Blogging

Learning from others is a far more pleasurable experience than learning from your own mistakes. People in all fields observe other successful practitioners and model (copy!) their best habits, incorporating the things that work into their own behaviour. In this post I am going to take a look at one of my favourite blogs, Strobist.

This blog came from nowhere to be, in my opinion, the best blog for photographers on the web. Even the blogger, David Hobby, was taken aback by how popular it became. The blog is about flash photography. A niche of a niche. Income is mainly from affiliate links and a donation button.

Why does it work so well?

Go take a look then see if you agree with my assessments.

First I will point out what I don’t think works so well.

Nitpicks

1. Lame “blogspot” URL – where is the strobist domain? Not a way to build a brand with longevity, eventually subscribers and web visitors will need to be educated to a new URL and RSS feed that can’t be taken down or held for ransom …
2. Plain black theme. In some ways it works well, and apparently ugly works for adsense, but for me (and we will cover this more later in the post), David needs to be branding his blog and himself with a little more polish.
3. Using Flickr for community. This has pros and cons but while we are talking about cons

• It sends community interaction away to yet another non-branded domain
• David loses some control of the system
• Flickr isn’t the best for discussion features

What Works

It’s hard to be too critical because really I think the blog is great. Here’s why

1. Niche Focus – David focuses on one small subject and really works it. He is the “Off-camera-flash-guy“. Do you own your niche?
2. Authority – He is an expert, he knows his stuff, and it shows in his tips and example pictures. The blog oozes authority.
3. Content – 99% of what you see on the blog was written by David based on his own experience. Very little reference to other blogs/sites and when he does it is top notch stuff. No padding, no filler, all good nourishing information.
4. Message – Between the lines there is a not-so-hidden message, “you can do this too”. He hasn’t set up the past masters on a pedestal, everything is oriented around showing how you and I, humble beginners with meagre budgets, can turn out top notch results.
5. Community – He has worked hard to build a community, using Flickr as the platform. While I don’t like Flickrs discussion features in this case it works well because
1. Photographers use and like flickr
2. He can leverage Flickr features for his bootcamp tasks
3. It’s another viral route for bringing in more readers

For revenue I am sure he has a rosy future. Right now people are very willing to support the blog through affiliate purchases (I have personally bought a few hundred dollars worth of gear through his links .. well, tried to, but that’s another story). He isn’t settling for that though, just like we advise anyone with the knowledge to do he is selling his expertise in the form of workshops.

Future Ideas

If I was him I would be doing the workshops, packaging up the workshop content into DVD, downloadable videos, ebooks, audio. The works. As someone with very little opportunity to see him in person but a need for his knowledge, a reasonably priced digital course would be well received. He has the name, the knowledge and the means. (Although it appears he hasn’t much in the way of time, oops).

The workshops and other product extensions are the reason I think he might consider proper branding, a domain, decent blog template, recognisable colour and design elements. This branding work could be taken through his enlarged product base to give recognisability, authority and reassuring consistency.

Summary

So, what have you learned? Have a good think how you can apply some of these lessons. Disagree with my assessment? Let me know in the comments!

It’s a thought that has been running around my head lately but seeing this quote at WorkBoxers really crystallised it:

Below are some quotes I found on the Super Affiliate Cloning Blog from people who seem to be brainwashed by the idea of making money online. It’s damaging their lives and I hate to see it.

Even a year ago people would say to me “blogging? What’s that”, now people ask how they can “tell their boss where to shove it” and become a full time blogger. I think there are some unrealistic expectations being propagated.

We have said over and over that blogging is hard work and while you can make an income if you are in full time employment right now it is probably best to have your blogging as a side project until your blogging revenue is sufficient to pay your bills. Unfortunately it seems a lot of people are jumping in before they even have a blog.

My hope would be more bloggers can make some cash from their efforts when we release Partners, but even then I hope people are realistic about planning their income.

