Most content experts gear blogging advice toward individual bloggers, but where’s the advice for blogging as a team? Team blogging has several benefits for everyone involved. For instance, a team effort means less work for each individual. Groups can share the responsibilities of blogging, networking and marketing as well.
Without good communication tools, however, team blogs are nearly impossible to manage.
Communication and information sharing is essential to running a team blog. Members must participate in the group’s efforts and collaborate with each other. What are the essential tools that teams need to blog effectively? Read on to find out.
Editorial Calendars
Editorial calendars aren’t just for big publishing companies, magazines and top blogs. Everyone who publishes content, from the Fortune 500 blogs to a small group of craft bloggers should have an editorial calendar.
First, an editorial calendar helps bloggers be more productive. By setting deadlines and determining who writes each piece of content, it forces the members to be more responsible. Accountability improves when each person feels like an integral part of the content creation team.
Using an editorial calendar also helps team members be more consistent. It helps teams create expectations for creating and sharing content, and that leads to more consistent blogging efforts.
To use an editorial calendar effectively, you must determine:
- What type of content you’re publishing
- Where it will be published
- Who is responsible for creating the content
- When it will be published
- How it will be promoted
When you have all those questions answered, you know you have a great editorial calendar in place.
Video Conference Tools
Emails and instant messages are great for short conversations, but they’re not the best tools for collaboration. There’s nothing like face-to-face time to bounce ideas off each other and bond as a team. But how do bloggers manage that when livingmiles away from other team members?
Video conferencing is the next best thing to in-person meetings. For one thing, it’s an excellent way to reduce travel costs. Even large businesses today use video conference tools as a way to work around the increased fuel prices and travel charges.
Holding a video conference is also more conducive to spur of the moment creative meetings. Sometimes, a team member will have a brilliant idea that needs to be fleshed out then and there. In just a few minutes, everyone can join a video conference while the creative juices are still flowing.
Finally, video conferencing reinforces relationships. Emails and IMs lack essential components of good communication, namely, facial expressions and body language. Video conferences give bloggers these essential components of communication, allowing team members to feel more connected.
File Sharing Capabilities
Blogging teams need secure ways to share content with each other. Things like pictures, documents and even your editorial calendar need to be kept in a safe place that everyone can access. These days, that’s easy with the many file sharing platforms available.
Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive and other cloud storage platforms are ideal for team bloggers. When folders are properly organized, it is an efficient way to share information with each other as well as store it for future use. These platforms are also an excellent way to back up your team’s work in case of a disaster.
In addition to being easier to organize, cloud file storage also helps team members share faster. Sending large attachments through email or IM can take a while, if the file even goes through at all.
Most platforms offer an ample amount of free storage. Even the costs for paid storage are quite small when distributed among team members.
Team blogs have a lot of potential when the members have the right tools to communicate and share with each other. Now that you know which tools you need, it’s time to get started! Working as a team to create and share content has never been easier.
