Monday 12 March 2018

Blogging: Some basic facts

Blogging Reality Check

When I created a blog in 2012, It was easy - still is. You can do a little reading on the mechanics and free offerings, then choose one and BINGO - an hour or less later you can read your first online creation. It’s almost as easy as making your first Tweet; posting a video or placing a picture on Facebook. Most beginners use free Blogger / Blogspot (me) or WordPress. There are others.

So then where are the 100,000 plus followers I read about completely clogging the search engines to find my blog and share my genius to take me viral? Where is the money?

Unfortunately back then, before then, and even now, there are just too many people claiming to make thousands of $$$ (insert your own currency symbol) per month blogging. It is possible but if you try now as I am, you are probably a dozen years or so too late.

Think about this: There are literally millions of people who think or thought that they could become rich with their:

New cook book
New song
New invention
New best selling novel
New “How to get rich in Real Estate” course
New video
New comic strip
Etc.

Despite every true friend and experienced person telling them it takes years of hard work, endless determination, and countless failures, they know that theirs will be different.

I know because I have often had similar thoughts. I also know there is no easy ride to success.

Here is the real rub having experienced it over and over again. From what I have seen, many of those who are making money are the ones who attract your interest by telling you how to create a blog or make a fortune at blogging. That's it. This is not new. Before PCs ever existed, magazines and newspapers had tons of people who were willing to tell you their “secret” on how to get rich. Just send $19.95 and a SASE (for you young readers - if there are any - that is Self Addressed Stamped Envelope). They told you to do what they were doing - with your own SASE.

I am very serious about this. People get rich and their only contribution is telling you - often with material copied from someone else - how to make money at blogging. Nothing more. Many of them are VERY clever at filling their missives with links that force you to click and go somewhere else thus making them more money.

Imagine how successful a new newspaper (to pick an industry devastated by instant publishing technology) if the only content in the paper were columns on how to create and publish a newspaper - not one valid newsworthy article in it!

It seems to me that there are several kinds of blogs:

1. Those created by an individual who wants to share their personal experiences. Will you pay money to read about Suszie Q’s pet Border Collie or to look at John Smith’s photographs?

2. Those that focus on one particular topic like a hobby. It could be knitting; cooking; travel; one or more charities etc. These are of interest to a relatively small group of people and making money is probably not the objective. Sharing knowledge experiences, and making new acquaintances are the objectives.

3. Those tied to a much more prominent web page of a well known company or name almost because most of the competition has one also and because a blog is a convenient way to broadcast news and general information. It is easy to update. Any earnings are likely going to be from the website, not the blog.

4. Those created by celebrities or politicians or their assistants because any publicity for them is important.

5. Those intended to express opinions about a particular cause or trend or to feature articles just like a newspaper. If they are good, these can probably make money.

6. Those intended simply to entertain featuring short stories, funny videos, comic strips, recordings etc. These could probably make money if enough people go to them and click on their ads. They give people something to pass to their friends.

7. Those intended to teach you something other than how to write a blog. Typical examples are music lessons; sports lessons; do it yourself and how to items. These can make money either by selling further material like cd's or books, newsletters or by sponsored ads of related products and services.

This blog is probably a combination of numbers 5 and 6 above. If it makes money someday great. Otherwise I just enjoy it.

So the bottom line here comes down to one thing and to be fair, some of those “How to …Blogging” sites about blogs do indeed make this point. Like all of those other things mentioned above, a blog has to have quality, fresh, original CONTENT. The best inventions, books and music all fill a need. So must a great blog.

One honourable mention which is also covered in the Blogging articles are the techniques and in some cases tricks that can be employed to up the numbers of people who know you exist. Getting them to come back is up to you. The same old stuff will not accomplish that nor will simply high numbers of articles. You have to create something unique or be better than your competitors at whatever they do. Who passes judgement on uniqueness or whether something is better? Only the reader.

And that fellow bloggers, is what you have to accomplish to become renowned at anything in life. The most successful bloggers have been at it for many years. I have a long way to go.

The Brewster

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