Create Your Own Blog Network
Blog networks are popular. There’s a host of recognized ones including b5media, Know More Media and 9rules. Others like Home Turf Media are going live with different niches and twists on the blog network theme.
I’m a big fan of the blog network because you’re pooling resources to help each individual blogger be more successful (which results in the network’s success.) Blog networks can help increase traffic to your blog through marketing, promotion and generating more inbound links between blogs in the network. Blog networks can also provide support and training to bloggers. It’s about building a community that helps one another become better bloggers through best practices, brainstorming ideas, discussion and more.
Creating a blog network is a huge amount of work.
But what about creating a private blog network within your existing community?
The idea isn’t to pool traffic numbers to offer advertisers a more interesting option by advertising across the network. It doesn’t have to be a public blog network like b5media for example, but a community of bloggers that get together online to help one another.
Think of it like a blog support group.
Here’s how you could do it:
- Get a Few Initial Members Involved. You can’t have a network without people, so pool your contacts, friends, associates — people in your blogging world — and invite them to join your new blog community.
- Setup Forums. I envision forums being the most common way for people in your blog support network to communicate. It’s less invasive than email and everyone’s familiar with how to use them. Keep the forums password protected to avoid spammers. There are tons of forum software options available. Your web hosting company might even offer one for easy install.
Here are some forum areas I envision: Introductions, Blogging Best Practices, Promotional Ideas, Technical Help, Want Ads, Success Stories, Items of Interest, Chit Chat.
“Want Ads” would be a place to ask for things that you need, for your blog or otherwise. Maybe you need a great public relations firm, or you need a referral for something. Your blog support group should do more than help with blog-related issues.
“Success Stories” would be a place to promote yourself a wee bit. Never hurts among friends, right? If you’ve got a big success story, or want to tell your friends about something, you could use a forum like this to do that.
- Setup an Email Distribution List or Yahoo Group. This is quite easy to do, and allows everyone in the network to email one another using one email address. Although I don’t see a ton of email flying around, it can’t hurt to have a simple way of reaching out, without it looking like spam.
- Create a Website/Blog. This might be as simple as a single page, or a plain blog that you could use to update the community on things, give people a place to sign-up, etc. You might password-protect it depending on the content being made available. Things you could include: contact information for everyone in the blog support network, general news of interest, feed subscription URLs for everyone’s blogs, updates on new members, etc.
- Focus on Group Blog Promotion. One of the main goals will be increasing traffic to each other’s blogs. So a good amount of focus should go to blog promotion, and in this case, the promotion of all the blogs in the support network. Many of the blogs will already be linking to one another naturally, because it makes sense in one another’s content, and you know each other. But through the blog support network you can take promotion to the next level with:
- Mini-blog carnivals
- Contests
- Group writing projects
- Theme days
- BlogJolts (use this as an example)
- TheGoodBlogs communities
- Etc.
- Actively Recruit New Members. The one rule about blog support networks is that you don’t talk about … oh nevermind … No community succeeds unless it adds new members. It just gets stale. So every member of the blog support network should actively find others and bring them onboard. A mix of people in different industries with different experience levels from different geographic locations and you’ve got yourself one heck of a support group. But be selective. Not because you’re an elitist pain in the arse, but because adding too many people too quickly could de-value the quality of content and discussion within the network. Once people sign-up for the sole purpose of promoting themselves and doing nothing else, the blog support group is lost.
People who know each other and actively communicate will help one another in all sorts of ways.
The idea is to rally around blogging and help one another with blogging but the real opportunity lies beyond that.
- Referrals will start exchanging hands.
- People will start new projects together.
- Friends will become clients of one another.
- Businesses will grow and improve.
- Buzz will spread.
- Knowledge and ideas will be shared.
Ben, there is a lot of good information here. Thanks!!
I’d be ready to join one, Ben. I like the way Liz Strauss has set times to interact with folks in the blogosphere on Open Mic, for instance. I can come in and meet other folks and get some tips from them. Some folks aren’t as savvy technologically and just enjoy the gifts of those who are. You are proposing a great plan here, Ben. Thanks.
Great idea. Yes, I’m ready to join. And to be involved in starting a blogging network. Are you? If you’re interested, let me know. I have a brand new blog and URL just waiting.
Cheers,
Sam
Funny you mentioned it. A few weeks ago I initiated the formation of the Positive Blog Network in almost the exact way you describe. Check us out at http://www.positiveblog.net .
Ben- This is a friggin’ great idea!
And, I like the new look, by the way!
John - that’s a slick looking network. What do you guys do behind the scenes to help one another out?
Paul - thanks! I like the word friggin’ …
Top post Ben - you have put words to some that has been on simmer in the back of the brain but I have not yet had the time to be able to voice exactly what it is. Let me know how I can play!
We’re still developing that part. At the moment we alert each other to new posts and link when appropriate. A forum is also in the works. You suggested some great networking ideas, I’ll send this post out on the email list.
John - happy to help. No consulting fee either!
I’m hoping for some more traction on my idea, we’ll see where it goes and who knows what might spring up here in the future!
