Collaboration has changed the blogging game over the years. Prior to this day, a lot of people perceived blogging to mean gossip, entertainment and trendy news. Currently, life and style bloggers have changed the game with the introduction of collaboration. A lot of top bloggers earned 7 figures from collaboration. When I started blogging, I had zero knowledge about the importance of collaboration. And as I grew over the years, I came to understand this more.
Before I jump into the essence of collaboration, I would attempt to explain what this mean. Collaboration simply means, the act of working with another person or brand to achieve a common goal while giving the other party more visibility via your audience. I have had several collaborations with bloggers and brands over the last few months and this has helped me as a person and even the blog.
A lot of bloggers would argue that their blog are personal and they only wish to share tidbits about themselves and not to earn from the blog. This is understandable and you shouldn’t try to join the bandwagon when you do not wish to. However, it is important to first understand why you are blogging and what you hope to achieve in the long run.
With YhItsChioma and StylesbyIye
Importance Of Collaboration To You As An Individual
#1:Improves Your Self Esteem
Growing up, I used to suffer low self esteem, owing largely to a lot of things I was exposed to and the environment I grew up. When I started blogging, I consciously started writing about my weakness and challenges with self esteem. This was helpful until I discover the term collaboration.
Collaborating with other bloggers helped me see that working with someone else on a subject isn’t that difficult. It helped me realize no one has a gun to my head and I can put my foot down on issues. And it helped me overcome my lack of self-confidence as I could approach other bloggers and brands for a collaboration without the fear of rejection.
#2: Helps You Gain Prestige
If credible, the more collaboration you do, the more people prestige you earn among fellow bloggers and other brands. When brands think of collaboration, your name first come to their mouth before they consider other influencers. In the highly saturated world of blogging, it is important to make yourself and your blog stand out and one of the key to achieving this is credibility.
Importance Of Collaboration To Your Blog
The importance of collaboration to your blog is not limited to the points listed below.
#1: Visibility
Every blogger has their own audience, both on their social media pages and on their blogs. While our target audience may be similar, we end up reaching different people eventually. Which is why collaboration is very important among bloggers as it gives your more reach via the other collaborator’s website or pages.
#2: Backlinking
Every blogger aims to rank on google and also increase their domain and page authority. Collaboration helps you backlink to other blog while the other collaborator do so, in the process, increasing your authority for the keyword you are trying to rank for.
#3: Trust
When you work with a brand and write honest reviews on their product (old on new), should any of your readers try this and it works for them, you tend to gain their trust. And they will always come back and refer more people to your blog for honest reviews. In the process, making you an authority on such related matters.
Ways You Can Collaborate With Other Bloggers and Brands
#1: Guest Blogging
You cannot have it all on your blog, especially when you are known for a particular niche e.g fashion, you cannot come on your blog to write about cats. There’s definitely no correlation between fashion and pets. Hence, you can choose to write for another blog which is known for this and you can accept guest post on your blogs too. Win-win for both of you and more SEO building for your blogs.
#2: Giveaways
A lot of bloggers collaborate with other brands to host giveaways for their readers. As a brand, you are making your business more visible via the bloggers influence and as a blogger, you are appreciating your readers and influencing another business through this gesture.
#3: Discount Code
After a collaboration with some brands, some would give the bloggers a code to give to their audience whenever they wish to shop their products. This can even help the blogger and brand keep track with sales and referrals that comes through the collaboration.
Bag and Dress from
#4: Reviews
A blogger can collaborate with a brand by writing a review about a product or styling an outfit. It is very important as a blogger to maintain credibility while writing a review. If you are not confident about a product, please, politely reject the collaboration or share your reservations. It is wrong to mislead your audience with false information just because of a few product or wad of notes.
#5: Interviews
Bloggers collaborate with other bloggers by having an interview session about aspect of the bloggers life that will interest their readers.
How To Collaborate With Bloggers Or Brands
I wanted to separate this heading but most times, it works both ways and to avoid a lengthy post.
#1: Identify the Blogger or Brand you Want to Work With
Who is this person or business you want to collaborate with? What is the reason you wish to work with them? Do their values align with yours? How well do you know them? What value will they add to your blog and what value would you bring to them?
2#: How Do You Intend Pitch
Pitching is how you reach out to bloggers or brands to work with them. In the case of a blogger you are quite familiar with, you could send out a DM. For those you are not, the best option is to send a mail, makes you appear more serious. Also for brands, a mail is a more professional way of pitching. You can also pitch in person, phone call, video chat or through a third party depending on how accessible the collaborator is to you.
#3: Collaboration Etiquette
These are quite numerous but I would mention a few important ones to take note when collaborating.
- Never rush a collaboration, take your time to gather all you need to make it credible
- Make a few attempt to support the blogger or brand before pitching at them. You can do this by sharing their content via social media or leaving comment on their blogs or pages. The idea is to drop your presence before reaching out.
- Everything is not about money. If the objective of the brand negates what you stand for, politely turn down the request and do not be too forward or money conscious. A lot of business partnership last longer and become more beneficial and when respect is earned.
- Do not stop supporting them once the collaboration has ended. The collaboration does not end after you have been paid or offered products in exchange for the content you have created. Rather, it is important to continue to support the brand, patronize them and share their posts. This also build a long lasting relationship.
A Few Bloggers and Brands I Have Collaborated With
When you click on the names, it would open in a new tab to contents from this blog on the collaboration.
Travel Start
Desire1709Fashion
Hareem Dream Lifestyle
Are you motivated to collaborate now as a blogger? What other ways do you think a brand can benefit from collaboration? Would you collaborate with a blogger as a brand owner? And what reservation do you have about collaborations? Leave a comment below and let’s have a conversation
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This is such a detailed guide. I have come to understand that collaborations (online and offline) have become sort of a yardstick to determine your growth (both personal and blog). It sure feels good when there are brands that can vouch for your credibility as a creative (and vice versa)
However, like you said, it is important to know when you should start collaborating and why you want to do it (have you put in enough work? will you deliver? What can you offer? etc) Collaborations should not be rushed and shouldn’t deter your blogging dreams either, especially if it isn’t happening when you want it to.
Love this post and I’ll be referring to it a lot.❤️
Author
I love the second part of your comment where you reiterated on why one should know when to start collaborating. It is very important to be sure you have put in enough work as well before you start pitching.
Thanks for always stopping by, Faith. I always look forward to your comment.
I made the list, yaaay! It is always a pleasure working with you Deb, looking forward to more collaborations 😍
Author
Yes please. Cheers to more collaborations.
Let me start off by saying, it’s been a while that I last visited your blog, and it’s good to see that not much has since then, you’re still out here dishing out valuable knowledge like it’s nothing. Kudos.
And, for this post, I want to say a very big thank you. This is the sort of push I need to tap into the gold mine of collaborating with other bloggers. I’ve always wanted to collaborate, in fact, I penned it down as one of my goals for the blog this year, but, alas…. Even though I don’t want to make excuses, I’ll say the blame for the delay can be put on my introverted nature and poor networking skill.
In all, this was a great read, and I hope and pray the ginger I’ve gotten from reading up wouldn’t fizzle out without tangible results to show for it. Thanks once again.
Author
Hello Biyi, its been a minute I read your comment and I appreciate the compliment. It’s so refreshing reading from you again.
I really look forward to seeing and reading your collaboration posts. We really need to network and maximize our potentials as bloggers. Do not forget to tag me when you do. I would sure remind you again.
Thank you for sharing this.. I learned so much. The ins and outs. Experience is definitely the best teacher.
Author
I’m glad you took some lessons out of it.