Blogger collaborations can be extremely beneficial and fun.  Today we're sharing tips and ideas to team up with your fellow food bloggers to cook up something deliciously creative!

Blogger Collaborations: Great Ideas For Connecting and Creating | Food Bloggers of Canada
Blogger Collaborations: Ideas to Get Started | Food Bloggers of Canada

Blogging can be a solitary business.  It's easy to have days to go by before you realize you haven't left your house or changed out of your yoga pants (which are probably covered in a layer of flour and dried on raw cookie dough) and you may or may not have lengthy, deep conversations with your dog, cat, chinchilla, goldfish etc.

Networking with fellow bloggers can be a lifesaver - because sometimes the dog or your significant other just doesn't have the answer on how to boost pages per visit or get the most out of your blog archives.  Sometimes it's nice to talk to somebody who just gets blogging.

But what about taking your networking to the next level and actually create a collaboration project with a fellow blogger or two (or three or four!) that could benefit you both?

From a non-business perspective, collaborating with somebody on a project you're both passionate about can lead to tremendous creative and personal fulfillment, and that can help renew your enthusiasm for your own blog as well!

From a business perspective, collaborations can help you create additional revenue streams, which is always a good thing when you work for yourself.

So what sorts of things can bloggers collaborate on?  Here's a few ideas to get you started!

Recipe Roundups

Recipe roundups are a great way to dip your toes into the blogger collaboration world.  It's relatively effortless and  it's a chance to work with lots of different people.  Invite a group of bloggers together with a similar niche (i.e., baking, healthy eating, BBQing etc) and get everyone to contribute a recipe.  Create a blog post with links to each recipe and get everyone who contributed to help promote it - the idea is it drives traffic to all the bloggers who participate.  We find that between 10 and 15 recipes works best.  If you can include a photo of each recipe, that makes the likelihood of click throughs higher.  And creating a nice graphic to lead your article can make these posts highly pinnable.

You can use this concept to do similar blog hops, group giveaways and even Instagram promotions.

Guest Posting

Lots of bloggers invite other bloggers to guest post on their blogs - it's a helpful tool to create content consistently or have fresh content while you take a break or go on vacation.

But you can take it a step further by turning it into a collaborative project. Find a blogger who blogs in a similar niche to you but who has a different focus.  For instance, you both blog in the healthy living niche but you're a food blogger and they're a healthy living lifestyle blogger. Create a reciprocal guest posting partnership - once a month you contribute a healthy eating recipe post to her blog and she writes a healthy living post for your blog. Promote your guest posts on your own blogs and each others - odds are very strong you'll have similar readers so it's a great way to add value to each other's sites and get new readers and create a great working relationship with another blogger that could turn into bigger things.

E-Book or Cookbook Creation

If you're thinking about creating an e-book but have never done one, teaming up with another blogger can help you both tackle a bigger project without doing it all yourself.

E-books also have selling potential so by teaming up with another blogger you have the opportunity to widen the target market for your book. If you've already published an e-book on your own, teaming up with somebody else is a great way to add a new voice and shake things up with something new.

RELATED:  18 Ways To Make Money Food Blogging

If you've already published an ebook another way to do an ebook collaboration is to find other bloggers in your niche or in a complimentary niche who also already have books and create a limited time only "Ebook bundle".  Each blogger contributes a book to the bundle, give the bundle a really attractive price point and then use the combined power of your email lists, Facebook groups and blog audiences to sell the bundle for a very limited time. Then split the proceeds of the sale evenly between all the bloggers once it wraps up! This can be an extremely profitable way to collaborate over a short period of time

Video Collaboration

Video is a great medium to collaborate in.  So many of us are nervous about appearing on camera and feel stiff and awkward.  Having a co-host to play off of can make video so much easier and so much more fun!  You don't even have to be in the same province to do this! Check out what FBCers Karen and Lyndsay did when they formed a YouTube collaboration on opposite sides of the country!

Many other FBC members have teamed up to run Facebook Lives together - especially in the meal planning and prep niche.

Host an Event

Hosting an event with another blogger is a great way to do something different and get outside! There are so many options here and you are only limited by your imagination.  Here are just a few ideas:

  • cooking classes
  • team up to host a dinner event like FBC Members Mayssam and Janice have done with the Saisons dinners in Montreal
  • food photography and styling workshops
  • a pop up shop or farmer's market stall for your goodies
  • culinary travel tours or food walking tours

Create a Joint Blog or Facebook Group

This is a big undertaking but it's a great way to team up with another blogger or multiple bloggers and explore a new subject that you're all passionate about but that doesn't fit with your current blog content.  A great example is the team from Baked! The Blog - a group of Canadian food bloggers who collaborate on a blog that's only about baking.

A second blog can be a big commitment but another way to test the waters and build a community is to team up with a few other bloggers who are a good fit and create a joint Facebook group.  Some examples:

  • a meal planning group where one blogger tackles just the lunch crowd, another does dinners etc
  • a group that promotes self sufficiency with a blogger who focuses on canning and preserving, another who blogs about growing your own food and another who focuses on DIY projects
  • a vegan resource group with a vegan food blogger, a vegan dietitian, a fitness blogger whose niche is vegans etc

You can expand these groups or second blogs to be more than just food and instead focus them on a complete lifestyle niche.

The sky really is the limit when it comes to forming collaborations.  The best ones often happen when money isn't even a thought and it's simply people joining together to share a passion.  And that's when the magic can happen.  So get creative, get networking and follow your heart!

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18 Comments

Regina
Reply

I couldn’t agree more. Becoming friends and working with other bloggers is like having co-workers with the same passion as you 🙂

Dorothy Higa
Reply

Great tips!? Food is love so by definition it’s meant to be shared. Food blogging has such potential for face to face connection! Thanks so much for this! It couldn’t have come at a better time. Time to use my imagination and gumption!?

Mayssam
Reply

Thanks for the mention! The friendships and relationships I have developed with fellow bloggers are some of the best and I found that the collaborative spirit that reigns in this community is unbeatable! So yes, collaborate, it can only result in awesomeness! 🙂

Melissa (FBC Admin)
Reply

No problem – we love what you guys are doing with Saisons! And totally agree – collaborating can take things to the next level and make them so much more fun!

Brooke
Reply

My name is Brooke and I love to cook, hence the nickname. I am new to this community and would love to connect with like-minded bloggers.

I am passionate about eating for pleasure and nutrition, making jam, and Pilates. I try to keep recipes healthy, whole-food and minimal wheat, but I do love a good dessert. I normally post twice weekly, but am happy to post daily as part of a short-term challenge.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Wanda
Reply

Love all of this! There are great local bloggers here who work with me on annual food events supporting local businesses and charities. (Ie: Culinary Race & YYC Pizza Week)

It’s fun to bring together like minded supportive people and collaborate!

Emilie
Reply

Thank you for all those great ideas… i am trying to extend my bloggers friends bank…and love to start new projects so i will certainly use them!

food monk consultant
Reply

Your tips on creating enticing food presentations have been a game-changer for my catering business. I’ve received numerous compliments from clients, and it’s all thanks to your advice. Your blog is a treasure trove of information

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