The Blogger’s Guide to Team Marketing: Working Together for Traffic and Exposure
I like working in teams when it comes to building websites and online businesses because you can leverage each team player’s abilities and resources. Every person is a hub; they each have their own social networks and circles of influence.
Working together with someone you trust also reduces your work load and knowledge/skill requirements.
Instead of mastering a skill or searching for specific information, you can act faster based on the expertise/experience of the other party.
For example, my strengths lie in writing/marketing and I’ll usually partner up with people who are strong in technical skills like coding or web design in order to develop websites. I seldom go in alone on any big projects because the amount of work needed can be overwhelming.
Collaborating with individuals passionate on the same issues is a fulfilling experience and it also motivates you to work hard and not get lazy at your end. As your actions are accountable to your partners or clients, procrastination isn’t really an option.
Why Bloggers Should Practice Team Marketing
I’ve mentioned that a core audience and wide distribution channels can greatly increase the popularity of your blog. After networking with your peers and developing stable relationships, you can start to collaborate with others as a team on joint marketing efforts to promote individual interests.
In a sense, bloggers are ideal for team marketing. Most bloggers are offering content in exchange for ad or service-based (e.g. consulting) revenue and working together might be a good way to get some win-win advantages for everyone in question.
Bloggers all have their own audiences and networks, no matter how large or small. They also have their own ways of promoting their sites. We each have a rough idea of what method works best for us. A collaboration whereby resources, skills and knowledge are shared, would benefit everyone.
Forums have long been the go-to channels for bloggers when they need advice on promoting their websites. But forums have their downside: You can get advice from a great deal of people but talk usually remains talk. Unless you have the ability or resources to implement the ideas suggested, it can be a waste of time.
Much better to have a team of trusted peers whom you can rely on for feedback, especially when they are able to participate in the promotional process as well.
What You Can Achieve with Team Marketing
The marketing team should abide by the principle of reciprocation; Perform a specific action for someone who needs help, while knowing that a fellow team member will repay the favor in the future when you require assistance.
To avoid the hassle of involving money, all the team marketing methods performed should be free. No one should have to pay for anyone from his or her own pocket. You can however, seek suggestions or tips on your paid promotional campaigns.
Here are just some examples of what you can do as a marketing team:
- Social Media Marketing. Bloggers will share links to their content and the team will go and vote it up on social news websites, in order to help it get some traffic/links. This strategy is commonly practiced by many bloggers and private voting networks do exist for the sole purpose of collectively influencing social news outlets.
This overall success for this endeavor often varies according to each social site. Some of them are very good at spotting and discounting coordinated voting and engaging in these groups might actually harm your blog’s reputation.
This type of social media marketing will work well if all members of the marketing team are discreet and savvy. It’s always better to collaborate with people who make real contributions to the community instead of spammers who excessively promote their web sites.
- Idea Brainstorming and Problem Solving. Collective intelligence can be applied to solve problems that each individual member may have. The team can also brainstorm marketing ideas and aid in the implementation process.
Each member will also provide assistance with the method that he or she has suggested. This can involve tactics such as forum posting, social media, links, email pitches or recommendations to other people.
- Research Ideas and Share Information. If some members are new to a specific marketing method, they could test it out together as a team and then support each other by giving feedback and sharing information.
Each individual has different experiences with a specific marketing process and sharing this experience helps to build your knowledge levels.
Team Marketing for Bloggers: How to Get Started
There is only one objective for team marketing: To promote the websites and brands of each member by working together as a collective unit to solve problems and increase the potential for success on any promotional campaign.
Because everyone isn’t the employee of the same company, the team should work according to the end goals specified by each blogger.
Here’s an example of a workflow process:
- Blogger poses a request for help, outlining what she needs and plans to do. Alternatively, the blogger can simply post an open question asking for feedback on the best course of action.
- Upon receipt of the question, other team members will either discuss among themselves or individually respond with suggestions and offers of help.
- Blogger reviews the offers listed and the gives the green light. The team goes ahead to promote the website in the manner specified.
Because too many requests can create a lot of noise and a resource split, I would recommend either limiting the number of requests for each person per week or the size of the team so that everyone is focused at the task at hand.