I have no evidence to back this up but I predict that the majority of people who earn a living from blogging make their money out of all their activities combined, it will have to be the rarest and most successful of bloggers who make all their money from one blog. Look at Darren, problogger himself. It’s not problogger.net that earns him his crust, he has a share in a blog network, a blogging course and several of his own blogs.

Snake-oil sales letters are out there making all sorts of promises of instant riches via spammy scripts, guaranteed success plans and SEO-scheme-of-the-week. Do not believe it. If only it was true we would all be rich!

If you are hoping to make a living out of blogging here are some more realistic tips

1. Don’t have any illusions about it being your sole income until you see evidence in your bank account
2. Diversify, do not rely on one blog or one income stream
3. Choose your niches carefully
4. Experiment with formats, layout and article types
5. Analyse your traffic and do more of what works
6. Market yourself and your blog, write killer headlines, linkbait
7. Network network network – a good portion of success comes from who you know
8. Consider a paying gig as well as your own blogs
9. Join a team or a network if you feel you haven’t got all necessary skills but can write
10. Keep at it, the rewards take a while to arrive so it takes stamina

As part of the Beta of Performancing Exchange, our free classifieds style job and blogs board, we used an AJAX voting mechanism so that members could rate jobs.

We’ve already had a couple of jobs voted to the homepage by the community, but there were negative comments about the value of a voting system for job offers at the beginning, and i’d like to open some discussion on it’s value.

Personally I like it. A well written, interesting job offer can make it to the Performancing homepage without need for me, chris, or any other admin to decide on it’s worth — the community decides (in fact, i’d like to do this for all posts, including forum/blog/etc..).

It also provides a way for bloggers looking for job to quickly scan and discard those offers with poor scores.

What we need now, is to hear what you think, and whether you like or dislike it and why — and whether we should move the system out onto the rest of the site?

powered by performancing firefox

Do you remember my small article about the mini-tripod Gorillapod? Yesterday in an update I wrote that I have created a Flickr group called Gorillapod Love.

One of the announcements I made was to send an email to Joby, the manufacturer, to show off my links. The reaction was lightning fast; 10% off all products until the end of 2006!

Wow! What a fast reaction of the Gorillapod manufacturer Joby because of the creation of the Flickr group. Melissa Burns from Joby shot this email at me:

“I have looked through your articles and websites on the Gorillapod. You have a lot of rich content and wonderful photos. I especially enjoyed the Gorillapod Love Flickr group. In honor of this group, we have created a special Coupon Code for you and your online friends called “GorillapodLOVE”. If you enter that code (all one word, no quotes) into the Coupon Code field on the www.Joby.com checkout screen, you and your friends will receive 10% off on all Joby products until the end of this year. Please feel free to advertise this on your sites!”

Remember to send mails when setting links: 10 Tips for More Blog Traffic

If linking to somebody always send them an email about your new link and how to find the link. If it fits your niche always ask them to actively inform you by mail if they have something interesting for you to blog about. That way you will build up your network.

Even with 10% off Joby will make a nice profit on this little high quality plastic gadget. But somebody at Joby did for sure read something about viral marketing and the power of blogs 🙂

Did you have similar experiences?

Technorati Tags: Joby, Gorillapod, offer, coupon code, Flickr

powered by performancing firefox

I just read that Darren Rowse of Problogger.net is opening a jobs board, not unlike Performancing Exchange, the free classifieds style blogging board we put out in beta a couple of weeks back.

There are probably 2 main differences here:

1. Audience: Depite focus, the audiences are quite different
2. Darrens boards cost $50, going to $100 — Exchange is free

So far we’ve had some excellent paid blogging gigs written up on Exchange, and I know there’ll be room for both services and that we’ll continue ot have fun with the Exchange, that with Raj Dash and Ahmed Bilal moderating and evengelizing, can’t go far wrong!

The winner here is hopefully the professional blogger looking for a job, and the company, blog network/enteprise looking for those pro bloggers.

Good luck with the venture Darren.

powered by performancing firefox

After a huge effort on our lead Firefox dev, Jed’s part, and a great deal of discussion with some fantastic MySpace folks, we’re proud to finally announce the release of The MySpace Blog Editor, which you can download and install from Mozilla. There’s even a a great screencast to walk you through the install process.

