“The purpose of life is not to be happy, but to matter, to be
productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at
all.”
Leo Rosten
So, I’ve been realising that my most recent blog posts have been quite deep and overwhelming in various ways, and over my years of blogging – as I’m NOT Disordered has grown in popularity – I have found that my content which includes tips and advice for budding bloggers also proves fairly popular amongst readers. Having also literally just popped off a new Collaboration Pitch, I felt inspired to put this piece together where I’m going to do a bit of an examination of my ‘collaboration game’ from the very first partnership with the YoungMinds ‘Vs Campaign’ in 2014 to my most recent projects with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust…
What Did ‘Collaboration’ Even Mean Back
Then?
When I
decided to create a blog in January 2013, there were around three well-known
mental health blogs in the UK. One was written by a former psychiatric hospital
inpatient, another was by a Mental Health Nurse, and the third was by a Police
Officer with a keen interest in mental health law and helping those with a
mental illness. There were none – which I could find, at least, that were by a
current, sectioned (under section 3 of the 1983 Mental Health Act) psychiatric
hospital inpatient – as I was at that time (and had been for the six months
prior too!). It meant that without even realising I needed to do or even trying
to do so, I had found a huge niche for I’m NOT Disordered!
An
element of my entrance into the blogging industry which I tend to talk about a
lot and which I still find a bit of a strange one, is that I actually put very
little thought or planning into I’m NOT Disordered’s creation. I mean, I was
arriving back in my bedroom after a 1:1 that had been so positive and
productive it had given me the impression that I’d taken a huge step toward
recovery and doing so, had filled me with the idea of wanting to start
documenting my journey. I didn’t consider how would be best to do this, I
didn’t sit and list pros and cons to blogging – something which I now 100%
recommend budding-Bloggers do – and I didn’t even brainstorm names for my blog
and consider their SEO qualities – again, something which I’d recommend
budding-Bloggers do!
I
literally just saw my laptop sat on the bed… We, inpatients, were only allowed our
laptops from a certain time in the evening and I had been in the 1:1 during
that time, so the staff had gotten mine without me even asking(!) – which, I have
come to see as some sort of ‘sign’ that I was meant to do this because
they had literally never done that before! And I feel that when considering how
little thought I put into starting to blog, I have been incredibly lucky to
have experienced this industry the way I have – with the amazing opportunities,
I have received and the huge audience I have grown. Like, these days; I
honestly don’t think you’d get far in the Influencer industry if you fail to
put any thought in. I mean, I think it’s a very conscientious career path. One
where, ironically, so many people will put a tremendous amount of thought and
care into creating content that looks care-free!
Joining
the industry so early though, I think that myself – and other influencers who
joined around that time – were actually kind of trailblazers in a lot of
respects. Like, there were no ‘Guides’ on what we were doing. We were just
doing it. Like, I think it would be fair to say that if I had wanted advice and
tips on ‘making it’ in that industry, there would have been nowhere to go.
Because no one had ‘made it’ yet! People were definitely on their way ‘there'
though! Looking for role models and influential people in this industry was how
I first came across Zoe Sugg
aka Zoella and Victoria Magrath
aka inthefrow! And with there being
far more beauty and fashion Bloggers than there was mental health at the time, it
was through that realm that I really first recognised ‘collaborations’ and I
think that’s why I didn’t feature a collaboration until around one year after
creating I’m NOT Disordered. Because I had only really seen them in regard to
fashion and beauty so I couldn’t make a straight or easy line between what I
was doing and what those bloggers were doing. Like, I couldn’t look and think
“oh she worked with Rimmel, maybe they’ll work with me too; what’s their
contact details?” Instead, it was more like; “how do I do something like that,
but make it relevant to I’m NOT Disordered and mental health?” Like, there was
no straight-off copying to be done. Not as a mental health blogger.
Why Collaborate: Ranking Your
Priorities
I was
quite surprised when I found myself creating the graphic above so early on in
this post, but then I couldn’t have started to talk about my first
collaboration without sharing some points on why I decided to begin featuring
collaborations on I’m NOT Disordered! What I wanted to say in addition to all
of these reasons (which I’ve tried to break down into categories of some nature
for simplicity) though, is that not only are not all of these relevant for
every blogger and every collaboration, but they’re also not all equally
important or influential. A huge reason for this, I think, is the blogger’s
work ethic and their real and honest purpose and goal behind their blogging or
online content creation.
