her normal hourly rate, but otherwise, people generally split the rest of the money evenly.)
Tools for collaborating: Google Docs and Skype are their primary resources.
What if it doesn’t work?
You can do it on a campaign by campaign basis. You have to be willing to test it and try it. People can walk away after a campaign is through; try not to have any hard feelings about it. You have to have the passion for the work and the connection with one another.
I am liveblogging as a volunteer for the Type-A Parent Conference, and an edited version of this post will be available directly on Type-A Parent.
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.
