All successful blogging businesses are built on relationships.
Even if success seems exponential now, rest assured, all big blogging success is borne of 1 to 1 bonds.
Peep this picture that came up in my Facebook feed today:
Zac Johnson – this blog’s owner – and I met in our native New Jersey 2 years ago today. When not circling the globe I spend time in NJ with fam and friends.
The stars aligned and we had awesome Vietnamese down the Jersey shore. Yep; as a guy who has enjoyed Vietnamese in Hanoi, it was the real deal.
Our friendship has been awesomely fun and co-beneficial. Zac has blessed me with the opportunity to publish posts on Blogging Tips by giving me publishing rights. I have intended to offer his audience generous blogging help.
Win-win-win. Zac, me and our readerships all win because of a blogging friendship that formed years ago.
Here’s how you can pick blogging buddies.
1: Filter Out Manipulators
Every day I get emails from people who are interested solely in how I can:
- feature them on my blog
- feature them on Forbes
- RT their content to my 50,000 plus Twitter followers
Said bloggers only want to use me for their gain. None care about befriending me as a human being.
I immediately filter out people who see me as a tool or hack, not a human being, to allow in genuine, heart felt, inspired blogging buddies.
2: Comment for Nothing
Steer clear blog commenting threads.
Most bloggers on these threads only comment on your blog if you comment on their blog. No interest in you, only what you do for them.
Befriend bloggers who comment on your blog and ask for nothing after the comment.
Do you want to know how I landed a guest posting gig on Blogging Tips? I worked on my writing skills of course but many skilled bloggers and writers are good enough to guest post here. The difference maker: I published a few genuine comments on Blogging Tips and retweeted the posts. Zac noted via a post how genuine blog commenting really does work, pointed to me as an example and he proceeded to invite me to guest post here.
I commented here to add value to the post and to help readers with my insight. I didn’t intend to get anything. Yet a friendship and phenomenal opportunity arose from a wee bit of generosity.
Keep an eye out for bloggers who comment genuinely on your blog without asking for a thing. These gems are blogging buddies in the making.
3: Befriend Connectors
I had met M. Shannon Hernandez online many years ago. But we actually met in person for the first time in Bali. Even though she lived in Brooklyn and I hailed from New Jersey. 2 Tri-Staters meeting on the Island of the Gods.
I began observing how she connected her friends with other friends, seeing how she could help her buds by hooking them up. While chatting in Bali my wife Kelli of Life Made to Order asked her how she landed a writing gig on The Huffington Post. A few hours later Shannon referred Kelli to Arianna Huffington and a few moments after that, Kelli received an email from Arianna herself, inviting her to guest post on HP, which my wife gobbled up immediately.
Bloggers who always seem to connect their friends with friends, each party benefiting, are awesome budding blogging buddies.
These people are all about service, detachment and generosity. Befriend. Study. Learn.
How do you choose blogging buddies?
What qualities do you look for in blogging friends before pursing a deeper connection?
Please share your thoughts in the comments section.