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6 Reasons to Join the ProBlogger.com Community

Since I announced ProBlogger.com mid last week the ProBlogger Community Forum has grown to well over 1300 paid members (note the member numbers are reported as higher but also include people who have yet to confirm their membership with a payment).

Because it’s a private, walled community it can be a little difficult for those not on the inside to assess whether it’s something for them – so I thought today I’d highlight some of what’s going on inside:

1. Community Challenges

Something that we’re going to run this week is a ProBlogger Community Challenge. In the challenge I nominate a type of post for our members to go away and write up and then everyone shares their links to those posts over the coming days. Then members are encouraged to surf through the list, comment, give feedback and then share those links that they resonated most with their own network.

The idea is that we all do something together, there’s opportunity to learn from how others approach the task and of course there’s opportunity for extra traffic both from other members and from where they share the links that they like.

Update: I’ve just launched the first community challenge – it’s now live.

2. Blog Critiques

We’ve set up a specific area of the forum where any member can share a link to their blog and ask others to give feedback on it.

critique.png

Members putting their heads together on this means that people asking for critiques are getting a variety of responses on their blogs from a community with diverse experiences, skills and ideas. There’s also the opportunity to learn by watching critiques of other blogs.

3. Opportunities for Collaboration

The collaboration area of the community is one of the most active. This is one of the key reasons I wanted to start the forum – putting bloggers together to work together for mutual benefit can lead to wonderful outcomes.

collaboration.png

We’re still only seeing the beginnings of where these collaborations will lead but to this point we’re already seeing some creative ideas. Bloggers are hooking up with other bloggers in their niches to work together, we’re seeing bloggers working together on social media campaigns in groups, bloggers are helping one another with content creation and more.

The effectiveness of this area will only grow as more bloggers join which will open up possibilities to work together with other bloggers in similar niches and locations.

4. Secondary Connections

One of the cool things that I’ve already seen start to happen is people making connections with other bloggers outside of the community. For example in a thread where I invited members to share their Twitter ID’s we’ve had hundreds of people share them and people reporting seeing marked increases in their follower numbers.

While having more followers is nice – the real benefit of this is that these connections have the potential to build the depth of interaction between bloggers, strengthening networks and opening opportunities for fruitful interactions.

Another example of this is groups of bloggers already planning to meet in person at different blogging events. For example there’s a group going to get together at Blog World Expo and a few people asking if there are bloggers in their local areas who might like to have a meet up.

Member Tutorials

Yesterday I added a new area to ProBlogger.com – one for ‘Tutorials’.

There are two main reasons I wanted this area – firstly I’ve already seen a couple of really excellent posts by members exploring different topics. I want to highlight this type of content as I think there’s a lot we can learn from it. Secondly I’d like to give community members the opportunity to have some of their ideas featured here on ProBlogger.net occasionally as guest posts. I won’t use all tutorials submitted here on ProBlogger – but from time to time will use the best and most interesting submissions with the permission and credit to the author.

6. Our Members

1300+ members in less than a week isn’t a bad result if you’re thinking purely about numbers, but what I’m thankful for and excited about is the quality of those who’ve joined.

Members come from all parts of the world, all levels and with an amazing variety of experiences. Already there have been numerous threads where bloggers have shared different opinions on topics in a way that doesn’t tear anyone down but instead where the diversity of opinion and experiences help facilitate learning.

What our 6 of our Members Say about ProBlogger.com

On that note – let me share 6 testimonials from these very same members to finish off this post:

“After recently rebranding my blog and website, I’ve felt as if my blogging attempts have been floundering, and with no support and no one to lean on, I’ve had difficulty finding the inspiration and focus to write. Since joining the ProBlogger Community just a few days ago, I now feel like I’m part of a family who has already supported, encouraged, and helped me to get my focus and determination back! Thanks for creating this community, Darren – I’m truly excited to see it evolve in the coming months!” – Ursula Comeau from UCWebCreations.com

