Why Blogging in Formation is Better and More Profitable Than Blogging Alone
As always, I’ll start with an example.
Think about a shoal of fish. All the constituent fish swim together, eat together, and live together. But the biggest advantage of being together is that they can protect themselves more efficiently. If even one of the fish sniffs danger, they are all alerted and they are able to escape in time.
Also, tasks are divided among these fish. Some look for food while some lookout for danger. And some navigate. And so on. It’s a collaboration which keeps them going and which keeps them satisfied.
Now suppose there was a single fish swimming all alone. It’s his job to do all of the things, that is, find food, keep out of harm’s way, and so on. Don’t you think the poor creature’s chances of survival are very low? He’ll get eaten soon, no matter how hard he tries to save himself, right?
How Does this Relate to Blogging
Blogging has many aspects: content generation, promotion, social media, management, this, that, and the list goes on and on. How much can a single, one-man blogger handle? Not much. There will surely come a time when a one-man show blogger has a blogger breakdown. It’s only reasonable and natural, isn’t it?
The perfect example to illustrate my point is that of geese. Ever seen any flying alone?
So, instead of a single blogger having to do everything at the same time, he or she can focus easily on a particular aspect of the blog. Wouldn’t that increase productivity so many times?
They usually fly in formation, and every goose in that formation has a part to play. No matter how small or big that part is, it still contributes to the perfect harmony and organization that these geese have.
Even if one goose falls out of formation because of injury or some other reason, it is accompanied and helped by its companions who also fall out of formation to help the poor bird.
What’s the above example got to tell us? That working together is many times better and more profitable than working alone.
Why is It Better?
Or so the question arises. There are many reasons:
Less Work, More Results
Firstly, a blogging ‘partnership’, like in blog networks, has the work divided among the constituent bloggers. Some have the task of promoting the blog, while others manage the blog(administration, cleaning up, et cetera). Some produce the content, and so on.
So, instead of a single blogger having to do everything at the same time, he or she can focus easily on a particular aspect of the blog. Wouldn’t that increase productivity so many times? Bloggers in a partnership have to worry only about a particular aspect of a blog. They can give a damn about the others. Therefore, they can laser target all of their concentration and energy where it is needed the most. And, the less the area your focus and concentration have to cover, the more productive you are!
Sustainable, MASSIVE Growth
Secondly, it makes the blog sustainable and ready for massive, continuing growth. As time passes and your team of bloggers work hard to propel the blog up the ladder of popularity, your blog grows. As a result, you employ more people to help out in growing the blog. Now, the work is even more divided, if a little increased(because of the massive growth). The blog grows even more furiously, because more people are working on it.
This whole cycle of massive growth and new employees repeats and repeats and repeats, you get the point right? Just look at one of the top blogs on the Internet, be it the tech niche or cooking niche, chances are it’ll be a collaboration, with many people on board.
Keeps the Blog Right on Track
Thirdly, it helps keep the blog on track and allows adaption to different circumstances. There are many people doing the management. Each has his/her own opinion and ideas. If the blog seems to be heading in the wrong direction (because of off-topic posts, etc) quick action can be taken to bring it back on track. Also, different ideas and plans can be debated and argued upon, to choose the best and most appropriate. Could you do that if you were alone?
It’s easy to make mistakes with your blog as a one-man show. However, in a partnership, there are people to help point out and correct mistakes and blunders. It’s only good for the blog, isn’t it?
Remember, the point of a collaboration is to ease the load on a blogger and to divide the tasks. Exactly what happens in the geese formations. Exactly what happens with the shoal of fish.
Allows for Growth To Other Niches Too
Once you have a large enough partnership, you can also try to venture outside your primary niche. You establish new blogs, in other niches, to try to capitalize on the profitability of that niche. You even start employing bloggers from other niches to work in your team.
That’s what blog networks do. And that’s what enables blog networks to grow massively.
How to Go About It?