For instance, each blogger could get in the habit of creating one excellent article per week, which will be promoted by others. Or you could restrict the team to only a few people and then work on an on-going basis through internet messengers and other forms of real-time communication channels.
How to Start and Manage Your Own Marketing Team
Finding people who have the same interests or energy when it comes to marketing is essential for success. A blogger with ambition and perseverance is important because you don’t want people with only a casual interest in getting more readers. They must want to grow their blog and be willing to work hard at it.
Bloggers from different niches can work together in a team, although being in the same niche offers some extra advantages that cannot be replicated. It is however, important to share knowledge or experience. Niche differences can be overlooked.
If you already have a good idea of who to approach, you can avoid the following steps, which mainly outline how you can go about the process of gathering bloggers to form a collective marketing team.
- Start by making a list of bloggers in your niche. These should be people with blogs that are roughly the same size or blogs that are smaller than yours. This can be roughly measured by their feed subscription figures and the activeness of their site (no. of comments + incoming links etc.). The regular bloggers who comment on your blog might be a good place to start.
- Subscribe to their blogs and follow their content. This is to see if their personal attitude or concept of marketing fits well with your own. For instance, some of these bloggers might be more apathetic when it comes to promoting their site, as their primary goal is mainly to blog for fun or leisure.
- Narrow down the list to a few bloggers whom you feel share the same ambitions, eagerness for success or marketing know-how. Start to network with them by sending them emails and leaving comments. The aim here is to try to get to know them a little better first.
- Invite the blogger into your marketing team. Ask the blogger in question if she or he would be interested in collaborating together. Give information on the various ways she can participate and collect her contact details as well.
If you are the team founder, you will have to develop a suitable way for team members to interact with each other. You could set up a private forum or use free online collaborative project software. Alternatively, you could organize requests by having them emailed to you, which you will then disseminate to other members.
There are many ways to organize your marketing team and the basic principle is to make sure that everyone has a chance to have their opinion or requests heard. Encouraging participation and interaction between members is important as well because they will lead to closer relationships.
Apart from running a marketing team, you can try to connect bloggers who have complementary skills or interests/problems. Splitting interested bloggers into mini-cells will allow each of them to support one another in the initial stages and will bring about greater unity for the entire group.
Wanna Join Forces and Work Together on a Marketing Team?
I never had a marketing network for Dosh Dosh, although I have tried playing around with some form of it for other sites. While I was writing this article, I thought of starting a team just to experiment with group/joint marketing.
It won’t involve any spamming or unethical marketing tactics but only, the pooling of resources and networks to push each other’s blogs in a legitimate way. Your blog brand is far too important to involve any promotional method that will harm it.
If you’re 100% determined to make your blog popular and profitable, we could all help each other out in some way. There are no blog prerequisites although you should have a strong desire for success and a willingness to share and help others.
Send me an email if you’re interested in joining the team. I would also love to hear your thoughts on the article and the method of team marketing as well.
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Excellent article as always Maki! I specifically enjoyed the steps you outlined on how to get started in putting together your own team. They may seem simple and obvious, but far too often the obvious is overlooked and underestimated.
And having shared some experiences with you in the past, I would like to just give you a vote of confidence in front of your potential “team members”. If you’ve been waiting for a chance to really learn something from someone about how to effectively promote your blog, this is that chance! Maki has taught me a vast array of useful things when it comes to online promotion, particularily within the specific field of social marketing, so go for it!
I’ve always wanted to do this but never really figured out how to start. Thanks for the big tip!
Working together is always something that makes a blog (and other blogs) successful. It’s very nice that you bring this up because not a lot of people know this. To them, it’s all about competetion, which is more of a bad thing that good.
Maki,
For the sites that you used a form of team marketing on, how did you manage interaction between team members? I can see that being a bit of a stumbling block, especially if team members are spread out in different parts of the world. It’s definitely an interesting idea worth exploring though.
Hello Maki, always a pleasure to read your articles, i have a lot to learn still. I guess this article is partly built on your previous post of fellow bloggers not being competitors, which now i think makes sense if you create a team of marketers promoting each other directly.
Would you consider methods such as ReviewMe or guest blogging part of team marketing because those also seem to be two-way benefits.
