Blogging in Pairs….. How Do They Do It?

When you start out blogging, some people are surprised by not only just how much work there is to do- analytics, Photoshop, blog design- but also by just how much time you will spend on your own. Blogging is a very rewarding thing to do, but it can also be a lonely experience, and requires a lot of self-discipline and time management skills. I was interested in what it takes to write a blog as a duo, is it all happy, fun filled days of photo shoots in Trafalgar Square and Pinterest board organisation? Or can it make it more difficult; is there lots of bickering about exactly what colour scheme you should go for? Is it a bit of a too many cooks spoiling the broth?

The Bloggers’ Lounge is obviously run in a team, there are four of us who write for it, one person does the social media and another knows what to do if Editor Rebecca is on holiday or has run away to join the circus. It’s great because often we forget passwords; Photoshop has a tendency to pick a Victim of the Month and try to ruin their life; we are guaranteed that at least one person will have snacks to share amongst the team when we are feeling a bit weak. The Bloggers’ Lounge would never be as successful as it is if there weren’t a team of us helping each other out and working together. But it does mean that we have to be organised, constantly communicating, and reading everyone’s articles.

I asked some of my favourite blogging duos how they felt, they actually all seemed to agree with each other quite a lot- make sure your posts flow and you have a similar writing style, you are organised with your posts and blogging jobs and if you’re a fashion blog, it is definitely beneficial to style yourselves differently!

She and Hem

1.       Do you think blogging together has made you closer friends?

Writing She and Hem has definitely brought us closer together thanks to the wonderful opportunities and memories we now get to share as a gruesome twosome. That said, although we often appear to only know each other, we are lucky enough to be part of a bigger group of very close friends who were there long before She and Hem and will no doubt be there long after. They don’t care if we’ve been to London Fashion Week or how many hits our latest blog post got, they just want to know what time we’re meeting at the pub and we love them for it.

2.       How do you logistically organise your blog, e.g. who is going to post what

Being a duo and sharing responsibility for our blog content has meant we are often questioned about our blogging responsibility and delegation routine. This is normally asked with the expectation of a highly professional response involving spreadsheets, scheduling and perhaps the slightest hint of organisation. It might just be our good luck but from the very beginning we have just taken each post as it comes. Once we return from a blogging event, photo shoot or just a jolly day out together we upload our photos onto Google Drive and, essentially, whichever one of us volunteers first via Whatsapp to spend the evening in front of a computer instead of in front of the TV gets the glory of writing and publishing the post, with the other receiving the honour of proof reading it and adding/editing anything that has been left out. It might not be a system for everyone but so far, so good for us. It could effectively be argued that Whatsapp is the third member of She and Hem.

3.       How important do you think it is having two different voices on your blog?

Perhaps readers (hi Mum) will feel differently but we often feel that our voices are incredibly similar and we like to think this keeps the writing style of our blog consistent. With our love of naff puns, silly jokes and a tendency to over use punctuation, you might be forgiven for not knowing where one voice begins and another ends….. This is especially plausible, considering the majority of our posts have indeed been written by one, and then edited by the other. I bet you don’t even know which one of us is writing this now, do you? Such is the slickness of our collective voice. Note: we are also fans of sarcasm.

4.       What advice would you give to friends who are looking to blog together?

Do it! Stop what you are doing and get cracking. It has been, no exaggeration required, a life changing decision and one which has resulted in something we are both incredibly proud of.

5.       How does blogging as a pair benefit your blog?

We have often discussed how neither of us would have ever made it as bloggers in our own right. Having a partner means having someone to always bounce ideas off, to keep things ticking over when you’re busy or tired, someone to share your excitement and frustrations with and someone to make you feel like less of a wally when you walk into a room full of fellow bloggers! It’s a constant support and also a constant drive to give everything your best. It’s pretty neat, really.

Two Shoes One Pair

1. Do you think blogging together has made you closer friends?

Oh yes. You have a tendency in London to become close to your work colleagues but when someone moves jobs you lose touch and we didn’t want that to happen (which is why we started the blog) and it hasn’t! We talk continuously every single day and of course sharing a love and passion for something that’s solely ours is pretty special, TSOP is our internet child and we’re its loving parents!

