The Benefits of Recruiting Volunteers

By PChip | Category: Business Management, Writing Tips |

A digi-scrapping group I’m a member of recently moved from their Yahoo Group into a new forum setting and they’ve attached a blog to their website as well. The DigiD4O is a group for people who do scrapbooking for others on a professional level. There’s some great networking going on over there. As a matter of fact, a colleague of this group and I were chattering about guest blogging and how it could benefit their members and the new blog at the same time. That discussion prompted me to do some additional research on the subject and write todays article.

Words from a Guest Blogger

Matt Coddingham of Net Business Blog, recently served as a guest writer for John Chow and actually wrote about the subject of guest blogging. He pointed out that guest blogging is a win-win-win situation.

Matt shares how it helps the main blogger by freeing up their time so they can accomplish other things or take a break from blogging - without leaving their readers empty handed. Readers appreciate the consistent flow of content even if the main blogger isn’t available to blog. That’s a benefit I’m ashamed to say I did not pass along to DSD-Pro readers here of late when I was taking a break from blogging long enough to get other business and personal matters taken care of.

Matt goes on to tell us that, “guest blogging also has a ton of perks for the guest blogger as well. He emphasizes that when guest blogging, the writer has an opportunity to add links back to their own blog. If the blogger writes an article that the readers enjoy and can relate too, hopefully they will be interested in reading the guest bloggers website too.

He wrapped up his article by pointing out that at the end of the day, readers want good content to read. Guest bloggers give them new content. So it’s beneficial to the readers of the blog too.

See? It’s a winning situation for everyone! “Because the main blogger gets a break, the guest blogger gets some additional exposure, and the readers get their fill of content.” WTG Matt with a wonderful article! I did, in fact bounce over to your blog and give it a look through too!

Finding Guest Bloggers

Finding guest bloggers is usually rather easy to do when you have a popular blog. However, when your blog is somewhat new or simply has a small readership – it gets a little trickier to get guest bloggers. This is especially true if your usual blog audiences are hobby bloggers rather than business bloggers. DSD-Pro is in a similar situation. Our blog launched just 4 months ago. We’ve had a few guest bloggers. However, these are folks already on the DSD-Pro team who have pitched in to help me out here and there. I’m finding that we have a somewhat shy audience at this time.

Teach Friends About the Benefits

One of the hurdles you may find you’ll need to overcome is educating bloggers that guest blogging does in fact offer them some benefits. If you teach them how it helps them and their blog, then you’re more likely to get contributors. In addition to the thoughts that Matt shared another benefit to the guest blogger is that by guest writing they are adding another layer of professionalism to their personal branding and the writing experience can be added to their resume or their portfolio as well.

Show the Numbers

If you’ve got some strong numbers to show them on how many people visit your site, share this info with people you are interested in requesting a guest writing from. If you don’t have strong numbers available, don’t let that keep you from sharing. After you get a guest to write, track their article and let them know how popular it was or how many people clicked on it, how long they stayed to read, etc. Why should the main blogger do this? Because, proof is sometimes easier to see when looking at the numbers. Show folks the actual numbers generated from click-throughs. Remind them that these visits help their blog move up in the search engines, which ultimately means that prospective readers are more likely to find their website. Sharing these numbers may help encourage potential guest writers to rise to the occassion.

More Thoughts on Attracting Guest Writers

Darren Rowse at ProBlogger offers some great ideas for how to find guest bloggers. I really like the 6th idea he shared about making it easy for a blogger to guest write. He tells how he used a “one question interview” plan and attracted 14 guest writers which gave him two weeks of content. Darn - wish I had thought of that. I’m going to borrow that idea from him for my next leave of absense!

Pulling Them Out from the Shadows

If you decide to launch a guest writing campaign, and you have a shy readership, who are hesitant to volunteer - I encourage you to give out some specific ideas and see if you can pull in some extra interest. Sometimes it’s easier for folks if they have an assignment or a directed subject to write about.

On that note I’d like to invite you to consider becoming a guest writer here at DSD-Pro. I’d love to see some DSD-Pro traffic flow from here… back to you! I’m always willing to share. I’ve got a list here of subjects you may want to consider or maybe you have something else you’d like to share?

Ideas for Guest Writing Projects:

– A review of My Favorite (or least favorite) product/service
– The Biggest Mistake I Made When Starting my Business
– A List of Reasons to Own a Business in the Digital Scrapbooking Industry
– My perfect Digi-file Storage Method
– How I Attracted my First Customers
– Three “Must Haves” for Every Digi-Scrap Professional
– The Community Forums I Visit Every Day (and why)
– Tips for Advertising on a Shoe String Budget
…. etc.

Are you sitting there thinking to yourself, “Hey I could write that article!” If you are, please drop us a line at guest-relations[at]dsd-professionals[dot]com and be our guest!

I Could Use Some Help

I’m not exactly drowning, but I am treading in deep waters as I’m preparing pages for launching the DSD-Pro Business Association services. Focusing on these activities have me struggling to get any writing for the blog done at all these days. I’d really appreciate any help you could offer with a guest article! Just give me a shout if you are interested!