“Without doubt, the new home of bloggers. In less than a week it has established a community spirit that most forums can only dream of.” – Kevin Muldoon from Blogging Tips

“The thing that I’ve really gained from the forums is motivation! Most forums tend to suck up my time, I think I’m barely on ProBlogger.com for more than ten minute before I have to go and write a post, go searching for inspiration or look into a new form of monetisation. Within the first week it’s impressive to see that there’s already a strong sense of community among the members and it’s great to see everyone so willing to help other bloggers reach their goal.” – fern from Craft Blog

“After signing up for Problogger.Community I submitted Summer Tomato to the critique section. I’d never had anyone but friends and family give me their thoughts on my design, and I’ve always been curious what “real” bloggers might think. Within a couple hours of signing up I had wonderful positive and constructive advice on my blog from experienced bloggers, and even a few new readers! As far as I’m concerned this subscription has paid for itself already.” – darya from Summer Tomato

“If you want to grow your blog, you need to work with other like minded bloggers…plain and simple. Problogger.com has been an incredible avenue for blogging collaboration and it is just getting started. It is really a no-brain’er.” – Robb Sutton

“Not being much of a forum user I was a little hesitant at first to sign up at problogger.com, especially since it was going to cost a whopping $1.95 (gasp!), but I’m glad I did. Already I’ve connected with some great people and just having a more personal interaction with Darren makes the cost worth it.” – David Turnbull from Adventures of a Barefoot Geek

“I’m not the best networker in the world but problogger.com has made a massive difference. Without even asking for it, members have gone out of their way to help promote my blog further and being a member has given me so much extra motivation for blogging that my traffic has doubled in the week that I’ve been there! It’s paid for itself many times over already.” – Lee from Smash and Pees

Join us Today

If ProBlogger.com sounds like a community that you’d benefit from we’d love you to join us today. The cost is $1.95 a month (you can unsubscribe at any time) – we plan to increase this price but if you sign up at $1.95 you’ll be locked in at that price and never pay more to get access to the forum.

UPDATE: the introductory price of $1.95 is over. The monthly price is now $5.95.

The process for joining is simple:

  1. just head to the registration page – this registers you as a forum member (but doesn’t give you access to threads until you’ve done the next step and paid.
  2. once you’ve registered and logged in head to the payment page where you select the $1.95 option and will be then taken to PayPal.

Once you’re paid – you’re in! If you have any problems along the way let us know via the contact form on the forum.

PS: I’ve set up a ProBlogger.com Twitter Account to keep people up to date on problogger.com specific news.

PS2: One thing that has naturally started happening is that groups of bloggers have been joining up together. A few bloggers told me that they felt a little overwhelmed by joining and participating in this community as they felt a little out of their league – so they convinced a friend or two to join with them.

A couple have even bought memberships for friends so that they’re entering in with someone familiar that they can buddy up with from the start.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. It’s look very interesting, i will like to join this community for networking..

    Thanks

    Dini

  2. I am so happy for being a part of Problogger community. Problogger is a very big community for meet experienced blogger.

  3. I must join it

  4. I’m sorry if that was offending, but the number of blogs I came across that had posts on this topic made it look like one..

    Cheers

  5. How does it feel to be the King of Bloggers? Loving the forums!

  6. it is very interesting and i with two my friend joined it yesterday. quite helpful if you are totaly oriented towards blogging like us

  7. Just joined up with the 31DBBB program – I’m on day 2, write a link post, and so it’s good to see you taking your own advice! Here’s my effort.

    https://www.calcatraz.com/blog/8-ways-to-optimise-acitivites-and-free-up-time-65

    Now I’m off to check out problogger.com… Cheers!

  8. Sorry to crash this thread with a technical question, but can you explain how to get an RSS feed for your comments?

  9. Darren: I joined the forum from the get-go. However, I am having problems finding what I am looking for i.e. you say above that you started a thread inviting people to give their Twitter name to help make connections – I can’t find that thread.

    I recommend a “search” feature on the forum.