#3, Mike: I know the question was directed to Maki, but I thought I’d chime in with my two cents as well, seeing how discussing on blogs is a nice diversion from my termpaper
In this day and age, I honestly don’t see communication, between individuals or groups as a problem at all. It’s easy enough to set up things like email groups, or group chats through the various IM systems, or even a multiple-way video chat through iChat!
Personally I would lean towards a solution in the form of a closed forum. It’s by far the most organized, and it allows you to overcome the timezone obstacles, which I suppose you refer to when you mentione the difference in geographical locations, because live interaction isn’t required.
Of course live virtual meetings can also be a pro, but things like that can be easily scheduled by using any one of the means I mentioned above, or maybe even a good old-fashioned IRC chatroom
Hope this helps! Now, back to the termpaper
Lars-Christian, yes it was mostly the time-zone factor I was thinking of. Thanks for adding your thoughts.
And good luck on the term paper!
I think that a combination of private forums, skype and IM would work great.
Very nice of you to share information for which businesses once paid thousands… and still do! It’s actually good old-fashioned common-sense but I think we’ve been dumbed down so brutally by the “powers-that-be” that we need it drilled into us over and over again.
So thanks… very well said.
Sam
Maki,
Though you have no blog requisite, how do you avoid other blogs just using your blog popularity to market their blog?
I think for the group marketing to work, the blog got to be of almost the same size and rank. This way, the dynamic won’t be lopsided.
Though, I would be more than happy to join you in your team marketing project.
Hm… team marketing… This reminds me of some past experiences, when I was actively engaged in anime and fanfiction communities. At that time I’d see (and take part in) several small groups whose members would work together to promote each other’s sites and/or fanfics. Of course we wouldn’t call it “team marketing,” as we just wanted to have fun and help our most talented fellows, without any commercial intentions (all right, I confess I wanted to make money too, but I was an exception). Anyway, I can see how powerful your idea is, because I’ve seen it being put into practice several times. The niches, circumstances and aims might not be exactly the same, but the concepts and even the modus operandi are similar.
Maki,
Great post. How/when do we get started? This just what I was looking for.
Pick Me! Pick Me!
Maki,
It’s my first time on your blog and I love how you use anime to refer to blog marketing
Your posts are sooo detailed that it takes me a while to read, but well worth it! Continue your great work.
-Mike
You know – this post is interestingly timed. I was sitting meditating on what I could get out of my google stats (such as which stats truly do matter long term vs which do not) and realized something. Almost 1/3 – 1/2 of all our traffic comes from other blogs in our nitch. Its not intention, and frankly I’m not even the best linker, but slowly over time, I’ve made friends with other people who have neat things to say, and we frankly share the same fan base. Over the last few weeks, Naomi (http://ittybiz.com/), Susan (http://voxfortis.com/blog/), Jarkko (http://jarkkolaine.com/) & I have started slowly trading links and blogging on common topics, not totally intentionally, but with some purpose. I’ve noticed a certain synergy forming as a result. Its down right cool.
As for joining you, I’m down. We have some good overlap in our audience though we are kind of a different nitch. Peter & I focus on the transition from technician to entrepreneur.
One of your best tips can be found at the beginning of the post, “…procrastination isn’t really an option.”
I think procrastination and not having to be accountable to anyone kills a lot of blogs. People get lazy or burnout and give up.
Team marketing have always been what i wish to do with a group of bloggers and it needs to start off with one person asking and the person got to be influential to let the ball roll.
That must be you maki!
It is first time I’m visit your blog from problogger.
Huhuhu.. I am wrong.. I though your blog is about anime..
But also good for me..
I dont have any team marketing, even if i feel that its so important for me to make my blog going well ( also the income ), what can i do..?? Coz i still live at the dark age and a dark place…:)
Great article… I’ve been trying to put together a team to get our little dog and pony act polished for the big show and some products sold but am having “marginal” success… (but i’ve only been trying for 8 years)
Of course it’s still early in the game but a lot of your ideas and suggestions sound doaable and I’m going to give some of them a try.
