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Obviously, I'm fairly comfortable with the group blog experience, hence my four years writing for BlogHer. Which is why at a BlogHer conference, I formed a group blog called Bridges, pulling in voices from a multitude of communities. People re-posted content from their personal blog or wrote new content for Bridges. And it trucked along for a few months until it died a slow, painful death. It wasn't that we didn't have traffic -- we did. And it wasn't that we didn't have great content -- we did; we had life-changing, eye-opening content. But running a group blog is hard work.
Group blogs abound, from the obvious ones such as Huffington Post to visual ones such as Shutter Sisters. They center on a single topic -- such as Autism Blog Directory -- or run the gamut such as ... well ... BlogHer.
There are obviously benefits to a group blog that you simply can't get with a personal blog. A multitude of points-of-view come together to present a more three-dimensional view of the world. It reaches a wider audience, because it's a communal effort to increase traffic. And more writers means that the blog continues with less daily work on an individual level than a personal blog would need.
Cecily Kellogg, who writes on her personal blog, Uppercase Woman, and is the new editor of Aiming Low, points out more benefits:
I love it for so many reasons. First, there's a whole lot of extra awesome in a group blog, therefore raising up the level of YOUR awesome. It also allows me to get involved with a new community of writers with all the inherent support that comes from that. This particular group of writers are such a wonderful, fun bunch of folks that I feel smarter just by knowing them.
Amalah started the group blog Mamapop, which now has about 25 writers. She says,
We (Tracey/Sweetney) and I started Mamapop as a fun alternative to our personal blogs, which can be magnets for draaaaaama and (at the time) lots of pigeon-holing us as mommybloggers. We just wanted a place where we could write about TV and movies and pop culture -- stuff that just didn't "fit" into our personal sites at the time. Turns out, a bunch of other people wanted to write about that stuff too, so we invited them to join in. Everybody has complete freedom to write about whatever they want, plus over time the group has become a really great circle of friends. Our own little mini-community that we can vent to, cry with, share goofy links with, or some days just spend hours over email trying to make each other laugh. We're pretty good at that last part.
Because, of course, one of the pluses of a group blog is the inevitable listserv that is started to discuss blog housekeeping, which turns into a social hub. I am part of two group blogs, and the listserv is often used to float questions, give advice, share news, or trade blog post ideas.
Joanne Bamberger is also part of two group blogs, MOMocrats and soon-to-be-launched DC Moms. Group blogging takes the interaction felt on a personal blog one step further.
Writing for a living can be a lonely profession as you sit at your computer all day! But creating and being part of larger communities helps me feel like I'm connected with others. I've developed some amazing friendships and connections in real life as a result of being part of some group blogs -- meeting and getting to know so many amazing people around the country I would never have met otherwise has made my life much richer.
Of course, running or participating in a group blog also has its challenges.
Working with multiple people means multiple opinions, which can be difficult if you're accustomed to being autonomous on your personal blog. Bamberger admits,
No matter how much everyone is on board with a project, everyone naturally has different ideas about how things should be done -- who should be in charge of administrative decisions, what the blog should look like, etc. Finding fair
