When I first started blogging, getting traffic and subscribers was a big challenge. One tactic that worked really well for me early on was doing an expert roundup.
My first expert roundup got shared over 3,000 times in a week and continued to get shared on social media and is currently sitting at over 7,000 social shares. I’ve done several expert roundups and all of them have gotten hundreds or even thousands of shares.
However, I’ve seen a lot of people attempt expert roundups and some fail to get even 50 shares. Why do some roundups do well while others fail?
Expert roundups still work really well if done correctly, even today. But if you’ve done an expert roundup and it didn’t do well, then you probably made one or all of the following mistakes…
1. Not Inviting Experts on Other Social Media Channels (Especially Pinterest)
Expert roundups typically get traffic through social media. One of the biggest mistakes I see is bloggers inviting people that only have a presence on Twitter.
Different people will focus on different social channels, so inviting influencers that are active on other social channels like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest can make a huge difference in how many people see your roundup article. Pinterest in particular has been a great channel for me as pins can stay visible for months after they are originally pinned.
In fact, a study of a million blog headlines done by Garett Moon from CoSchedule found that of headlines that got shared over 1,000 times, Pinterest shares consisted of 90% of those shares with Facebook a distant second!
To find influencers in other channels, simply do a search for content in those channels or join communities and you should be able to quickly find new influencers that you didn’t know about before.
2. Asking a Question that Results in Uninteresting Responses
Asking a generic or boring question is likely to lead to generic or boring responses. One of the most important parts of a good expert roundup is thinking of a great question to ask.
Influencers don’t make content go viral. Content goes viral when people that follow influencers decide to share it too.
And that’s not going to happen if your content isn’t worth sharing.
A few ideas to thinking of a great question:
a) Ask yourself what you are struggling with or what other people in your niche struggle with – Avoid asking about things that other people won’t care about.
For example, in the blogging niche, a topic like “how to promote your blog” would probably work better than “what do you do for fun when you’re not blogging”. The second question might be more fun, but it isn’t as compelling because it doesn’t help people solve their problem.
b) Be specific – When expert roundups started becoming popular, you could ask simple questions like “What do you do to promote your blog?” However, questions like these have already been asked many times, so you have to be more creative.
Dig deeper and think of a more specific question or a different angle.
For example, in one roundup, I asked how influencers got their first 1,000 email subscribers instead of just asking them how to grow an email list. The reason that question was better was because it was very specific and also shows that the influencers that participated are credible.
c) Write down any ideas that pop into your head – Sometimes a great idea just pops into your head when you’re not blogging, so it’s a good idea to write it down. I keep a document where I have a bunch of good expert roundup questions saved.
I have a big list of over 400 expert roundups in a spreadsheet that I keep and most of them ask very boring questions. Take the time to think of a really great question that will produce unique answers.
3. Inviting the Same Experts as Everyone Else
Most bloggers that do expert roundups invite the same A-list influencers to participate. While it is a good idea to have some recognizable names in your roundup, you also want to branch out further and look for people with unique insights.
Inviting the same experts as everyone else will result in getting the same answers and insights. Additionally, most popular influencers are super busy and won’t put much time into answering your roundup question.
Look for rising stars and people in other niches. Where can you find these experts?
a) Guest posts on popular blogs – Usually, people that are not as influential are more actively guest blogging on other sites. Keep an eye on popular sites that allow guest blogging and make note of any interesting guest bloggers.
b) Podcasts – Podcasters are always looking for interesting guests, so podcasts can be a great way to find interesting contributors.
c) Other expert roundups – Finally, people that participated in another expert roundup are more likely to participate in yours. You may find some new names just from reading other people’s expert roundups.
Visit their websites to learn more about them and see if they might be a good fit for your roundup. Also, prioritize people who give great answers on other people’s roundups.
d) Forums and communities – Forums and communities are a great place to look for new content or interesting people. Some niches have communities where people can submit content and upvote it, like Inbound.org or Reddit.
e) Expert citation sites – If you are looking for expert opinions, there are several sites that you can submit inquiries to and quickly find credible sources. HARO and Source Bottle allow you to submit requests for experts looking for media exposure.
