Shared Blogging, Shared Inspiration, Shared Marketing

Hi All, I’m back after a bit of a long Labor Day Weekend. I should be back on track for my Wednesday and Sunday postings now.

Shared Blogging

I’ve noticed a new trend in blogging – shared or collective blogging. Groups of artisans are getting together and sharing their ideas and inspiration in the form of a blog. The objective is to share their creative process along with joint promotion and marketing.

I happened across one such blog, it’s called Modern Savage. The blog’s about page explains that a modern savage is one who creates out of need where creating is an act of survival.

The artists on Modern Savage all specialize in creating Lampwork beads. Modern Savages has a theme each month. Participating artists share their creative process inspired by the theme and show their resulting lampworked beads.

The current theme is Fall. The lampwork artists who have already posted about their creative journies share their finished beads. The quality of their work is truly amazing and many of the beads look more like sculpture than beads.

This site hasn’t been online long, only one theme completed so far; but the concept seems quite interesting and I look forward to seeing where they take it. Each month’s entries will be auctioned on eBay or offered for sale on the artisan’s website.

Their next theme will be “Inspired by Intent” – should really make for some interesting entries.
There’s another collective artisan blog, Collective Creatives that is in its early stages. Artisans are still being invited to join in the sharing of inspiration and jointly marketing each other. This blog currently has very little content, but it would seem the perfect time to get involved with the group. Contact them through the site to join.

This new trend of joint marketing and blogging looks like a great opportunity for crafters to promote their business as well as contribute to the artistic community as a whole. Just from looking at the entries on Modern Savage, I can see where using a theme to launch the creativity for the month would also inspire artisans to try new styles, techniques, mediums and even color combinations. It also allows participants the ability to blog about what they do without requiring the time commitment a traditional blog requires.

Shared blogging as a joint marketing technique – what a terrific idea!

If you know of any other collective artisan blogs, please list them here so others can explore and perhaps join them.

The list of collective blogs that I have as of 9/11/07: