30 Days to Being a Better Blogger
Day 7: Invite Somebody to Be a Guest Blogger
A few people who are participating in the 30D2BBB Challenge have volunteered to create and organize a wiki to support everyone’s efforts! John, Jenny, and Jason have done a great job of putting it together, and I strongly encourage you to add yourself to it. That way we can all support each other in our efforts to become better bloggers! Huge thanks for putting this together!
30d2bbb image by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
I have created over 750 blog posts on Teach42.com. I’ve quoted people, linked to people, interviewed people, but the one thing that I’ve never done is invited somebody else to be a guest blogger and share their thoughts here. With this challenge I’m going to rectify that.
I’ve seen other bloggers make fantastic use of the idea of inviting people to be guest bloggers. Miguel Guhlin has had Melinda McCormick write some excellent blog posts for him on Second Life. Wes Fryer has had people like Bob Sprankle, Clay Burell, and even his mother share as guest bloggers! It’s always been something that I’ve admired, but never quite gotten around to doing.
Hrrrmm… That’s not quite honest. It’s not just procrastination. I gotta admit it’s also a question of self-confidence. There’s still the scared little boy inside of me who’s afraid to ask the girl out on a date out of fear that she’ll say no. While I know it shouldn’t, it’d be a blow to the ego to ask someone to be a guest blogger on Teach42 and have them shoot me down or just blow me off. Funny thing is I feel ridiculous even admitting that. But that little voice in the back of my head is there. Well, it’s long past time I moved past that.
So why would you even want to invite a guest blogger to share on your blog? There’s a few reasons. The first is that you admire them and want to share their ideas with your audience. By inviting someone who inspires you to share on your blog, you are able to share that inspiration with people first hand. It also exposes that person to a new audience, even if there are some members of your audience who may already be aware of that blogger. More than likely, not everybody does.
A second reason to do so is to ask an expert to address a specific topic for you and your audience. Perhaps you don’t know much about virtual worlds in a specific setting, like for students with disabilities, and you want to ask an expert to share their thoughts on the matter.
A third reason to invite a guest blogger is… well, let’s just be honest with each other here, guest bloggers can be great to increase traffic. That may sound a little self-serving, but we all want to raise awareness of our own blogs. So long as we’re doing this, we want people to know about it! By inviting someone to guest blog on your site, you ensure that the blogger is aware of your blog, you increase interest amongst other people in your blog (like having an interesting guest on a talk show), and since most guest bloggers alert their audiences that they’ll be writing a post elsewhere, you stand a good chance of having them bring along many first time visitors to your site. Ain’t nothing wrong with that!
A fourth reason to invite a guest blogger is to fill in a gap. Wes Fryer has done that a few times. When he’s known that he was going to be away for a few days or a week, he has invited other people to share on the blog in order to keep the frequency of posts up. While I don’t think it’s a necessary thing (nothing wrong with taking a few days/weeks off), it’s certainly good practice for building and maintaining an audience.
One last reason to invite a guest blogger… to demonstrate that you feel other voices are valuable as well. To show that it’s not ‘all about you’. Frankly, it’s your blog, and if you don’t want to have anybody else post there, that’s your choice and I’ll defend it to the death. But I’ve always been impressed when people have brought in guests and it’s one way that I’ve learned about some fantastic voices in education.
So today’s challenge is to invite someone to be a guest blogger on your site. It could be somebody famous, or someone completely ‘unknown’. Perhaps you want to invite someone who has never visited a blog before in their life, but you respect and want to share with others. You could honor a blogger that is relatively new and do your part to raise awareness of them, or invite somebody who has interesting ideas but has nothing to do with education. The details are totally up to you, but give it some thought before you extend an invitation. Try not to pick the easy fruit, reach for the choice stuff that’s just at the edge of your reach.
Obviously this isn’t a challenge you can complete today. But get that invitation sent out. When you know who is going to be doing the guest blogging, share it here and on the wiki. Then come back and share a link once their post is actually live on your blog.