Expertise Finder is a search engine that helps journalists find experts that are affiliated with an accredited university.
Ann Smarty created MyBlogU to help content creators find experts for their roundups and is a resource worth trying out if you are looking for bloggers.
4. Asking Experts to Write More or a Minimum of X Words
One common mistake I see is people asking experts to write a minimum number of words or adding more content. An important thing to keep in mind is that the people you invite to your roundup are busy.
Don’t follow up asking someone to write more. It’s okay to ask follow up questions if their response isn’t clear, but don’t ask them to create more content just because you feel like you need a longer article.
Remember to make it easy for busy influencers to participate in your roundup.
5. Not Having Awesome Content Published Beforehand
Before you do your first expert roundup, you should have top quality content posted on your blog. Having awesome content already published on your blog does two things:
a) It makes your blog more attractive to influencers as a place to be featured – Keep in mind that influencers get tons of requests to participate in expert roundups, so standing out from everyone else is critical.
If your email pitch is interesting enough, then the first thing an influencer is going to do is check out your blog. Having your best content on there is going to increase the likelihood that they’ll say “yes”.
b) Secondly, if your roundup works out well, then tons of new visitors will visit your website. These visitors may also read other articles on your site. If you’ve published some awesome articles, then you’ll get more subscribers from the influx of new visitors.
Finally, be sure to promote your articles so that influencers see that you know how to promote. Having blog posts with social shares and comments will further increase their confidence in their decision to participate.
6. Demanding that the influencer promote the article
Finally, don’t demand that the influencer share the article. It’s your responsibility to promote it and any sharing that occurs should be considered icing on the cake.
Many influencers will share it and understand how expert roundups work, so you can usually just send them the link to the article when it goes live. Making sure your article is top quality will increase the likelihood that they’ll share it without being asked.
You can make it easy for them to share it by sharing the article yourself and tagging them on social media.
7. Not including yourself in your own roundup
I have to admit that I’ve made this mistake as well, but not including yourself in your own roundup is a missed opportunity. You can enhance the quality of the roundup by adding a tip that no one else contributed.
For example, on my expert roundup on blog promotion, I was surprised that no one mentioned guest blogging as a blog promotion tip. Perhaps it seemed too obvious since guest blogging is a well known tactic, but I could have contributed that tip to my roundup to make it more complete.
Another benefit of contributing to your own roundup is that by featuring yourself with other influencers, people start to perceive you as an influencer as well.
8. Not putting your best roundup tip at the top
Expert roundups usually end up being really long and as a result, many people won’t read them from start to finish. Putting your best tip at the top is a good way to make sure people get value from your post and also encourage them to read further.
Many influencers don’t put a lot of time into their responses because they are busy, so if someone does spend time sharing a great tip, then put it on top or somewhere in the roundup where it is likely to get read.
9. Not including a visual header
If you are going to create a post that gets shared a lot on social media, then you absolutely must have a visual blog header so that it can be shared on visual social media sites like Pinterest.
Many bloggers skip this step…perhaps because they don’t know how to make visuals or don’t want to invest in graphic design. However, tools like Canva make it easy to create these visuals.
Here are some roundups that I did:
How to Promote Your Blog Content
7418 Total Shares according to Buzzsumo
3178 from Pinterest (42.8% of shares)
10 Pinterest Marketing Myths that You Probably Believe
1494 Total Shares according to Buzzsumo
900 from Pinterest (60.2% of shares)
Another good thing about Pinterest versus other social media networks is that pins can get seen and shared long after they are originally posted.
10. Not including a summary
Expert roundups can be very long and many people won’t have time to read them from start to finish. Including a summary at the beginning of the roundup is a great way to provide immediate value to your readers and perhaps even encourage them to read more of the roundup post.
For example, if you ask several experts what their favorite social media marketing channel is, you can provide a quick breakdown of the percentage of people who picked Facebook, Twitter, etc.
11. Poor Organization
Another problem I see with expert roundups is poor organization. If you have a long list of contributors, then you should group the influencers into sections so that the article is easier to read.