2. How do you logistically organise your blog, e.g. who is going to post what? 

We have to be super organised and usually plan a few weeks in advance what we want to post but have to be flexible and willing to change at short notice too. As we said before, we are constantly messaging each other so it usually works pretty naturally. We publish on the same days each week for consistency and Amy runs the Instagram whilst Naomi does the Twitter account

3. How important do you think it is having two different voices on your blog?

With the blogosphere being quite saturated, we wanted to do something different and it was quite obvious whilst we were working together, that we loved the same trends but never styled them the same way and this is exactly what our blog is based on- showing people that you can love trends and dress them to your own personal style! It wouldn’t have so much of an impact if it was just one of us.

4.       What advice would you give to friends who are looking to blog together?

You need to be equally committed as it is hard work keeping a blog to a high standard consistently, play on each other’s strengths (Amy’s the diary keeper and Naomi the Photoshop whiz for example), understand that you’re not always going to have the same opinions on everything and think about how you will overcome that and most importantly make it fun, it’ll never work if it’s not enjoyable.

5.       How does blogging as a pair benefit your blog?

We don’t know how people run blogs on their own! There is so much you have to do like emails and keeping up a presence on social media that we share out between us. Naomi has a full time stylist role and Amy is a carer to her daughter Ivy so despite how busy we both are, there’s always someone who can keep everything afloat – that’s what friends are for right?

Stylingo

1. Do you think blogging together has made you closer friends?

We were already really close before starting the blog – which we think made it so much easier – but definitely having a joint project to work on gave us even more to talk about. We’re also lucky enough to get invited to the odd blogger event or press day, so we get to spend even more time together travelling to London or wherever the events are held.

2. How do you logistically organise your blog, e.g. who is going to post what

We have a rough plan that we take it in turns to post throughout the week, though if one of us is really busy with work or away on holiday then the other can happily take over for a bit. We also always know what the other one’s planning to write about in the next few days, meaning we can coordinate so that the posts complement each other – like having a beauty post one day and a fashion post the next, for example.

Because we’re really good friends, we’ve never had a problem with logistically organising the blog. We’ve found it’s best to play things by ear, and it’s worked pretty well so far.

3. How important do you think it is having two different voices on your blog?

It probably helps us appeal to a wider audience because we have our own opinions and styles, so readers might like the variety. We also look very different, so we think it’s quite nice to give our readers two different looks/styles/shapes in one blog.

We both weirdly have a very similar writing style though (probably from both reading too many Georgia Nicolson books as teens (* cough * and adults) so we think our ‘voice’ is still quite consistent. We think this is a good thing; it would be quite jarring and weird to read if our posts were written in completely different styles, with different photography and layout in each post!

4. What advice would you give to friends who are looking to blog together?

Like we say, consistency is important even when there are two of you. So we’d recommend agreeing on some basics first – from the big things like how your images will be laid out, right down to smaller details like how you’re going to title your posts.

The most important thing, though, is just to remember that you’re blogging together for fun. There are some things about blogging as a duo that might be more difficult than doing it alone – for example, there might be times when companies only want to gift one of you.  There’s no point getting stressed over who’s going to get the free shoes; take things in turns so it all stays fair.

Not getting stressed is really important too – it’s inevitable that you both will have different opinions about things, and you won’t agree on everything. Making a compromise every now and then is a good idea, as well as making sure each of you is happy with the direction your blog is going.

5. How does blogging as a pair benefit your blog?

Blogging alongside a full-time job is hard, so having two of us means we’re able to post more regularly than if it was just one of us. On top of that, we can also bounce ideas off each other, be inspired by each other’s posts and also offer more than one opinion on a product. It’s also great because we own and buy twice the amount of clothes and makeup – so we always have something to blog about!

So there you have it! Thank you so much to the amazing bloggers who helped out with this article! Do you have any more tips or advice? Or if you have any questions, just pop them in the comments below!