Group blogs are always an intriguing topic. At least they are to me. They should be of interest to you because they are a growing phenomenon in the blogosphere. More and more bloggers are working as teams, sharing the posting load, and creating some very interesting and informative blogs as a result.
You know the blogs I'm talking about. They are the blogs that have several, or even dozens of different writers and contributors. Some of these multi-poster blogs are truly community efforts. The most obvious advantages of group blogs are the sheer numbers of contributors. By having many writers adding posts to the blog, the pressure is somewhat removed from the principle blogger to post.
As many bloggers know all too well, that pressure to post on a regular basis can be immense. No one wants to let their loyal readers down by leaving the blog unposted for any lengthy time period. Often, however, a busy person doesn't have time to post as often as desirable. Business and career often push a one person blog to the back burner.
On the internet in general, and in the blogosphere in particular, two weeks is like an eternity in the three dimensional world. It's at least very close to an eternity anyway in terms of internet time. Blog time is just about the length of time required for a post to scroll off the blog home page. There is little past its prime as a blog post in the blog archives; rarely to be read again. While a few adventurous souls will peruse your blog archives, older posts are mainly accessed via the search engines.
No fresh blog updates means a potential loss of readership and visitor numbers. That's a nightmare faced by many bloggers as well. A loss of readership traffic might not be the most important factor in a blog's demise, but is very often a contributor. The lower vistor total is often discouraging to the writer, occasionally leading to blog abandonnment
The group blog removes that constant pressure to post to a large degree, but replaces it with other problems.
Sometimes the quality of posters is not comparable. Some people are simply better writers, or more are interesting and informative than others. Many bloggers can't be depended upon to contribute their minimal number of posts, or to blog on their assigned days or topics. Holes can develop in the team fabric very quickly as a result. Team members can lose interest in the blog and depart; many times without any advance warning.
The onus is on the team formulating the group blog to select quality bloggers, from the very beginning. Choose quality over quantity every time. A second consideration is to select team members who respect one another, and who can work together for the common good.
In fact, choosing well known quality bloggers and forming a team, can bring an instant ready made readership. Each blogger in the group provides a percentage of their own readers to the new group blog, simply by many of the regulars following their favourite bloggers.
Don't expect a complete transfer of readership, however. Many readers prefer to stick with their regular blogs, and won't visit the new group blog very often. That problem is offset by the other members of the team sending some of their main visitor traffic to the new group blog.
Links to and from the member blogs help develop visitor traffic and higher search engine rankings from the date of the blog's initial launch. Cross linking results in a sharing of readership and visitor traffic to the benefit of all concerned.
A group blog is a great way for a band of like minded bloggers to work together for the benefit of all concerned. The team members may be spread across the globe, but their group blogging efforts are working together as a single unit.
Consider starting a group blog today.
There is no "I" in Team.
