8 Reasons I’m grateful to have Blogger Friends

Yesterday I headed to a local coffee shop for an impromptu work/coffee date with Hannah and Laura. All three of us had woken up feeling a bit meh and decided a work date would be the perfect pick me up. As I drove home I realised how truly lucky I am to have built genuine friendships with other bloggers and to be able to call them my friends. Of course I have lots of blogger “friends”, those people who you chat with on twitter, who regularly comment on your blog or who you go to events with, but a genuine blogger friendship is something so much more. Over the years I’ve been blogging I’ve gained some really special friendships. Clare who was my first proper blogger friend who made the effort to talk to me when I was on my own at an event is still my friend now even through job changes, babies and all that other real life stuff. Emma who I met on the cobbles of LFW has been my friend now for 3 years and who I also have a working relationship with too being her FT photographer. Laura and Hannah became my friends only last year after we all discovered we lived in the same area and its been an incredible thing for me, especially since I went full time on the blog. There are so many reasons why I think its so important to have blogger buds but here are 8 reasons why I’m grateful to have blogger friends.

1. They just get it.
   Blogging is a relatively new career and I know it still baffles my friends and my family what I actually do. Blogger friends just get it. They know because they are totally on the same page. I love my non blogger friends but sometimes I feel like the weirdo in the group when I stand up, rearrange the table and snap my lunch from every angle and everyone else is happily munching away. Blogger friends will most likely be stood up with you and guaranteed will have chosen the table nearest to the window so you have the best light.
2. They can be incredible sounding boards.
   Following on from reason 1 because blogger friends just get it they are the perfect people to discuss problems with and talk things through. I don’t know what I would do without being able to ask them for advice or just talk to them about issues that my non blogger friends couldn’t advise on.
3. They can inspire you.
   Nothing inspires me more than meeting up with my blogger friends. From spending the day with Emma to brunch with Hannah and Laura I always come back full of post ideas and motivation to kick ass. Yesterday I was suffering from major bloggers block and by the time I left I had an excel doc full of post ideas for the coming weeks.
4. Help each other out.
   The benefits of having real blogger friends is the ability to help each other out. This might be sharing contacts or sharing each others posts or it might be putting someone forward for an op that isn’t quite right for you but you know would suit one of your blogger buds. Blogging is hard work and very competitive and contacts can be something you’ve worked truly hard to gain and that’s why sharing tends to only happen between genuine friends. It also involves helping each other and not just a take take situation. My advice is to build blogger relationships for the purpose of genuine friendships and not solely to gain contacts or exposure for yourself.
5. Snap each other.
   Now obviously I work as a blogger photographer and I do earn money from that but if I’m meeting the guys for brunch we will all help each other out by grabbing an insta worthy shot of our outfits. Blogger friends make the best snappers too as they know what kind of shot your after and will be totally patient as you take 100 shots for one good one.
6. They can cheer you up.
   No one gets the feeling of “My blogs not good enough” than other bloggers. Its so silly that the blogging industry is so full of self doubt, comparison and insecurity and Hannah has written a brilliant post about this today. But when you are feeling blue because your insta pic only got 100 likes then your blogger buds are guaranteed to be there to pick you up.
7. You can share more than you do online.
   We all have a line at which we draw what we share online. I recently shared a very personal post about 2016 and some of the issues I dealt with and that was pretty scary but there are limits to what I’d share on my blog and social media. I love spending time with bloggers I know at events, but lets be honest the chat is never going to be that deep. I’m not about to share my indecisiveness about having a baby over a cupcake with a blogger I’ve only tweeted twice and that’s why its so nice to be able to talk about these things with blogger friends. A few weeks ago me, Laura and Hannah went out and over cocktails chatted baout life, partners and lots of other stuff. It was so nice to learn more about them both and for me to be able to talk more openly about anything I wanted.
8. Human Interaction.
   This one is so important for bloggers who work full time or work from home. I used to work in an office of 5 girls and you totally take for granted how important human interaction is. I miss getting to work in a morning and talking about our weekends or what we had for tea the night before. These are such small things but I really miss them. I try to take the opportunity to meet up with Laura and Hannah once a week even if its just for a quick coffee as sometimes you just need a change of scene. I’m also so grateful that because of my blogger photography I get out and about and spend time with other bloggers this way too.

So thats just a few of the reasons I’m grateful for my blogger friends. I’d love to know yours?

Debs

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