What really slays me however is, I have a viable high end product, great profit margin, loyal customers,a proven (8 years of internet sales) track record… and, a kzillion bloggers all proclaiming how they are expert at marketing, claiming they are great entreprenuers, but when it comes to getting some help for the areas of marketing I am not expert in, These experts and even non -experts (i’ve tried both) seem to disappear like a k-mart clerk when you need to ask a question.
So, I want to create a brain trust of individuals for a for profit venture… and one would assume a kajillion bloggers all being experts and entreprenuers i should have absolutely NO PROBLEM finding them… right?
Although I think it is a good idea to team up as bloggers I do not like certain underlying assumptions of your plan.
Your team is based on barter and an organizational structure: I give you so you give me. You’re morally obliged to give back.
As a true believer in freedom, altruism and the reliance on informal ad hoc structures I give and do not expect to get anything back. In most cases I get back plenty, often much more than I gave. Sometimes even by giving I receive, for instance by stumbling an article that links to me I getdirect traffic via the link.
This altruism is the driving force behind what I call SEO 2.0
And that’s the main difference between SEO and SEO 2.0 – in SEO you have to ask people for a reciprocal link exchange. In SEO 2.0 you get linked in most cases without having to ask someone.
Also an organizational structure like you propose bears the inherent menace of manipulation in it. When does social media marketing start being manipulative? Difficult question, it’s obvious though when your friends or here team members vote you up even if they do not like your article.
So in the rare cases where I directly ask someone to vote for me I only ask for a true vote not a favor.
As altruism is the best egoism you will always receive enough even if many people do not give back. This is especially true for the Internet where you do not loose anything by giving. Giving is just adding, almost never subtracting. Only if it takes too much time to give.
It’s not like giving away something to eat you can’t eat yourself anymore.
Therefore the more you give away the more you’ll get back.
Is there a list of the best blogs for marketers like us? I do like the sound of this plan and would like to be invited.
@ Lars: Thanks for the kind words and glad you found the article useful.
@ Mike Collins: I basically ran the whole gig through email and IM because the team wasn’t that big (6 members). Email is a solid base to start with and one of the easiest ways to keep members up to date. As Lars has mentioned, private forums are very useful as well.
It isn’t too difficult to get things set up… you’ll just need to sit down and do some planning and change as things go along the way.
@ Sam: Thanks!
@ bmunch: As I’ve mentioned in the article, I think the sharing of knowledge and resources is more important than just linking to each other. I guess being in a team doesn’t mean that you have to support articles that you don’t really think are great or appropriate for your audience.
We can however recommend it to someone else we know or promote it on social websites. There are a great many other things to do as well.. but yes, I do agree that blogs of the same size tend to work better together.
@ jindul man: Your blog is actually non-english so that might be a little difficult to promote. I would suggest working with other bloggers who blog in the same language as you can better reach your target audience..
@ bob: I think a lot of collaborations depend on what you can give to the other person. People always want to know what they’ll get out of working with you and sometimes the problem is that they don’t warm up to strangers easily.
I would suggest building relationships on a non-monetary level first (not involving for-profit ventures)… basically your goal is to find blogs and people within your niche and then start communicating with the blogger. You’ll get a good idea whether or not that individual is right for you or your products.
Hang in there though. You’ll find people to work with, especially when your offer is good and your reputation is consistent.
@Tad: Good points and I have no qualms with your emphasis on the value of altruism.
I wouldn’t however, agree that there’s a moral obligation to give back. There’s no such thing in what I have in mind. It’s also too extreme to insist that there is an ‘inherent menace of manipulation’ when you don’t know what I am developing.
I know social media very well. Do you think I would manipulate communities I’ve spent thousands of hours within and risk destroying the reputation or brand of anyone involved?
I have never preached overt manipulation of social media and never will. Don’t mistake this for a lousy private voting network. I am far more savvy and intelligent to do something like that.
Bottomline: You don’t have to link-to or vote for everyone, if you don’t want to. There is a choice.
I also mentioned in my article that the sharing of ideas, experience and knowledge is very important.
There is altruism involved in mastermind groups or team-based marketing. You are giving your time to offer ideas and suggestions on ways to solve problems. You don’t necessarily have to expect something back and some don’t.. even within a team setting.
