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Get Committed to Your Blog!

I had a conversation a few days ago with a potential client who indicated that they were interested in “trying out” blogging to see if it would boost their business.

Sounds reasonable, right?

The problem is that blogging, by its nature, isn’t the kind of thing that works well in short-term trials. Blogging is hard, confusing, subtle, complex, challenging, and relatively new (in the grand scheme of things). If you go into it with the mentality that you’re going to bail out if it doesn’t work, then you probably will bail out once things get a little hairy, and you’ll miss all the great benefits that come as a result of that initial sacrifice.

Blogging is a lot like marriage. The results can be spectacular, but you’ve got to go all in and stick with it through the rough times, or you’ll never make it to the good stuff.

Here are some things you can do right now to renew your commitment to blogging:

  • Stop “trying it out”: Blogging works. It’s good for you, it’s good for your business, and it’s good for your customers. There’s ample precedent for this. Get rid of your foot-halfway-out-the-door mentality and just go for it.
  • Schedule blogging time: It doesn’t have to be daily, but whatever your schedule is, stick to it. Put it on the calendar. Block out the time.
  • Make it a reflex: Try blogging at the same time of day, in the same context. After your morning shower, on your lunch break, or before Ninja Warrior starts…it doesn’t matter when, it just matters that you set up triggers for your reflex. Pretty soon, your brain will start to get into blogging mode on its own.
  • Enjoy the hard times: Every blogger has questioned themselves at some point. Maybe it’s when your stats tell you only have 8 regular readers (and half of them are you from various computers). Maybe it’s when you start getting negative comments and e-mails. Maybe it’s when your spouse points out your typos. Your reaction to these events depends entirely on your perspective. Having only a handful of regular readers means that you can establish a more personal relationship with them while you’re building your long-term archive (which future readers will eventually find). Receiving negative comments just means that you’re learning about what other people think, which will improve your ability to communicate with them in the future. And having someone point out your typos means that you just became a better writer. You can cry or you can celebrate; it’s totally up to you.
  • Don’t take breaks: Taking a “break from blogging” is typically just a non-committal way to give up on it without burning bridges. If you’re going to quit, quit. Otherwise, get back in there and think of something to write. Writing is much more about determination than inspiration.

Your mom keeps asking when you’re going to settle down and really commit yourself to blogging. Make today that day!

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Why Is Quantity Still A Metric?

A few days ago, a blog network named 451 Press took off the gloves and named itself the largest blog network in the world based on its sheer size of >300 blogs supposedly being updated daily. They’ve now surpassed b5media in terms of numbers, and I can only guess that the move was deliberate and that the number of blogs they publish means a great deal to them. Numbers are power. Numbers are something you can pull out of your pocket in a number fight and use against your opponent, because numbers never lie… sorta.

If I were running a publishing company with a traditional blog network model (pay writers to write for you, you own the sites and reap the ad revenue, rinse and repeat) I’m not so sure I’d be excited to brand my company the world’s largest blog network based on size. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a large cache of sites at your disposal, but isn’t it easy to add more sites? The marginal cost of adding another blog is very low because you find a writer and pay them to start writing. You drop them into your default template with some colors switched out and away they go. You are now PREVIOUS_SIZE++.

But what about quality?

I’d say that the marginal cost of increasing the quality or popularity of your single blog is far higher than the marginal cost if increasing your network’s quantity. Like in the previous paragraph, increasing your quantity involves a particular routine — one that blog networks normally have down pat — but what about increasing quality? How does that happen? It’s not as easy as finding your next writer on the street and waiving some money in their face, quality takes both time and effort, two things that do not come quickly. Starting Blog #127 and going from 0 RSS subscribers to 100 RSS subscribers has an effort level of X and a timeline of Y. Moving Blog #127 out of the beginning stages and going from 100 RSS subscribers to 1000 RSS subscribers has an effort level of at least 5X and a timeline of at least 5Y. Starting and getting something going is not complicated, but continuing the upward trend and moving it higher is hard. Maybe that’s why it took 451 Press 300 blogs to make it to 10 million visitors per month because of this same pseudo-scientific formula from up above.

b5media is another traditional-type blog network, but they rank higher on the quality scale than 451 Press does because they’ve stopped adding “blogs every week” like 451 Press but seem to be working harder on the quality end of the spectrum instead of just increasing girth on the quantity end. In case you’re not aware, the celebrity news blog space is insane right now:

It certainly takes more effort to raise a blog from nothing to 7 figure pageviews per week than to simply start 5 or 10 more blogs with no traffic. Celebrity blogs can attain high traffic figures quickly because they reach out to the younger mainstream audience, normally the types of people who are on your site every single day, commenting and participating. b5 has more than a few celebrity blogs, but one of their most popular has a singular focus on Lindsay Lohan one of the most searched for and popular celebs on the web. I’d guess that b5’s celebrity channel is doing so well that they could sink every single other blog they run, drop 2 more writers on each celebrity blog, and still boost revenue. Of course they’re not slacking off either, they write every single day….

….which is more than I can say for these fine 451 Press blogs.

Media Buzz About Blogging

Lots of talk about blogging in the media recently. Here are some recent articles that caught my eye:

Blogging on City Time Interests Taxpayers
“In this day and age of instant electronic communication, any elected official ignores blogs at his own peril because rumors could get started, false information could get disseminated very quickly…”

Copeland stopped from blogging
“Police drummer Stewart Copeland has been relieved of his job as The Police’s blogger after making fun of his band and frontman Sting in an early posting….”

Blogging the Backstory
“Reporters who are wondering what to blog about, take note of … how a reporter’s blog can tie together past and ongoing stories, to give readers insight into the process of reporting.”

Blogging Pedophile Taunts Parents
“The New York Times recently reported on the online activities of a California pedophile named Jack McClellan. He has blogged about how and where he trolls for children, but because he has no record, he can’t be barred from places where children congregate…”

How To Find Time To Blog (When It’s Not Your Day Job)
“The one question I am asked most often by people who are considering starting their own blog or struggling to keep momentum up on a blog they have already created is how to find the time to do it…”

Popular Malaysian blogger turns politician
“One of Malaysia’s most widely-read bloggers has launched a new blog in conjunction with his announcement to enter the political realm by joining the country’s opposition party…”

State politicians are still neophytes in world of blogging
“‘Elected officials seem to be slow on the uptake on this,’ said state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, who began participating in political blogs this year….”

Pro-Blogger Revenue Numbers Revealed

BusinessWeek recently featured an article entitled “Bloggers Bring in the Big Bucks” (along with an accompanying slideshow presentation) which provides some insights into how much revenue the top blogs can generate:

“Advertisers come to me because I get a lot of traffic. I get a lot of traffic because I work hard,” says Mario Lavandeira, Perez [Hilton]’s creator. By “a lot” he means as many as 4 million unique visits a day, according to Lavandeira, although independent estimates put his traffic much lower. How much does that translate into cash from the Blogads on his site? Lavandeira stays uncharacteristically mum on the subject of exactly how much cash he rakes in, but Blogads lists a one-day “takeover” (all three banner ads on the site, plus a custom wallpaper) for $40,000.

Down Under Underblogged?

According to the article The Lost Art of Blogging in the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia is drastically underrepresented in the blogosphere.

“With Australia’s population of 21 million, we comprise 5 per cent of English speakers. But with 75 blogs out of 9000, we comprise less than 1 per cent of English blogs. We are underrepresented by a factor of six or so.”

It seems like lack of bandwidth availability in Australia might be a key problem, but are there other factors that might be contributing?