Now, I
actually don’t mean to sound like I’m saying everyone should even have the same
goal and purpose because that would likely reduce the unique qualities to each
individual blogger. If every mental health blogger was doing this in order to –
for example – increase the number of people speaking about the topic, then
everyone’s content would likely massively resemble each other, and it would be
difficult to find a blog which you felt really ‘spoke’ to you. Content which
you felt you could truly connect with. Whereas, if you have one mental health
blogger collaborate with the NHS in order to highlight a new, local NHS service,
and another work with them but with the priority of simply sharing a personal
story, you’ll find that they can look like very different content. And they can
draw a different audience who also have differing needs and values.
So,
from Day One of my blogging career, I have been aware of me having the
following two, key, fundamental priorities which are honestly – in some way and
some order – behind every single instance of my content creation (particularly
collaborations!):
1.
The
therapeutic benefits I receive in creating content
2.
The
helpful qualities my content can have for others
I find
these priorities really helpful in deciding upon collaboration partners too
because I’d say that these days, around ¾ of my collaborations are brought to
me and ¼ are partnerships which I have initiated. So, if I’m considering a
collaboration pitch (please feel free to send them to my blog’s email: imnotdisorderedblog@outlook.com), I always recognise whether
one of these priorities will be relevant to it, and if I find that I won’t
benefit from the content or that I can’t really ascertain how my readers would,
then that collaboration wouldn’t go ahead.
In
addition to the fact that considering your priorities can aid you in
determining whether you should collaborate and who to collaborate with, it can
also end up being a defining characteristic or quality for the popularity – or
otherwise! – of the collaboration. I feel like the online world can be a fairly
judgmental place and there are a lot of really observant people in it who will
often recognise when a piece of content was created with wrong or poor
intentions. Now, for me, there’s a few strands to this:
Firstly,
those who pick out holes in content – what do they gain by doing so? I mean,
are they simply wanting to make a point? Do they want that person to look silly
and be embarrassed? Do they want to initiate that person receiving the horrible
comments that might likely come their way as a result of one person pointing
out a fault? Or do they feel like they’re genuinely righting a wrong?
Secondly,
there’s the point around responsibility and that regardless of why someone has
pointed out that a person has created content with poor intentions or wrong
goals, they went ahead and posted it. Like, I think a huge reason why I’ve
received two horrible comments in the entirety of my career, has been because I
mostly stay clear of posting about controversial topics and opinions. I have
this thought process for it, if I feel that speaking my mind will be beneficial
to me, then I will. But only if I feel that it would be so good for me that it
would counteract if I did receive any horrible comments about it. It’s about
worthiness and recognising if it’s something I’m so passionate about that I
will feel a release and a sense of ‘well-done’ if I speak up about it.
Whilst
this mindset and thought process came off the back of considering creating
potentially controversial content, I do feel like the sense of responsibility
and preparation for backlash, hangs over all my collaboration decisions too…
Controversial Collaborations
Not too
long ago, I was actually asked to create a list of all the collaboration
partners I’m NOT Disordered has teamed up with over the last twelve years, and so
I put everything into an Excel Sheet! It came to around 50 organisations (not
necessarily just one collaboration for each though, obviously!) and so, I’ve look
at that now because I was finding that the fact that I have actually worked
with quite a few potentially controversial organisations, was leaving me
wondering just how many weren’t! Like, I felt like I lost sight of the bigger
picture… Mentioning it though, I thought I’d also say that it’s a document I
wish I’d thought to create a long time ago because it’s proven helpful for collaboration
pitches, and now in a more emotional way too. For anyone wondering how I
managed to gather the information for it from over 1,000 blog posts across
twelve years; I utilised the ‘search’ function in my post archives on Blogger
and searched ‘collaboration.’ Then, in the actual Excel is the organisation’s
name, the nature of them, and the theme of at least one of the collaborations
with each of them.