In the end, some people will mesh well with you, your worldview and goals. They will go along with you for the ride as far as it goes. Some will drop off when they find that your focus/personality type isn’t coherent with their needs.
A team is simply a more formalized platform to build these relationships, to establish your core network.
This works well for blogs that are in high demand (such as yours and other like blogs) but what about tumble-blogs, or blogs where there is definitely a market but no real clear community of bloggers on the subject matter?
I’ve always felt that working in a team was important, but found it difficult to find those who would treat it the same as I would, and therefore I would end up doing most of, if not all, of the work necessary.
Great article (as always) and I will probably (more than likely) be reading it over and over again until I can come up with a solution to my current problem.
It would be great to be a part of a blogging community. Brian, through Teaching Sells (thank you for referring us to that community, by the way), has setup a forum for members to find like-minded ventures. In my case, we’ll have animators linking to cartoonists, etc.
I’m just at the beginning of this phase, but am excited at the potential for all of us.
Hello everybody
I’ve been a lurker in DoshDosh and this is my first comment too. The idea of using cooperative effort to benefit the whole is nothing new but it’s exciting that a top blogger is espousing the idea. And if there’s one blogger that can pull this off, it’s Maki. Taking the lead in this effort takes integrity and his posts rings with it.
We can always go the traditional route of link exchanges and like stuff but we prefer reciprocal reviews. They’re more personal (that’s what blogs are originally for?) and insightful.
Thanks.
thanks maki..
I’m sure my answer is in the blogging community… and some work is needed in asking the right questions..I haven’t been at this for very long but damn, I see some fantastic potential.
but…
how qualified am I really to pick and choose these people? and to have to search through who knows how many web sites or blog sites to find someone who you think might be a good match seems like trying to find a needle in a hay stack. shouldn’t I have basic knowledge of each persons specialty? in internet business and marketing, I’d realistically have to spend another 50 years just learning the basics of every field.
and time consuming… we are producing a product and running a business 14 hours a day 7 days a week so just the thought of trying to add another few hours to the schedule kissing frogs in hopes that we find a entire pond of prince charmings sound like the same odds of winning the lottery and getting struck dead by lightening on the same day.
and than to be able to coordinate them into a functioning and hopefully profitable team working together like a well oiled machine would be the “lived happilly ever after” ending that we all hope for but this is real life and how realistic does that sound?
this is 2007 and I accept we still don’t have a cure for disease and flying cars but jeeeez, their has to be a better way than “hit and miss”… do a million or more mom and pop shops all have to individually learn html and smo and marketing and affiliate programs and on and on….?
The internet offers thousands of ways to market your product but each one is time consuming and requires time spent to learn all the ins’ and outs… when they invented the computer, they told us we could multiply our efforts… well… it’s true but I guess the multiples I was thinking of was greater than 2.
can’t somebody put together a program to do for project managers and small business what those find a mate web sites do? and, if somebody’s not already doing it than the question beg’s… why?
Should be… i should have a menue of services i’d like performed and some amt of money i am willing to pay. than, some team takes care of the details and makes it happen.
do you know where I can find that service?
Hi Maki,
Delete this if you want but I’m willing to extend a bit of a hand to people. I’ve been studying online marketing for about 5 yrs, have 30+ yrs in my family’s multi-million dollar company and 11 yrs in a world class theater venue that’s played the white house 8 times (though I’m not public about any of that other than occasional mention).
If you want to send people to FindOut!, we can all start to help one another “like life was meant to be.”
Btw, I’ll let you know when I’m done with my next post. You’re in it.
Cheers,
Sam
I am presently working with a team and it is really powerful. I love this idea.
* I love the cartoon too. I love the storyline.
Great concept Maki! I can certainly see the potential in working together as a committed group of bloggers, and leveraging each other’s diverse talents. This is the sort of tag-teaming that could go well beyond voting each others stories through social media, and eventually emerge as something as cohesive as a blog network.
– Dev
I agree with matt, sometimes it just difficult to get a good team member, but you never know if you not trying isn’t it?
The power of many people who come together with the same intentions isn’t to be underestimated.
I believe from past personal experience that this concept can work really well. If we can create a group environment who’s focus is on giving and helping each participant to step ahead, then even the newest of bloggers is a valuable member since absolutely everybody has some knowledge and experience to share.
