(C)oBlogging {How We Make It Work with Evernote} #SummerAtoZ

coblog

Since January of this year (2016), Girlxoxo has been run by both Kim and myself (Tanya). We had both been reading each other’s blogs for a few years. At the time, we were both too busy to post as often on our blogs  as we would like – yet we both seemed to love blogging and didn’t want to give it up. As soon as I reached out, Kim was like .. .YES and our partnership has been awesome so far. Here are some things that help us establish an awesome rhythm.

Blogging Philosophy

  1. We communicated how we approach blogging from the very beginning. [Tanya] I’m in a crazy job, with a husband and 2 teenage step-sons to keep in check. [Kim] is a mom of a toddler, a wife, student, dance instructor … BUSY! And we both have other interests outside of blogging and reading. We both love blogging but can’t possibly attend to it all the time – and we’re OK with that.
  2. For me, the most important thing was to make Girlxoxo feel like Kim’s internet home – not like she’s a contributor. She has access to everything and co-owns this space.
  3. We have a system that developed organically – and the backbone is Evernote.

CoBlogging With Evernote

  1. We use a shared Evernote notebook “2016 Calendar” with notes for each month of the year. We talked about the setup in How To Use Evernote As a Blogging Calendar. And here’s how to share a notebook in Evernote. Evernote for Blogs
  2. Each month has the day and date mapped out. And we put topics in beside each day when we think of them.
  3. Topics Kim write about are colored red; mine are in black, and the ones we will both contribute to are purple. summeratoz plans
  4. We use blue to color code questions we have next to a topic, and bold it when we answer.
  5. One of the best part of the system is Evernote Chat. Whether we use the desktop, web or phone app – we can see a chat that either one of us started and respond. And it keeps the chat history.

CoBlogging With WordPress

  • We each have our own login and author profile
  • We created a 3rd author profile, “Kim and Tanya” for the posts that we both contribute to.
  • We typically follow the same style format – although I noticed recently that I have a white background with black text on the graphics I create – and Kim has a black background with white text. Kim probably thought of this!

Establishing Our Own Voice

  • There is an Author blurb at the bottom of each post, so you can tell whether Kim or I wrote it. We both love books – so we both post about bookishness. Kim is more into journaling – so I think you can tell immediately that those posts are hers. And I’m into digital lifehacks – so clearly those are the ones I tend to write.
  • And we both like to try different things – so you’ll see fitness and other lifestyle posts crop up.
  • One of the biggest things that helps us be successful is to trust each others process in finding our voices. We don’t micromanage each other. We’re truly partners who feed off of each others enthusiasm for blogging here in this space.

Finding Inspiration for Topics

It helps to have multiple, slightly broad but defined interests.

It also helps to freely experiment until we find what works, and what we’ll be inspired to blog about again and again.

We use the Evernote chat feature to bounce ideas off of each other until we settle on something that we are both excited about- which usually doesn’t take too long.

We freely add post ideas to our Evernote calendar and move them around without feeling like we have to okay every single little detail with each other. We use each others post topics to spur ideas for our own topics with our own personal spin to them.


Most importantly– we remember that Girlxoxo is our happy place. It’s fun every time we write in this space and work on our editorial calendar. It’s not something we have to do. It’s something we get to do and it’s pretty awesome.


Have you ever co-blogged or would you consider it? What do you think would be the most challenging thing about co-blogging?

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// Comments //

  1. fishgirl182

    Jun 29

    I’ve had cobloggers before but it was more like I am the main blogger and if my friends have things that they want to post about that they can’t post about on their own blogs (most of them have YA/younger audience blogs whereas mine is kind of broader themed) then they’ll just shoot me an email with a post or review. They all have their own logins as well but most of the time it is easier for them to just send it to me and I will format it for the blog.

    I don’t mind this, as I want blogging to be as easy as possible for everyone. Sometimes I wish I had a more frequent collaborator so I don’t have to do everything myself but I am OK with the way it is. If I had a regular coblogger I would probably have to be more organized like you guys.

    These are great tips though if I ever do go this route.

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  1. […] week Tanya and I gave you an insider look at how we manage Co-Blogging Using Evernote. If you’re looking for an opportunity to co-blog, Florinda has put out a Call for […]