As far as I’m aware, Performancing is the only blog editor to support MySpace.

The MySpace Editor REQUIRES Performancing Firefox 1.3, our open source, multi platform blog editor for Firefox.

Using the New Addons API in PFF

The new MySpace editor was built using the new addons api, and makes for a powerful demonstration of the extensibility of PFF in version 1.3

Let Us Know What You Think…

We hope you like this first public version of the MySpace addon for PFF, please let us know what you think so that we can continue to improve it!

powered by performancing firefox

Brian Clark mentioned equityas one form of payment for corporate blogging. If I’ve interpreted correctly, I’m assuming that Brian means things like accepting options, shares, or a percentage of partial payment from a client company. (I’ll continue on the assumption that that’s what he’s saying.)

It’s a great idea, and if you choose that form of payment, either partially or completely, understand fully what you’re getting and giving. You still need to clearly define for both yourself and the client what your fee for the project is. How you choose to accept payment is secondary.

For example, my brother runs his own PR/ad agency with a biz partner. They’ve got an “angel” project whereby they do work for both cash and equity for select, carefully screened client companies (percentage of future revenue and/or shares and options). Sometimes the effort hasn’t been worth it. Other times it has. They also do a great deal of charity work for non-profits in return for the awards it wins them, as well as links from the resulting high-traffic sites.

So other bloggers want to go the equity-for-pay route, select your clients carefully. Big companies are more likely to offer shares/ options rather than a percentage of profits. Small businesses and startups may not make a profit for a while. In the latter case, you may want to stipulate partial payment in cash, payable under typical contract terms. The rest of the payment, if payable as a percentage of future revenues, should factor in the duration and a reasonable interest rate.

I.e., what would you lose in interest by not receiving a full cash payment at the end of the project. The payment difference and interest together should determine what the value of equity should be. So if you do a project worth $10,000 but accept $2000 cash and $8000 equity over four years, factor in four years of interest. Essentially, you are loaning the client $8000 for four years.

For the sake of argument, say that the client would have to pay $1000 in interest to a bank to borrow $8000 under similar terms. Then the value of equity to you should be $9000, payable under whatever schedule you agree to – weekly, monthly, yearly, options, shares, barter (products + services), etc.

Of course, all this gets complicated, especially in terms of declaring your income on your tax return. (Even services bartered are supposed to be declared under most conditions, so keep that in mind.) Having a discussion with a good accountant is highly recommended.

Have you blogged for equity? Please feel free to share your experiences here. We can all learn from them.

Much debate on Nick Carr’s latest stab in the a-list face today. Im not going to spend a huge deal of time on it, but I do want to say that I love it, and no, I don’t think Nick’s a troll, I think he just hit’s a nerve with some folks — and I thank him for doing so, somebody should.

Whether you agree or not, it’s a pretty funny read, and I Particularly liked the Epilogue, it hit the proverbial nail right on the head. Also, this quote from Seth Finkelstein:

“Blog evangelism is very cruel, as it preys on people’s frustrated hopes and dreams.”

That quote was what actually got me to write this post. Because like some others, I did see that Nick missed a large part of the people that make up the so called “blogosphere” — though I think in both of those cases the writers were taking an easy target (the post would have been 3 days long if it had covered every conceivable angle) and that they clearly have a vested interest in poo poo’ing the idea of an innocent fraud in the ‘sphere.

Apart from the people writing for collegues, a few friends, just their family or like one blog I write, purely for oneself, the part of the ‘sphere that’s missing from Nicks’s article for me, is the working blogosphere. The bloggers that make up a large section of the Performancing community. Those bloggers not as interested in whether a popular blog will link to them as how much revenue they’ve made that month, where it’s come from and how to increase it.

I suspect for those bloggers, and certainly for myself, the arguments, name calling and circling of wagons over Nick’s piece is simply amusing.

Just another day in the echochamber heh…

powered by performancing firefox