It also helps to have an outsider who looks at things more critical because sometimes we fail to see what’s right in front of us.
Exciting thought and one I’m willing to explore.
Yeah I met up with a couple of other bloggers and we talk and talk and talk without any actions..
I guess the real key is for something with action..
Malaysia is having their own webmasters gathering! Hopefully something positive would come up..
Hi,
I found this post interesting and digested it fully. My mind has started working on some potential avenues. Thanks Maki.
P.S. I would like to acknowledge that SAJ Shirazi (http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/) from whose blog I found a link to your and visited your blog first time today
I agree with Michael – the key is action. I’m still configuring my blog and website, but would be willing to work with anyone else who is like-minded. Consider this an invitation.
Another excellent idea from you Dosh. There is a website out there GANGCLICK.com that does something similiar to this but it just hasn’t caugth on.
I love the idea of focusing on the best article each site has produced that week and each memeber pushing that article. it is win win for everyone including your readers.
I’ve found the problem with this is follow through. setting up a yahoo groups email account could be a good way to pass agendas but how do you follow up and see if the other members are digging, stumbling, linking to your site. sure you could spend the time to look but that could take a lot of timem.
anyway.. love your articles.. they are worth waiting the couple days in between each one to read
Great read I am using you wordpress template and its going great thanks for all this great info
Nice info,
John chow and shoemoney is a great example of teamwork. (their rss content)
I agree and its a great idea, would be interested in joining your marketing team. I think the closest I have come to a team so far is through commenting on various peoples blogs and having them post back on mine.
I’m in. I want to be part of your marketing project. I’ve always respected the great writing you do here. Maybe you could set up forums for people with similar topics to post and meet?
well, count me in too…
and, we will probably be needing “something” to market… might I suggest we start with one of my original product lines? Be perfect for a test project…
or, everybody involved that has a product. make it a marketing co-op maybe?
all we would have to do is make it work once… than easy to duplicate.
post very inspirationnal, i’d like to join the effort (collaboration or teamworking) ! thanks
Awesome idea.
I’d like to be part of your team.Or rather my team is interested.There are four of us, all newbies.One is a strategist,one is a tactician,one is a deal-maker and one is a public relationshipper.Our blog is collectively done and we meet weekly either by skype or in person.Meetings,ideas and plans are all recorded in a google grp.
Hello Maki, if you think to make a team of bloggers of similar interest, surely I will join your team. This is a great idea and I believe all of us will be benefited from such action. Go ahead and tell us how will we start. Hope to hear you soon.
Maki, this is a fantastic idea. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this. Thanks. I’ve sent in an email.
One of the things I’ve noticed, at least when it comes to Humor writing, is that I really need to target sites that are bigger than mine, because the smaller or similar sized sites tend to be of the “I post for fun, when I have time, if I feel like it’s not a poor use of my time” variety.
I just started up a new blog, and one of it’s core foundations is that I intend to bring in as much outside help in creating content as I can.
I can’t wait to get everything rolling along at full steam.
Yes team work is very important. But as for me (a newbie) I don’t have any team marketing and do not know where to find. My friends are all in ground business (not into blogging or internet marketing. So…..I really still have a lot to learn.
another great article. reading each article makes me more curious about your age and appearance. i wonder how much you make with this blog.
This article goes great with your other piece on not thinking of other bloggers as your competition. this works well with younger blogs. work together to grow each blog.
thank for the suggestion maki…:), its really fuel me up an brightening me…:), thanks again…
Fantastic, Maki. Thank you for your ideas and suggestion. We will not be succesful without team work.
I love the idea of bloggers sharing, getting together and helping one another, but alas, I also have some reservations – specifically, how do you ensure the system is not abused?
Given the success of DoshDosh, and the obvious time you spend in developing it, I have to trust your team marketing plan is set up in much the same way; well thought out and all contingencies considered. I am looking forward to watching your team effort blossom Maki, good luck!
Maki,
I am in.
e-mail sent with my thoughts
, hope you got it.
Count me in!
My goal is to brand myself and help other make money online.
I guess I will have to read all the comments first. Nice approach! Thanks!