Here’s a quick tip that I’ve used a few times with success over the last couple of months on my photography blog.
Like most bloggers I find it difficult to sustain writing a new tip or tutorial for Digital Photography School everyday. I do want to provide readers with helpful tips on a daily basis but after a year of writing and in the busyness of life it can be difficult.
As a result, recently I’ve been approaching a few experts to contribute to the blog.
I’ve done this before on different blogs but what I’ve done differently this time is look offline for the experts to write guest posts for me.
Where have I found my guest bloggers?
Two places:
1. Magazines and Periodicals
I subscribe to a number of digital photography magazines to help me keep inspired and up to date on my niche. One of the things that struck me a couple of months ago was that all of these magazines regularly feature interviews and guest articles with Professional Photographers. Many of these photographers have their own websites (usually not blogs).
On a whim one day a recently I emailed two of the Pro Photographers featured in these magazines and introduced myself. I asked them if they’d be interested in writing a guest piece for DPS in return for a little publicity of their site.
2. Books
The other place I’ve found guest posters recently is in my local bookshop. No – they were not there browsing the digital photography section – they’d written the books there.
Again, just to see what would happen, I tracked down and emailed the author of one photography book asking if he’d be interested in a guest post in return for a little publicity for his book (with my own Amazon affiliate link).
Does it Work?
Before I tell you what happened as a result of my approaches – let me tell you why I suspected the technique might work….
- They’ve demonstrated their expertise and ability to communicate
- They’ve demonstrated their willingness to write for publicity already (in magazines)
- They have something to gain from participating (links to their sites/books)
What happened?
- One of the magazine authors emailed within an hour agreeing to write a post.
- One of the magazine authors didn’t reply for a month – but yesterday did and offered not only to write one guest post – but a series of 10 of them! He’s already written a few and we’ve agreed to release them 1 per week over the next few months.
- The book author agreed to a guest post and is interested in doing more (one per month) depending upon the results of the experiment.
I’m pretty happy with the results to this point. I’m yet to get any of the posts actually in my inbox so there jury is still out on it – but the initial response has been very positive and I’ve already approached a couple more people to participate.
I particularly like this strategy because it brings new faces to the blogosphere. Usually guest posts tend to come from other blogs in a niche. While this can be very effective – it can sometimes produce posts that are nothing too new. Bringing in authors from outside of the blogosphere can bring a new voice that your readers may not have heard before.
Time will tell how it works out – but it’s an experiment with promising results so far.
