With every other person now a blogger or course there will be competition between us. There are obviously some bloggers who are quite happy keeping their little corner of the internet as a hobby but for a lot of people they want to turn it into a career. Competition isn’t just in the blogging industry, after all how many times have you gone up against colleagues for a promotion. What I’m talking about today is competition between bloggers and how we can make this a positive.

Competition Between Bloggers

If you are trying to make blogging a successful career then I totally get why there is competition, after all you need to be getting sponsored posts and campaigns to pay your bills. You need to be able to stand out in a sea of blogs which may be similar in several ways to your own. What I think we as bloggers need to be better at doing is realising our own strengths and playing to them.

My main focus is fashion but I dabble with beauty products and I’m sure you have all realised by now that I love sharing my opinion. It would of course look weird if I suddenly started featuring days out and fancy dinners. I feel like some people get around this by calling themselves lifestyle bloggers so they can feature everything under the sun. Harsh? Maybe a little but you can see where I’m coming from when random products appear out of the blue. Do you lose respect for a blogger if it looks like they are featuring brands just for the money?

Opportunities

There is nothing wrong with turning down an opportunity because you don’t think it is the best fit. I have done this several times when contacted by a brand. This is where the blogging community should be at it’s strongest. Just because something isn’t right for you doesn’t mean you can’t pass on the details of someone who you think would do an amazing job. Whether it is a paid opportunity or not shouldn’t come in to it. I know I have bills to pay but I would rather only feature brands that fit well within my own brand.

Followers

I think as bloggers we can focus so much on followers. Is this because quite often it feels like this is all PR’s focus on? To be honest I’ve been lucky that I’ve worked with some great PR’s who seem to know what my blog is really about, but I know others haven’t been so lucky.

I know a brand is going to want the best return on their investment but just because a bloggers has a large following it doesn’t necessarily mean they are the best person for the job. It’s like a blogger having a big Twitter or Instagram following and being approached by a makeup brand because of it. That blogger may love makeup but not be the best at applying it or knowing how to use the products. Would they be the best advert for that brand? I know that wouldn’t make me buy those products. Should there be more of a focus on niche and engagement?

Community

Recently I feel like I have taken a bit of a step back from the blogging community whether that is locally or as a whole. That probably isn’t going to do me any good in the long run but I’m tired and fed up. I know I should be making more of an effort to connect with others but I guess I’m in a bit of a slump.

It’s hard when you have other things going on in your life and when you’re incredibly private like I am. I know I’m guilty of only showing the highs and keeping the lows to myself. There are bloggers (who are great friends) that I would be lost without. They keep me sane when I need a moan. It is so easy to become frustrated when you feel like you aren’t getting anywhere and a strong support network can make the world of difference.

Advantages To Competition

I know it seems like I’ve moaned for most of this post but I was leading up to this. Competition can also be a positive and I think we can so easily forget that. When there are so many bloggers in a similar niche I think we can actually use that to our advantage. Friendly competition can motivate us to be more creative and work hard to produce higher quality content. It can be disheartening to think that your efforts are going unnoticed and others seem to have all the luck. You just have to trust that you will eventually get out what you put in.

Value

From now on I’m going to be focusing on what I think I do best. I want my readers to find my content useful and gain value from reading it. I want my little blog to have a purpose and to feel like I’m moving in the right direction.