Now, if
I were asked which organisations I’ve worked with who I would list as
potentially controversial, I would have said the NHS Trusts (NUTH, CNTW, and
Manchester), the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), the British Transport
Police (BTP), Cygnet Healthcare, and Northumbria Police. And I’d deem these
controversial mostly because I recognise that I’m not alone in having had poor
experiences of care from some of them; and so, who could say a collaboration
wouldn’t find its way to someone who felt they’d also been mistreat by the
staff and professionals?
If
you’ve been an I’m NOT Disordered reader for some time, you’ll likely have
realised this but actually, I’ve now distanced myself and my blog quite far
from two of those organisations and I don’t think I’ve ever really spoke about
why. Well, both have actually been related to controversy…
For my
relationship with Cygnet Healthcare: I had been asked to attend an event of
theirs somewhere else in the Country and before being able to get home, I ended
up being sectioned there under the Mental Health Act. Afterwards, some of the
company’s staff made comments that the entire instance had left them reluctant
to invite me anywhere again. That was a really hard time because the company
were actually the owners of the psychiatric hospital I was in when I created,
I’m NOT Disordered! When I was discharged in 2014, I made the decision (in this blog post) to continue not to name them,
because I focused on the fact that yes, I’d had some horrible experiences as an
inpatient, but ultimately; the hospital had been life-saving and I didn’t want
to seem ungrateful for that. So, when I was a Finalist for their Awards in 2015
(I blogged about it here), we re-connected, and began
collaborating in 2015/2016. So, to have felt like I’d really sort of… Forgiven
them – or at least, moved on – from the mistreatment, but they’d still gone on
to be unsupportive when I was sectioned; was really hurtful and isolating. And
it made me think: ‘if all the hard work I’ve put in to our collaborations hasn’t
granted me respect and support, what will?!’ And to feel disrespected by a
collaboration partner, is one of the lowliest feelings and it was something I
wasn’t about to put myself through again.
The
other organisation I’m NOT Disordered has now distanced from is Northumbria
Police who are my local Police force. I was going through my archives recently
and I felt that I hadn’t actually realised just how frequently we’d
collaborated (mostly in 2016 – 2018, if you’re wanting to find a few!). My
obvious highlight was when I made a speech at a huge event of theirs: Enhancing
Multi-Agency Partnerships (I blogged about it here – and you can actually see the
social media attention it attracted in that blog post). Unfortunately, in
January 2019, despite my few years of hard work for the Force to help them to better
their attitude and responses around mental health ‘jobs,’ I was faced with a
situation that led to me having to make my first formal complaint against a
Police Officer since 2012! Fortunately, I blogged about the incident at the
time (you can read it here) because I honestly can’t
recall a lot of the details, but I have never forgotten what he said to me and
the way he said it.
It left
me feeling hopeless more than disrespected, to be honest. Like, I looked on
this as more personally offensive than professionally. It made me think ‘what
the hell was the point in all those speeches and meetings and training
sessions?!’ Why had I done that if – and this might sound like a bad attitude
but I’m just being honest – it didn’t even change the response I was given in a
mental health crisis? Like, of course I can’t mould the attitude everyone
receives, but at the very least; surely, they could have regulated the way they
spoke to me?! In all honesty, I’d received comments via multiple means from
various people off the back of collaborations with them over those two years,
where I was told horrible stories of experiences with the Force. These messages
didn’t just come from furious mental health service users either! There were
three from different people who referred to themselves as a ‘Carer’ for someone
who was mistreat by the Police.
With
all of these instances, I – sort of – defended the Force and said that not all
of the Officers were perfect, but that they were now recognising their faults
around mental health and that’s why they were working with me. I even said
“sorry” a few times! So, I’d say that their treatment of me in that January,
felt like I’d been stabbed in the back and like a massive betrayal. An
ungrateful betrayal. And I ended up with the slightly cocky thought; ‘let’s see
how they do without me.’ But, I didn’t mean it in a full-of-myself kind of way!
Just, I wanted to see how they would get on without having someone there to
provide guidance from personal experience. That was a hard call though to be
honest, because part of me thought about trying to ignore my own hurt and
prioritise the fact that my input might still help the way others are being
treat. But, I’d pushed aside my own thoughts and feelings too many times by
that point in my life, and I wasn’t willing to do it anymore. And I was so worried
that doing so, would be really bad for my mental health and my self-esteem and
it would leave me feeling unimportant and unworthy which could lead to more
self-destructive thoughts and feelings.
