The Importance of Blogging Support Groups

I’m returning from my hiatus talking about blogging support groups.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you probably know how important it is to get support as a blogger. You probably have also realized that “non-bloggers” are generally not very good at offering this support. There’s nothing wrong with those people, but they just can’t relate to what you are doing. This can cause you to feel like you’re on and island all by yourself out there in the online world.

The solution to this is to get a little network of bloggers that you can go to and interact with about the blogging world. Having people to go to when you have an issue is practically essential. A great idea is to form a secret Facebook group with just a few (5-8) bloggers who can all get along. You can also form a Skype group that you meet with every now and then. At the very least, try and get an email relationship going with a blogger or two. Just having one person to vent to, or bounce an idea off of is such a big deal.

Could you imaging going to a non-blogging friend you have and complaining that you don’t get comments on your posts or that your last Tweet didn’t get any favorites? They’ll most likely think you are vain and are complaining about tiny issues. The truth is, to bloggers, these are big issues! It’s so nice to be able to talk to people who relate to you and who can sympathize with what you’re going through.

Having a blogging support group can save you time and heartache too. It’s important to have people who are going to be respectfully honest with you about your ideas. I’ve had ideas that I totally scrapped after I ran it by a few people in my blogging network. I have also tweaked ideas that have now been very successful based on advice from people in my group. This is why it’s important to be careful about who is in your group/network. You have to trust them and their knowledge in addition to their ability to give you an honest opinion. You also have to trust them not to steal you ideas. 🙂

Some people might think of this idea of a blogging support group as a mastermind group. This is very similar to that idea, but on a more social level. Typical mastermind groups are generally much more business focused and really stick to the business side of blogging. Whatever you want to call it, try and get in (or make one of your own) to a group of bloggers that you can “keep it real” with.

If you’re having trouble finding a tight-knit group, please join my group! We’ve got about 100 bloggers in there and I’m happy to let you in so you can be in a group of like-minded bloggers! Feel free to join and post applicable questions there!