Oh, and don’t forget to join the wiki!
- Day 19: Who do you love… and why?
- Day 30: Choose Your Own Adventure
- Day 29: Be a Rock Star
- Day 21: Give a comment a promotion
- Day 28: Link It Up
Mobbsey
11/7/2008
Thanks for this one…I’m like you and find the idea incredibly cconfronting. I cringed the other night when my husband was looking at my blog…which is why I’ve been putting off yesterdays challenge. But I will be taking the bull by the horns so to speak in the next couple of days and will have a blog novice friend do both for me…I’ll probably end up hiding behind the counch while she does it!
Mobbsey´s most recent blog post.. Time Out
[...] Day Seven – Thirty Days To A Better Blog Filed under: 30 days, blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school — mkbnl @ 6:33 pm Tags: 30 days, blog, blogging, blogs, cyber school, education, high school, virtual school Day seven in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series asks us to look at Day 7: Invite Somebody to Be a Guest Blogger. [...]
Maryann Molishus
11/7/2008
Although I am not totally participating in the challenge, I am scanning the ideas (not a big blogger). I do think this is a great idea. A while ago, some educators and I were asked to contribute to a blog (quiet little blog out there–The North Star Community)and it was an honor. I also think if you are not a big blogger, asking guests to contribute will keep the ideas going and your blog fresh! Perhaps some colleages – new teachers getting their name out there or a student teacher with whom you are working would be excited to work with you (me).
Maryann Molishus´s most recent blog post.. I Never Doubted Them (Much)
Doug Johnson
11/8/2008
Hi Steve,
The guest entries on my blog have usually come from 1) a really good response to a previous post that gets re-published, 2) a thoughtful personal email I’ve received, or 3) a response to a listserv. I of course ask permission to make any of these a blog entry.
Just a few easy ways to get a guest entry that doesn’t require an invitation or extra work on the part of a guest.
Great stuff here, Steve. Thanks!
Doug
Jennifer Dorman
11/8/2008
I actually invited my father to be a guest blogger. http://cliotech.blogspot.com/2008/11/thinking-about-guest-blogger.html I’m inviting people to post a comment on my post to encourage my father.
[...] Day 7: Invite a Guest Blogger: [...]
Michelle Bourgeois
11/10/2008
This year, I’ve had the pleasure of co-blogging with Gayle Berthiaume on the Tech Tutors blog. While I had never before thought about inviting a guest blogger on my regular blog, Milobo’s Musings, I’ve enjoyed the challenge and growth that co-blogging has afforded. I’d like to find someone to swap blogs with for a week – maybe someone out there would like to take me up on the challenge to see what we can learn?
Michelle Bourgeois´s most recent blog post.. Yes We Can!
JenWagner
11/24/2008
Just FYI
Peggy George guest blogged on my blog — due to your suggestion.
http://jenuinetech.com/blog/?p=679
What a great idea
Thank you!
[...] resource, there’s thousands of people who are willing to help, provided that you ask. As I mentioned on Day 7, I’ve never been very good at asking people to be guest bloggers. However, I’ve never [...]
Janet Bianchini
1/9/2009
I think it’s a great idea to invite a guest blogger to a blog and I’m going to take the bull by the horns. I will totally understand and accept if it’s not possible but I can’t think of anyone else to ask but you, Steve. It would be an honour if you could do a guest spot on my blog but I have no idea how it would work or what the theme could be. Maybe a recap of the top tips to being a better blogger for newbies like myself? I’m usually not the sort of person to consider this sort of thing but writing a blog has given me so much confidence and opened up a whole new learning environment which I could never have envisaged just a short time ago.
Well, I’m going to press the submit button before I get cold feet!! So here goes….
Janet Bianchini´s most recent blog post.. "Lost for Words"
Steve
1/9/2009
Well, win you twist my arm like that, and especially when you do it publicly, how could I say no?? Of course I will!! Contacting you via email to figure out the details.
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