So, I
guess advice-wise for this little section would be around the whole premise of
ranking your priorities. If you’re approached by a potentially controversial
collaboration partner, try to always think about the potential good that could
also come from working together too, and don’t just focus on the danger and the
negative impact it might have. Then, you can gain a sense of balance and
fairness in weighing the two up and recognising whether it’s worth taking the
risk of collaborating. Also keep in your head that you can only get one chance
at a collaboration – don’t make/announce a decision you aren’t 100% certain of.
If you have uncertainties, and it’s appropriate to do so, consider actually
talking them through with the partner to provide the ultimate transparency and
to illustrate the high level of thought and care you’re putting into the
decision to collaborate. It will likely be more of a positive and endearing
move than insulting. If the partner is insulted that you’re even having to
consider it, then maybe you shouldn’t work with them… Please also always listen
to your gut and trust your instincts. I’d say that mine have really led the way
in my own blogging career and the decisions I’ve made in collaborations have
largely come from doing what I feel, deep down, is ultimately the right thing
to do. And I think it’s more than fair to say I’m NOT Disordered has done
pretty well in terms of it’s collaboration history and reputation so don’t
undermine your own intuition by over-thinking the situation and playing
guessing games in making assumptions about how readers will feel about the
collaboration. No looking back.
Collaborating From A Psychiatric
Hospital
There
were very obviously a lot – like A LOT! – of bad things to being in a
psychiatric hospital, but the largest negative to it that was in relevance to
my blogging career beginning there, was that being an inpatient meant that my
mental health was still incredibly poorly in the beginning of I’m NOT
Disordered’s creation. And when my mental health was unwell, my memory often
struggled too – like the two went hand-in-hand… I think it was likely because of
the trauma in that I learnt from it, that I try to block things out of my
memory when they’re horrible or scary or sad. And psychiatric hospitals tend to
be horrible, scary, sad places a lot of the time too and so one horrible factor
from my first collaboration is that I actually can’t recall a huge deal of
detail about it. For example, I can’t remember how I heard of that first
charity (YoungMinds) or how I even first made contact with them!
I have
a very vague memory of meeting one of their staff at the psychiatric hospital
and part of me finds that a strange one… Like, obviously it was no secret that
I was a sectioned inpatient, but I can’t quite believe that I actually had a
blogger meeting in there! I mean, she was very brave to come because some of my
best-friends were terrified of visiting me in that place – to no surprise or criticism
considering a patient killed another patient on the ward above the one I was on
while I was there (it’s actually still on BBC News: Cygnet Hospital death: Woman
'suffocated' fellow patient - BBC News).
Yes, I think that meeting made her seem like a very brave, committed,
passionate, and dedicated person! To her work and obviously to the idea of the
collaboration and that commitment and passion didn’t go unnoticed or
unappreciated. At all.
I think
that one gratitude for how poorly I still was at that point, was that it meant
I really wasn’t too nervous or shy or embarrassed in going into that first
meeting! I don’t think I would ever describe myself generally as an anxious
person, but it’s an emotion I definitely do experience in some situations –
especially where there’s an element of pressure or expectation like with
collaborations or really anything related to, I’m NOT Disordered and my
blogging career! I think that the thoughts I most often find spinning around
inside my head and causing any anxiety, are typically something along the lines
of:
1. ‘What
if they don’t think I’m good enough?’
2.
‘What
if I let them down?’
3.
‘What
if I’m doing the wrong thing?’
I’m one
of those people whose anxiety – when I experience it – is mostly actually just caused
by myself and my mind overthinking things, putting itself in self-deprecating
circles, and/or making something out of nothing… Like, it’s not so much about
an actual nerve-wracking situation, like a tense meeting or a speech at a huge
event; it’s more about me making things into something it isn’t even
necessarily about.