Good post Ben and thanks for the mention. It’s my feeling that in order to rank well in search engines and make money blogging it will become more and more necessary to belong to a network. The online world is still young and just like in any new business situation as it matures, consolidation takes place and competition increases. Blog networks are a nature response to that competition.
Holy frig, it’s a lot of work to start one though
Take a look at http://www.blognetnews.com/virginia — this is the prototype site for something we are going to build hundreds of in order to provide networks of bloggers that already interact and share readers with a constantly updated “front page” to help drive readers to the best new content.
We’d be happy to talk to folks who want something like this for their already existing networks. You can reach me at editor@blognetnews.com
David - looks like an interesting network - but what do you provide in terms of back-end support for bloggers, because that’s what I’m really talking about. I’m not talking about aggregating content as much as I’m talking about building a community of bloggers, around blogging, to extend beyond blogging.
Creating a blog network is a huge amount of work .. ‘Aint that the truth.
Ben .. you’ve got some really good ideas, that are almost like the “why didn’t I think of that” type of ideas (you’re great at that!) However, it basically boils down to the community and relationship of the bloggers in the network. Just creating the environment is not always the key.
oh .. and I am also impressed with John Wesley’s network! Good stuff
And, new feeds in my Bloglines!
HART - there’s no question it’s not just about the tools - setting up forums, email, etc. The people you invite into the network is key, along with making sure it’s active. A dead community is pretty useless.
The community has to participate, and be willing to extend the conversation beyond just blogging.
yup. Soooo .. when do you start promoting your Netwigator blog? or was that the Instigetwork blog? ;p
Ben, Thanks for the kind words about BNN. What you’re seeing is version 1.0 — which is focused on building readership for communities of bloggers. In addition to our aggregated site, we have community-focused search engines that bloggers can use on their sites and we turn the combined RSS feeds of a community into a headline feed widget that all the bloggers can post on their sites to help promote the rest of the community (it is sort of like an automated blogroll of the newest stuff)
The next stages will be later this year and hopefully include some of the ideas you’re talking about like discussion forums and tech help guides etc.
Another thing going on is we’re using all the data we aggregate to create “influence” rankings within each slice of the blogosphere we cover that will be updated weekly. We hope to use those rankings to get some mainstream media notice for the most influential blogs. That will start next month.
HART - Very soon, I think…we’ll see…still mulling it over!
David - Looks like you’re heading in the right direction with some interesting features and building recognition…
Ben, I’ve forwarded the link to this post to my editor at ClubMom.com. They’re doing most of the activities you mentioned, so I think I’ve found a good home for one of my blogs.
However, network blogs are popping up left and right. The problem for beginning or smaller bloggers is what network to join. Should you pitch your blog to a big network like b5media and hope to be picked up?
Or should you give a new network a try? Since they’re popping up like mushrooms, you wonder if you’re wasting your time joining with them. How can you tell if you don’t know who the principals are, or if they will fulfill their obligation to you by attracting advertisers, sponsorship, etc.? Will your precious work be stranded on a site that lacks promotion, compensation, and even good SEO efforts?
Anne-Marie — thanks for forwarding the message along to your editor!
And those are all great questions. I don’t have the answers for you either!
Like anything - I’d suggest you get to know the people running the network, watch the blogs on the network, do some research. No reason to jump right into bed.
You need to jive with the network on goals, philosphically, personally…it’s like any relationship, partnership - be it personal or business related.
In most cases if you’re bringing your own blog into the network I’d suggest having an exit-clause - if the network isn’t working, you can leave, go somewhere else / independent.
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Hi Ben,
just thought I would mention that I work for a company which offers solutions for blog communities just like you were talking about. Anyone interested in starting a blog community with a group of people should check out our website at http://www.21publish.com.
Britta - what features are provided behind-the-scenes for bloggers? Forums? Internal wikis/blogs, etc.?
Ben - bloggers within the community are essentially connected through a blog portal, which is usually managed by the community’s founder. This portal aggreagtes the newest entries from all blogs within the community, it allows space for tags (i.e. from del.icio.us), a newsbox is usually found updating community members on the newest developments, and the portal features a search function that allows community members, as well as visitors to browse and search all blogs. The portal also features a list of all blogs within the community, so that members can search and communicate with each other.
If you are interested, I could send you some more information.
Thank you for the info Britta - but what about back-end support? Email lists for the blog members? Forums for blog members? Etc.?
Not that any of that technology is complex, but I’m wondering if that exists, to leverage the collective intelligence and support of the blog network…
Ben,
There is a complete e-mail list for all the blog community members - the community administrator/manager has a complete list of all e-mail adresses and all members post e-mail adresses in their profile pages, so everyone can see them. Active recruiting is also implemented, or at least that is the intention. As for forums - these can be implemented on a need basis. It depends what kind of group the community caters to - students/teachers, organizations, businessmen/-women, etc. One of the more important factors behind our idea is to have an administrator/manager of the community to act as a liaison and ensure support growth, etc. But I’d love some more input on what else should be done.
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Some very useful info . Didnt know so much work was needed to get started.