You can also list the influencers at the beginning so that people can easily click on their names and jump to their contribution. Notice how I organized people into sections and also created links in my roundup so that readers could easily jump to one person’s contribution:
12. Inviting People that Aren’t Experts Just to Get the Number of Participants Up
One really big mistake I see is people inviting people that aren’t experts on a topic just to get the number of participants up. I suppose they think that if a lot of people participate, then the roundup will receive more shares.
Maybe they only got a few responses and feel like they need more. Or maybe they think it will be perceived as a better article because it’s longer and has more content.
Whatever the reason, this approach is bad for a couple of reasons. Firstly, readers won’t get as much value out of the article. And second of all, the experts that did participate won’t be impressed with what you created and might not contribute in the future.
Expert roundups can work, but you have to create something of value for the influencers that participate and the readers. When you put your own needs first and focus only on driving the maximum amount of traffic, then everyone loses.
Including you.
13. No Promotion Plan
A lot of new bloggers do expert roundups because it seems like an easy way to get traffic and subscribers without doing much work. But as the host blogger, you should be spending just as much time (if not more) promoting the post to ensure that it is a success.
Bloggers that participate in roundups often share the post on social media, which can allow it to go viral. But you shouldn’t rely on other people to promote your content for you.
Instead, imagine that your influencers created an amazing piece of content for you and you had to promote it. Create your promotion plan before you create your roundup article and be prepared to execute it when your post goes live.
A Few Other Killer Tips…
- Ask a question, but don’t mention it’s for a roundup
Expert roundups have declined in popularity among many influencers because many of them are low quality and they also don’t want other blogger bugging them to promote it. Influencers are really busy people and many of them simply don’t have the time for such distractions.
One really interesting approach to doing an expert roundup is just asking the influencer the question, but don’t mention that it’s for a roundup. I have to give Dmitry Dragilev full credit for this approach as I learned it from one of his videos.
Basically, you start a conversation with the influencer and ask them a question. Later on, you can add their quote to an article and let them know that you mentioned them.
The reason this approach works is because you are starting a real conversation and not asking anything in return. Don’t bug them to share it, just let them know that you featured them.
- Publish Your Roundup on as a Guest Post on Another Popular Blog or Publication
If you are just starting out, then you may be tempted to create the expert roundup on your own blog as it will drive traffic and subscribers to your email list more effectively than if you publish it in a guest post.
But one thing you may want to consider is publishing it on another well known blog or publication in your field.
By publishing on a site that already has a lot of traffic, you are providing even more exposure for the people that participated in your roundup than if you had published it on your own blog. And it shows them that you aren’t just using them to promote your own site, which can be a great way to build the relationship in the long term.
- Create an expert infused roundup to guarantee quality
One tricky thing with expert roundups is that you have little control over the quality of the article. The quality depends heavily on the responses you receive.
One approach that I’ve used that has worked really well is to create an expert infused roundup. With this approach, you basically write a high quality article and then incorporate some expert quotes into the article.
Since you are writing the article, you can guarantee the quality of the article and since the article is high quality, influencers are most likely to participate and also share it on social media.
Another advantage of this approach is that the influencers actually get some exposure since people are more likely to read your article and also because your article isn’t flooded with tons of other contributors.
I’ve used this tactic and it can work really well. For example, this article about Pinterest marketing myths got over 1,000 shares.
How to Really Master Expert Roundups
Expert roundups are still an effective blogging tactic, but it’s not as simple as just asking a question and inviting influencers to answer it. They are just like any other type of content and can be high quality or low quality depending on how you approach it.
Plan out your own promotion, organize everything well and spend time thinking of a compelling question to get the best results.
By the way, if you want to try doing your own expert roundup, be sure to download my expert roundup checklist and some other useful resources by clicking here.
Great article. I think like all things SEO, you just have to make sure that what you’re writing about / sharing is actually interesting and useful. If that’s the case, then customers should react accordingly, and as Google keeps saying, they want the same thing as the customer wants: honest info, a good amount of info, and an easy to use website.
Thanks, Paul! I see too many people doing roundups and ending up with poor quality content because the effort was not well organized or executed.