There are many ways you can join a blogging formation. The first and best(according to me) way would be to join a blog network, such as 9rules. But, make sure that your blog is of a standard high enough and in the right network for your niche. If your blog doesn’t seem to be good enough, work on it, to improve it.
You could also try to ease the load by allowing guest posts on your blog. Don’t be selfish. Don’t think a guest post can do your blog harm. It’ll probably do a lot more good to it. Most importantly, it will get you some time off, too.
Be helpful. Solve a problem. Other bloggers will be grateful to you for eternity if you help them solve a problem, no matter how small or big it is. Ask and solve your readers’ problems too; they’ll be grateful to you too.
Ending With a Story…
The following is a story that I’ve been told and told again since I was a child(Not too long ago 
). But this story does contain something to think about:
The father explained that just like this bundle of sticks signified a united partnership, or brotherhood. Just like this bundle of sticks was hard to break and very strong, unity is strong too. But, when they were divided, the sticks broke easily, which signified dis-unity.
Things to think about…
Your turn. Are you involved in any blogging partnerships or blog networks or such? Do you agree with my arguments above? 
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Most certainly makes sense to me. Bloggers are very often headstrong people. Getting a few of them to work together is not going to be easy. Once such a formation is in place, it will however, be quite a force.
sailor – that is true. It’s not an easy thing to convince them to you know, bond together as one. But once they DO, it’ll become a mighty force worth reckoning with!
nice…. really useful article
thanks for sharing…..
imran – thanks for reading!
Nice post man. I’ve thought about this before but I’m in a more unique situation than most people since I have a twin who works and writes with me. We do this on most of our blogs, we’ll switch off writing stories so neither of us get over-whelmed, but so there’s always fresh content on our blogs.
Alex – You and Justin(that’s the name, right?) are truly doing a good job of delegation. Not only will this enhance your blogging career, it’ll also become an example to people of perfect collaboration.
I’ve read your blog, and I’m a fan!
Great to observe that the concept of swarm intelligence is being introduced in the blogosphere. As a Computational Intelligence researcher, I really like the intelligence exhibited by natural swarms e.g. birds, ants, fish etc. If you look at the rise of Barack Obama in the US politics, you will see that his greatest machinery is a swarm of grass root networks which do the work for each other. This is swarm intelligence!!!
In the blogosphere, it is very difficult for this kind of thing to work because most bloggers are selfish, especially the ones that make a lot of money.A few days ago, I suggested that megabloggers should be sharing part of the monthly income (10% to 20%) with their readers. Readers play a major role in the success of a blog. If megabloggers would start doing this, it would mark the beginning of ubiquitous swarm blogging because readers will swarm to megabloggers who are sharing their revenue leaving the selfish ones. As a result, the selfish ones will also follow suit for fear of being frozen out. This would permanently change the landscape of the blogosphere.
Great post! It’s amazing coming from somebody 16 years old. Your blog layout is clean and nice and your content is very useful and readable, even some of it mind-challenging.
It’s great you are starting so toung which such clear concepts. Keep your good work and probably we all soon will see the next 19 years millionaire.
Anthony – *blushing*.
Thank you soooo much for the compliments!
I have recently switched my blog layout to a magazine format and am trying to do just this. Divide the work and have others help with content. It is not really that hard to do you just have to find the right people.
I just used some of my students to help submit my posts to many social networking sites. They are doing a project on social media and they are running split tests so they are using my blog and I get a lot of exposure on social networks.
I have other students learning English in France who are going to write short stories in English about living in France, since my blog is called France Tales it fits perfectly. I have less content to write but the content I get is more authentic.
I am also going to have some students edit my future writing in French. I would like add more content in French so I get to practice my writing in French and then get more content.
Finally I am using the WP o matic plugin to grab RSS feeds and display as posts so I can add news in French and in English to my site. Lots of content but I am not spending 3-4 hours each day writing the content. I manage it now.
I didn’t realize you were only 16, great job!