Exactly HOW to Collaborate With Other Bloggers

If there’s a single playground lesson that doesn’t translate to business, we can’t find it.Share with others.Be respectful.Leave things better than you found them.Fighting is not allowed.Have fun!Work together.And you’ve likely heard that last one pretty often: collaboration can be key to growing your business.But you’re busy running your business, right? Why should you set aside time that could be spent on clients for something that isn’t paying the bills right now? Put simply, collaboration with other bloggers builds relationships that can help you achieve your big goals. You might want to reach a new audience, bring a fresh perspective to your community, bounce a wild idea off of someone with insight, or be introduced to a potential mentor. Connections with other business owners can speed that whole process up.Of course, there are dozens of ways you can collaborate. This is not that post. (If you want some ideas, Regina Anaejionu has over 30 ways to collaborate with other bloggers for ya.)This post is all about the tactical. The nitty gritty. The HOW behind the WHY. Ready to dig in?Sharpen your No. 2 pencils and let’s go.

The Golden Rule

First up, let’s go over the core tenant of collaborations: The Golden Rule.This rule is the ol’ “treat others as you would want to be treated” maxim from childhood and it’s as true today as it was then. Think about how you’d like to be approached with a potential collaboration. Assuming Mother Teresa isn’t reading this, it’s safe to say you’re going to want to receive something before you give something. It’s also likely that you are in need of some kind of support or help. No one can operate a business in a complete bubble, after all!So figure out how you can help the person you’re reaching out to. Before you ask for something, what can you offer? And how can you give that before you receive anything from them?You might feel stuck right here. It’s natural to assume that you don’t have much to offer someone who can help you in so many ways. But don’t let that fear stop you. Even sharing their work with your audience is a step in the right direction.

Get Systematic

You might be excited about that shiny new email marketing system you just setup for your business, but think through these points from Kirsten Thompson of Sweet Tea, LLC before you queue up your collaboration emails:

• Send from your regular email address, not through a platform like MailChimp or ConvertKit
• Do NOT add these brands or peers to your email list in those platforms without their permission
• Keep track of when emails were sent and schedule reminders to follow-up (more on that later)
• Always use the name of the person you’re emailing, if you have it
• Always include your contact information (seems like a no-brainer but people forget)

Next, be sure you’re following good relationship building guidelines before you dive in with a pitch. (Tips for that are right here for ya)With any potential collaborator, try to support them before you reach out to them about working together. Sign up to their email list and reply to their emails, tweet, pin, favorite, re-pin, like, or comment on their content before you approach them so they have some idea who you are before you make that big ask. Pro tip: schedule those social media shout outs so you can focus on coming up with those incredible collaboration ideas!Oh, and a piece of advice from Regina Anaejionu, master collaborator:

Don’t exaggerate or misrepresent the benefits of working with you to the potential collaborator. You’re awesome, and you’re going to work hard. If someone can tell that, it will mean more to them than the large audience you could claim that might not necessarily be there when it’s time to start promoting your collaboration. If your audience is smaller right now, acknowledge the smallness (without seeming ridiculous), and highlight the things that you authentically offer.

On that note...

Be Real

When you do approach your future collaborators, it’s important to share as many details as possible, as concisely as possible. Sound tricky? The team at Propelle has a tip for you:

Explain the time commitment and their role in the project. In other words, how much of their time and talent will be required to do the thing you're asking them to do?

After you’ve covered the time commitment on their end, the Propelle team recommends letting them know what you’re taking charge of.

Talk about the work you're doing and what you will be responsible for. This helps to show that you've thought through what it will take to get this thing off the ground and that you're willing to put your skin in the game as well.

Experienced collaborator Alicia Tenise couldn’t agree more.

When I first started pitching people and saying “hey, let’s collab!” but didn’t provide any collaboration ideas, it didn’t get me anywhere. You don’t have to nail down every detail right off the bat, however, pitch the blogger some sort of idea. A few years ago, I knew I wanted to do a Style Scenario series with some of my other favorite style bloggers. I proposed a 4-week series, and also worked on getting sponsors to gift us product to style, as well as working on brainstorming a theme for the series as well. The more details you can provide about a potential collab, the more likely you’ll get bloggers on board.

Now, about that pitch.You have your game plan, you know the etiquette do’s and don’ts, and you have your list of potential collaborators ready to go. And you’ve read this far which means you’re hoping our incredibly actionable post about HOW to pitch a collaboration actually includes, well, HOW TO PITCH.And you’re in luck! It does!

Ready, Aim, Pitch

You’ve done your homework and you’re ready to pitch your big idea. Here’s how to make it happen.First, decide on your format. Email is probably most common but you can mix that up.You could ask another business owner to do an introduction and preview of the pitch for you.You might setup a Skype date and propose over video.Or you could record an audio or video invite and use good ol’ email to send it their way.No matter what method you choose, there are a few key components every good collaboration pitch needs:

1. Your contact info (name, website, email address)
2. The collaboration idea
3. Why you chose them
4. Proposed timeline
5. Promotion game plan
6. Expectations (what you expect from them and what they can expect from you!)

Something like this:Hey, NAME,I’m YOUR NAME, founder of YOUR WEBSITE. I’ve been a fan of yours for X TIME PERIOD and your recent POST/PODCAST/TWEET about TOPIC made me want to reach out to you.I’d love to find a mutually beneficial collaboration built around YOUR BIG IDEA. I was thinking about X DATE as a launch date (that’s flexible, of course) and I have already reached out to X BRAND to see if they want to come on board as a SPONSOR/PARTNER/PROMO BUDDY.If you’re into it, my only expectation of you would be INSERT EXPECTATION. I’d love to connect and see how we can make this a real win/win. Can you reply and let me know your thoughts by X DATE YOU WANT TO HEAR BACK BY? Looking forward to it!YOUR NAMEAs with all “swipe copy” online, you’ll want to customize that to your own voice and plans but we just had to give you that framework so you can get going even faster now.

After the pitch

Of course, a collaboration is only as good as a response from the other side. So you’re going to want to keep track of your pitches. Might we suggest a spreadsheet? #nerdsuniteIf your dream collaborator says it’s a “yes, but later”, be sure to follow up with them in a few months and reignite the spark!Once the collaboration is agreed to, you’ll want to keep track of those deadlines you’ve set for each other and have a place you can both access everything you need to make your joint venture a huge success.And a little something to remember:Building relationships between two business owners isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes time to build trust and that can be hard to do online. So if it first you don’t succeed, don’t give up! Keep connecting with people you admire, try some new strategies, and move forward promoting and improving your brand.

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen

It’s time to go find your next collaboration all-star!Have you collaborated with other business owners before?What are your key collaboration tips?Share ‘em in the comments so we can, well, collaborate on this blog post!