Team Blogs

I have been getting quite a few requests asking whether I would be interested in teaming up in order to write a blog. In this article I would like to write about what I consider a blog to be and the reasons as to why I will not do team blogs.

I consider a blog to be a personal expression of ones ideas and views. It has a style and a view that is very individualistic. It is a diary that is public. It gives you an insight into the ideas and thoughts of a person. What I have realised over time is that when you read a blog you either love a blog or you hate a blog. There is no middle ground. I have also realised that there are blogs where there is a lot of information but you just don't like the blog because of the style in which the post is written. So writing blogs is very individualistic and on the other hand reading blogs is also very individualistic.

Coming to team blogs I wanted to do one too just like everyone else and the reason I wanted to do it is for the selfish reason that there will be more posts and I do not need to do all the hard work of coming up with posts. Finding the content of posts and writing one each day can be hard work and after a while it can get a bit frustrating. In a team if not you someone else will come up with a post. This is the sole reason I wanted to do team blogs and I have even asked a few to do it with me but I am thankful to them to having said no because i realised the following.

1. You and the people you team up with have to think on the same length and all of you must be equally passionate about what you'll are blogging about. What ever you may say this can be hard to achieve especially if you'll are not going to see each other even once in a while. And when you consider that the two of you were strangers till you met via the blog it makes it all the more tougher.

2. How do you divide the revenue that you earn among all the members of your blog. Money is always a tricky issue. What if there are posts from one author that brings in more traffic than the posts of the other authors ? Should the author bringing in more traffic be compensated more ?

3. A blog has a life it has a style and people stick to the blog because they can relate to the style as much as the content - in a blog you talk to the person on a personal level - if multiple people are blogging then that can dilute the style and the content.

4. How do you ensure consistency and depth of each post that is put up by each of the team members - this can lead to a lot of issues.Who decides on what to post about - you should make sure that you'll do not post on the same subject.

5. Other than posting who does the system admin work and the marketing which is as big a task as the posting itself if not bigger.

Partnerships are always hard and without clear agreements partnerships are bound to fail. When it comes to blogging that is a very personal expression and partnerships can be even harder.