Creativity in Collaborations
I think
that the fact it was my first collaboration really mattered in terms of the
creativity to it too because whilst I’d sum myself up as being a fairly
creative person, I don’t think I’d utilised a lot of it by that point in my
blogging career. So, I think that if I were to be in that situation now, I’d
probably really struggle with frustration because being in the psychiatric
hospital did limit my creativity somewhat – and that might sound strange
because it’s just text on a website, but that’s actually my point(!)… I mean,
if it had happened these days and I was in the community, we could have put on some
sort of event, or I could have made a video and taken a ton of photos etc…
In
addition to the format or layout of content, another means of creativity in
collaborations can be with the sheer nature or theme of them. So, as I
mentioned earlier about it being difficult to straight copy of other bloggers
when I first created, I’m NOT Disordered because there were hardly any mental
health blogs. It meant that I ended up following fashion and beauty bloggers like
the two I mentioned earlier (Zoe Sugg and Victoria Magrath) and so their
collaborations weren’t exactly with partners who would be relevant to my
content too. So, instead of being able to think ‘well, they’ve worked with one blogger,
maybe they’ll work with me too,’ I had to think ‘who’s the mental health equivalent?’
So, like, with a blogger working with Chanel or Dior – arguably the most
high-end brands in fashion, I was left considering the most notable
organisations in mental health.
After a
while of focusing on mental health centred organisations, I began considering
ones that were more left-field and distant, but obviously who I could still
make relevant to the theme/topic. I’d say my most notable collaboration partner
of that kind has been my many (we counted around 20) pieces of work with Cats
Protection (you can read our most popular collaboration blog post here)!
One thing I really enjoy about working with the charity – and others I’d deem
distant to mental health – is that it often feels like a bit of a ‘break.’
Like, it’s some sort of holiday or opportunity to escape a bit from the deep
and emotional side of concentrating on mental health.
I think
that the largest change, however, in the twelve years of my blogging career
which has affected my creative abilities in content creation, has been learning
of Canva in my Digital Marketing Internship in 2019 (which I blogged about here). Prior to Canva, in the very
beginning of my blogging career; I rarely actually added graphics or images to
my content. After a while – and still before Canva – I realised that using an
image at the very beginning of blog posts would show as a better thumbnail on
Blogger and when linking the post on my social media, and so I started using
either relevant photos, graphics from Pinterest, or Google Images.
Rarely
using imagery on I’m NOT Disordered’s content meant that in learning about
Canva, I really didn’t expect it to make a whole lot of difference to my
blogging career. Or, at the very least, I didn’t think it would have anywhere
near as large an impact as it has! One way in which I did consider it possibly
helping was with my social media content and I recognised that this could mean
the content in which I directly shared the link to my blog or in my general posts,
but which could still just naturally guide people to I’m NOT Disordered too.
Likely
another reason why I didn’t have too high expectations of Canva was also
because I had no idea the level of features and functions available on there
which would be relevant or could lend itself to my blog’s content too. Even at
this point in my knowledge of Canva, I always say that every time I login to it,
I feel like I discover something new. Granted, some might find that
intimidating or overwhelming, but I just love that it allows my creativity to
really expand and go to lengths that I didn’t think or know were possible. Lengths
in which some visions can actually, surprisingly, become reality! And, like
blogging and collaborations, the benefits Canva has had on my career have
motivated me to want to share my knowledge about it…
A Sneak Peek Inside My Most Recent
Collaboration Pitch (Created on Canva),.
Cover
Page: an
obvious element to include, but also crucial to the entire pitch because in this
industry, books are definitely judged by their cover! So, it’s super important
that your cover page is appealing – and this could mean different things to
different collaborations e.g. if I were pitching to Cats Protection, it would
look very different to one for the NHS. A useful idea or tip for a cover page
in a collaboration pitch is to try to include a simple piece of information or
some sort of tagline or theme to the partnership, for example, in this one; I included
what the title of the collaboration would be.
Welcome: I used this page to share a
couple of pieces of information and details I thought were vital to introducing
the document. So, I wrote a short paragraph on why the organisation was
relevant to my journey and how blogging has benefited my mental health.
Contents: another obvious page to include!
In addition to the page numbers and their titles, I also actually included (in
smaller font to the page titles) one sentence briefly describing exactly what
the page contained/featured. I determined the order of the contents according
to the order in which I thought the potential collaboration partner would be
wondering or questioning things whilst reading the pitch.
