It’s official. Blogging is dead.
Wired.com declared it.
“Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.”
Mike over at the DoFollow Blog Information shared it. Oh, Mike also shares this in his post Blogging is Dead
The real key to blogging today, is to find niches to blog about.
For example, if you try to get traffic to a general political blog today, you will have a hard time competing with the big boys. But, if you decided to blog about something like politics from a Christian’s prospective, or from a lawyer’s perspective, or an internet marketer’s perspective, you should be able to find an audience.
BINGO!!!
If you think of a blog as a “mystical magical money making machine” then it’s easy to declare that “blogging is dead”.
If, on the other hand, you view your blog as a MARKETING TOOL to use to promote your BUSINESS -well, then blogging is VERY MUCH ALIVE!
Blogs are kind of like online magazines - and declaring that magazines are “dead” would make about as much sense as declaring that blogs are “dead”.
Magazines are the poster child of target marketing. Each magazine has it’s own “audience”. Is it tough to launch a magazine that appeals to ALL women? HECK YEAH - but Oprah seems to have succeeded there.
Do I recommend that you try to launch a magazine that appeals to all women? HECK NO!!!
However, there are tens of thousands of small “niche” magazines that are incredibly successful.
Would I recommend that you launch a magazine that appeals to a tightly targeted audience - HECK YEAH!!!
There are two ways to use a blog and both are illustrated by using magazines as an example.
- Your blog can act as a marketing tool to promote your business
- Your blog can act as an “entertainment medium”.
YOUR BLOG AS A MARKETING TOOL:
If you’re using your blog as a marketing tool to promote your business - well, think of it like the quarterly magazine published by Kraft foods.
Every quarter a very slick magazine filled with dozens of informative articles and recipes arrives via snail mail courtesy of Kraft Foods. This magazine is actually an ADVERTISEMENT for their many products, because each recipe calls for ingredients made by Kraft Foods.
However, that’s not ALL that appears in this magazine. There are also informative articles - and of course, full page ads for various Kraft Products.
My local hospital offers a similar publication to area residents to promote their health care system.
Your blog can act like that - providing USEFUL information to people to people to whom you’d like to sell products and services.
YOUR BLOG AS AN ENTERTAINMENT MEDIUM
There’s another way to use a blog and that’s as an “entertainment” medium.
When you use your blog as an “entertainment” medium, you’ll be using it like a traditional magazine would. Think Better Homes & Gardens Magazine.
It’s your job to provide articles (blog posts) that people want to read. Just as magazines offer advertising space within their publication, the way you make money from this arrangement is to offer advertising space on your blog.
See, advertisers want to get their message in front of people and if you have people coming to your blog to read your posts, then you have something to “sell” to advertisers.
The thing is, advertisers like it BEST when you can tightly target your audience. For example, if your blog is all about COOKING - that’s one thing. You can try to sell ad space on your blog to cooking schools, cooking equipment manufacturers, appliance manufacturers, etc.
But if your blog is all about COOKING TO CONTROL DIABETES - ah, now THAT’S another story. A blog that is all about COOKING TO CONTROL DIABETES suddenly is very appealing to a pharmaceutical company selling diabetes testing supplies AND the company that makes foods especially for people with diabetes.
The thing is, the second blog can command a much higher rate for advertising (even with fewer “eyeballs” consuming the content) because their content is SPECIALIZED!
BEFORE you pull the plug on your blog, pick up a copy of the 8 Week Power Blog Launch. In the 8 week course, you’ll learn not only how to pick a niche market for your blog, but you’ll also learn how to build content AND drive traffic to your blog as well.
Long live the blog!
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