I receive a lot of gumpf about ‘making millions online’ and ‘blog your way to profit’. I’ve met people who’ve told me their world domination ideas, and the pivotal part of their strategy requires blogging. Now, I’ve been blogging for almost on 3 years now, which kind of makes me a veteran in the field – at least here on the tip of the Dark Continent – and I’ve received VERY LITTLE money in return.*
Some notes on making money via blogging:
- VERY FEW people make money through their blogs. I’d say (using the hyper-accurate Heavy Chef Table of Statistical Ananlysis) that 0.00001% of bloggers actually earn a salary from their blood-drenched keyboards.
- Blogging is HARD WORK. Writing is HARD WORK. It is time-consuming, laborious, low-paying and, did I mention, HARD WORK?
- Google AdSense is NOT THE ANSWER. I received another list this morning with ‘Blog Tips’ and nigh top of the pops was ‘Insert AdSense and make money without any work!’ Huh? The last pay-check we received was for a thousand bucks or so – a paltry return for the hours, if you think about it.
- For every one ‘I Can Has Cheezburger‘ example, there are 9 million ‘Hello Worlds’ out there that have failed to pass go.
Yes, we prescribe social media strategy a lot (at World Wide Creative), but the reasons vary. It is not the ‘money for jam’ approach that you’ll see in some quick-fire, written-in-a-month, pseudo-bestsellers out there. Social media works when it is part of a bigger communications strategy.
Here’s my personal top tips for people wanting to be a professional blogger:
1. Don’t bank on it
2. Use a multi-channel approach (i.e. print, website, networking, etc) to get your audience
3. Find a niche and own it
4. Start conversations with a few right people, instead of a lot of wrong people
5. Respect your audience
For some additional reading:
How top bloggers earn their bucks
Bloggers bring in the big bucks (remember: don’t get too excited, this is a tiny group of people!)
*I’ve not yet quite formulated a response to the very valid question: ‘So, why do you keep on doing it, chump?’
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