Introduction: I actually decided to write
this page in third person because I felt it gave a more professional touch to
my introduction of how and why I’m NOT Disordered was originally created, a
short bit about its achievement and the fact it has over two million readers,
and how I was first introduced to the organisation I was pitching.
Why
Collaborate?: I
think this was the part I most enjoyed creating in the pitch. I used it to include
the personal meaning, the meaning the collaboration might have for others, the
analytics, demographics, and statistics, and a bit about what to expect from
working with myself/I’m NOT Disordered where I even mentioned the way in which
photos are taken and the programmes which I use to edit them.
Media
Kit: I first discovered
the concept of having a Media Kit through another blogger in some research
around more in-depth documents in the communications and marketing industry. My
Media Kit is actually also featured on the Contact page (which you can view here) and it
includes everything from an ‘About’ section to ‘Audience Interests’ to ‘Accolades!’
SWOT
Analysis: I actually
learnt about this process of analysis in a paid, temporary contract with St Oswald’s Hospice as their
Communications and Marketing Assistant. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, and Threats. The first two parts (Strengths and Weaknesses) are
basically the opportunities to – in a way – list the pros and cons to the
collaboration and in this, I included things like ‘publicity opportunities and
the fact that the nature of the collaboration would be a ‘first’ for both
parties so it could be a real learning curve for us both. The Opportunities
section is a place to discuss ways in which we could maximise on the
collaboration in terms of increasing its chance of success and popularity e.g.
relevant media stories rendering the collaboration really apt for society’s
interest. Finally, ‘Threats’ is the chance to mention instances which might pose
a risk to the success and popularity of the collaboration e.g. receiving bad
publicity for other situations.
Idea
#1: For this Collaboration
Pitch, I actually had two ideas, so I started off with this first one which was
to do with a Q&A I created a number of years ago and have had multiple,
amazing people complete it over the time since then. The posts with the people’s
answers have always – no matter who has completed them(!) – proven to be very
popular and so I have pitched staff from this organisation completing it. In
this part, I’ve included a bit of an introduction to the Q&A and some
details on the most notable people to have filled it in as well as some of the
statistics (to illustrate the popularity of them).
Idea
#2: This idea
was centred around an Awareness date later in the year and an idea I had to
create content specifically for it and around the theme of the date in
collaboration with this organisation. I had one key idea for content but, even
though the actual date is just one day, I had several other thoughts so that it
could be a week-long series of posts instead. I then also used this section to explain
why I thought a longer series would be more beneficial to a collaboration
(additional publicity and the opportunity to create a variety of content being
the main two reasons).
What’s
Next?: This
page was basically a call-to-action in terms of what I thought the next steps
should be if they were to decide that we could collaborate on either one of my
ideas or if they had thoughts of their own (either in addition or instead of my
own ideas). So, the steps I listed were arranging a meeting between us, considering
the relevance of requesting additional documents from me (in terms of documents
relevant to collaborations, I actually also have a Collaboration Pack, that Excel
list of previous collaboration partners which I mentioned earlier, and my CV –
both a short, creative one and a longer, more detailed, formal one. There’s
also a I’m NOT Disordered Information Pack and an Information Pack and Pre-Training
Reading Pack for the Understand
with IND Training Programmes) and, if they were to say ‘yes,’ I added the
step of requesting the creation of a SMART analysis upon co-developing some
collaboration objectives.
Additional
Information page: This final page contained the blog’s link, the email address I mentioned earlier,
the links to my social media accounts (@aimes_wilson on Twitter and Instagram!),
and a list of the ‘Other Documents’ I just talked about.
Do You Want To Collaborate with I’m NOT
Disordered?
Finally,
if you have an idea or would like to collaborate with I’m NOT Disordered,
please send me and email or submit a pitch to: imnotdisorderedblog@outlook.com.
There’s no criteria or guidelines for doing this – I have no expectations or
real requirements – but including the pages I mentioned I had in my own
Collaboration Pitch might be a good idea! If you’d like help creating a Pitch
document (even if it’s to work with another organisation/blog etc) please get
in touch on the above email address too and perhaps I can help provide some
advice and ideas on what you could include, or give you some useful, kind, and
productive feedback if you’ve already put something together!
Happy
Collaborating!