As an only child who grew up spending most of her time providing her own entertainment and playing make-believe by herself, running a blog solo has always felt natural to me. I like the control, I’m comfortable working alone, and writing can be a very solitary profession.
I won’t even get into my deep-seeded wishes that I had a brother or sister, but I’ll gamely admit that when I started discovering fashion and lifestyle blogs run and shared by sisters – my envy and my curiosity were both piqued.
Wouldn’t it be challenging to work in both creative and professional capacities with a sibling? Would you fight all the time? Would the genetic ESP make for perfect collaboration efforts? Who holds the camera, and who gets in front of it?
You can’t exactly call it a trend, but the success of sisters who blog and work together in our community is pretty impressive. For example, Elsie and Emma of A Beautiful Mess are a prime example of two sisters channeling their kindred spirits into a wildly successful blog (and book deal!).
Growing lifestyle blog A Piece of Toast is also run by two sisters, Sally and Molly Miller. We caught up with Molly last week and asked her to dish on what it’s like to nurture and manage a blog with her sister.
“We were best friends to begin with but blogging has definitely made us even closer. It was hard getting our footing in the beginning and we can’t imagine what it would have been like if we didn’t have each other to talk about our brand, content direction, and all the guess work that comes with blogging.”
On the challenges of working together…
“Being sisters, best friends, roommates, AND co-bloggers definitely makes our relationship challenging at times! Of course we fight, have different opinions on blogging matters, and both beat to our own drum in terms of content, posting schedule, responsibilities and the like… But because we love each other unconditionally and trust each other’s taste, our tiffs are always surface level issues that we work out quickly. We feel like we have a strong foundation for our blog and friendship – and being sisters first and foremost is what has made it possible!”
We also spoke with Kelly Framel last week, as we noticed her sister Erin making frequent (and stylish) appearances on The Glamourai. Soon, her sister will be playing an even larger roll in the site’s growth…
“My sister, Erin Framel, moved to New York over this past summer, and ever since I’ve been featuring her on my site as often as possible. I think it’s exciting to have a fresh face and a new voice in the mix, and it has always been my hope that my readers would find her as inspiring as I do. It’s also so great to have someone you trust completely to bounce ideas off of and to plan and work and dream with ~ which is why I am so excited to have her joining TheGlamourai.com full time starting this February! I can’t think of anyone who’d be better suited to helping me take my site to a cool new place, to help me manage operations so that it can continue to evolve and grow.”
So, is a sister the secret weapon for cohesive co-blogging? We’ve also noticed that Aimee Song’s stylish sister Dani has been making more and more appearances on the blog and social media for Song of Style, so perhaps these ladies are onto something!
Blogging duos take many forms, from friends to couples to siblings and co-workers (we’ve talked to a few of them before!), and no matter the relation, it seems that the relationship is what gives each site it’s own unique personality… or personalities.
Do you blog solo or with a partner? What are some of the challenges and rewards of working with someone you’re close to?
[Image credit: The Glamourai]
I love, love, love blogging sisters! Erin & Kelly, The Song Sisters!
My sister plays a huge part in my blogging – she helps me market my blog., which helps me out a great deal because I’m at work for 10 hrs a day. We have 2 different styles but it’s also interesting to see how we style one piece of clothing to suit our individual style. In the future, I will be featuring her, she is awesome with hair and makeup. Overall, it’s great having a sister who is involved with you blog. Friends may think your blogging ideas are whacky and frankly, think you’re wasting your time with the entire idea but a sister always encourages and somehow shares the vision & dream with love! I love my sis!
Tish
http://www.styliquette.com