  10. Darren & Friends!

    I am Sold.
    Watch out for HYPNOTIC BLOGGER guys!

    ;-)

  11. Yes.. I Have Joined Yesterday and I am very happy to be apart of problogger community. thank darren.

  12. Excellent community with a lot to give to each members. thumbs up Darren.

    PS. Join the Facebook like social network for the Blogosphere with over 50.000 members and growing.

  13. Hi Darren,

    I’ve signed up as I see a good value on your blog.

    Being able to interact with forum members and learn in the process can only improve my blogging.

    It is tempting to keep to oneself but blogging is about relating and building networks.

    Vance

  14. ruby smith says: 10/10/2009 at 2:23 pm

    Darren, good to know you started community for us. thanks. I came across http://probloggerforum.net, is it a free version of problogger community? i’m confused.

  15. Problogger is a great source of information and I’m sure the new community will add even more value to the site.

    Networking is the way of the future +_+

  16. I’ll join the community by next month. Hope that you won’t up the price sooner than that.

  17. I will Surely join the Problogger.com Community
    Thank You.
    Good Luck For You

  18. Your community is doing really a great work

  19. ehm..yup. I guess i will join.

  20. I highly recommend to everyone to join in this community… Good Job Darren.

  21. It’s look very interesting, i will like to join this community for networking..

    Thanks, Darren!

  22. It does look kind of exciting and worthwhile, and at least the group of people on there will be self-selected for seriousness on the basis of the price barrier to entry. Good Job Darren.

  23. Goddammit. It’s like, I don’t really visit the site much because of how busy I am, but I see you launch something like this, I see that it costs money, I close it, read the article, then join. :)

    Dammit darren, you win yet again. :)

  24. I think I might join. There seems to be enough of a reason and for such a small cost too!

  25. It seems very Interesting. I would like to be the part of this community.

    Esha

  26. Hi, your success is really amazing! I can see your daily visitor figure, very impressed.

    I think I might join.

  27. Very interesting post; must join the community.

  28. This is a great guy and I’m sure a wonderful businessman! You could check site for more improvement on your business partners. Click at this link http://www.mattarney.com. I will Surely join the Problogger.com Community
    Thank You.
    Good Luck For You

  29. Interesting ! Seems it will be fun to join this community.

  30. The price is not bad.

  31. the price is very cool for everyone who want to join the community.

  32. I am on the fence about whether or not to join this forum, after reading most of the comments above mine I see arguments on both sides.

    What I really appreciate is the innovation that Darren uses to continue to keep himself ahead of the curve and I have followed his blog and social media interactions (and yes I bought the ProBlogger book) so that I may try to keep myself ahead of my competitors (very few bloggers in my field) and have fun doing it.

    Thanks

  33. The price is just very fair. :)

  34. I appreciate the fact that you are allowing members tutorials to be featured on problogger. Video tutorials are great but the majority of ‘tutorilas on sites llike youtube, metcafe and Rever are just ads.in disguise. It takes a lot of time to separate wheat from chaff.

  35. Akash panda says: 10/16/2009 at 5:45 am

    I am over whelmed to see such a blog. This is so informative and so friendly that anyone would pay a thousand bucks to join this blog. This forum really let us discuss anything and everything in the world.
    Thanks a lot Darren for such a wonderful blog.

  36. Sounds like great value to join a strong community and build contacts and draw upon expertise and tips. Will be interesting to see it grow and be part of the success.

  37. Isn’t it amazing what turn of events can take place? Appreciate you letting your readers know about this.

  38. The community is great! Plain and simple. I’ve met other like minded bloggers, gotten advice, given advice and really enjoy the camaraderie. Glad I joined up when I did.

  39. It seems useful to go with this. as they providing great features too.. Thanks for the knowledge.

  40. Thanks for the knowledge……………..It was great piece of advice……..regards

    Priya
    http://fromhomeworkers.com/entrepreneurs.shtml

  41. problogger az one of the most famous blogger in web so its good reason to join

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