There is this hint spreading around that blog as a tool for businesses or entrepreneurship is dying.
I believe this is coming from the fact that it’s becoming too difficult for people to get the kind of results they expect to get from blogging, there are lots of blog platforms on the internet today, as at the time of writing this post, there are about 1.7 billion web platforms on the internet of which blogs make up a huge percentage of the amount, what this means is that as a blogger you have over 1.7 web platform to compete for attention with on the internet.
But I don’t think this should be a reason for not getting your expected results or seeing a promising future with blogging, just as web platforms are increasing in numbers, internet usage is also increasing, about 3.4 billion people today use the internet, this is more than 2 billion internet users we have in the year 2010, this means that prospective readers for your blog are also increasing.
Blog is not dying, it’s strategy that is changing. I believe most people are using a strategy that doesn’t match their ability and expectations and because of that they are not getting results and they are also not seeing how things could get better in the future, these are actually the reason why the rumor about blog been dead is spreading.
On a careful analysis I have come to realise that there are two major strategies that can be used when running a blog today and the kind you chose to run a blog with plus your ability or capabilites will determine your success with blogging.
In this post, i will share with you the two major blogging strategies that can be used to build blog, actually I’m an advocate for one of the strategy, which will be obvious to you as you read through the post.
But understanding these strategies will help you make the right decision especially if you are planning to start your own blog.
I encourage people to start and grow their blogging, I believe blogging has a lot of positive benefits both for an individual, business owner or an entrepreneur.
Personally, I find blogging fun, creative and enterprising and it all depends on the strategy I have decided to adapt with blogging, if you approach blogging with the right kind of strategy and with the right attitude and approach (mindset) i believe you will enjoy the blogging journey.
The two major types of blogging strategies
I choose to call them this name:
1. The Autonomous Blogging Strategy
2. The Tribe Blogging Strategy
Let me explain…
1. The Autonomous Blogging Strategy
Autonomous here represent a large number of people with similar but broader interest.
In Nigeria and from the east where I come from, there are some prerequisites before a community is given a certain authority (Autonomous), which allows them to appoint a king that oversee their affairs and make some bylaws to for the overall interest of the people.
One of those prerequisites is that, they must be substantial in number, this is where I derive the meaning of this particular strategy.
The Autonomous Blogging Strategy focuses on building substantial number of web audience before you can start seeing a reasonable sign of progress with your blogging efforts.
If you are a blogger or you intend to become one, you might have already read or heard about the blogging idea of “build a blog, drive traffic (web visitors) and place AdSense to make money” Yeah, that is exactly how a blogger with The Autonomous Strategy thinks.
The challenge with working with this strategy is that it’s not as easy as the process is expressed, this is one of the reasons why most people are frustrated on their blogging journey.
The thing is to build an audience that will earn withdrawable income through Google AdSense or any other Ads network today you need lots of web traffic.
For example, Google PPC ( pay per click) is about $0.25 to $0.30 as when writing this post, and CTR (Click Through Rate) these days are very low, about 1% of 400 unique blog visitors, that is if 400 people visit your blog it’s likely that only one person will click on the ads placed in your blog.
If you do the maths you will probably get an idea of how many visitors you need every day, the amount of time and resources you need to create and promote content that will pull in the numbers of visitors that will make you experience the kind of success you expect to get from blogging.
If you decide to go with CPM (cost per thousand impressions) or sponsored Ads placement, the requirements are also the same you will need a large number of traffic for you to stand a chance to earn money, Google AdSense CPM ( Cost per thousand impressions) is about $1, this simple mean you need thousands of web visitors on a daily basis to be able to make reasonable amount of money.
I’m not actually saying it’s not possible to become successful blogger with this strategy, but the thing is the idea of “build a blog, publish a post and monetize through AdSense” is becoming far too difficult for most people with a small budget and limited time.
People are becoming frustrated and disappointed not because blogging is dying, but because they are working with a strategy that is not favourable to them or that requires more resources and time than they are capable of providing.
The thing is to win with The Autonomous Blogging Strategy, you have to invest lots of resources and time in creating and marketing content. Actually, every content requires marketing, time and resources to get the attention it needs, but pulling in traffic that will earn you money with The Autonomous Blogging Strategy will cost more resources and time than you think.
The people who are benefiting from this strategy are people, like in Nigeria, the likes of Lindaikeji, legit.ng, pulse, etc that have plugged in from the early stage when people are looking for where to go to get information online, but today web visitors have thousands of options from where they can get the same information everybody is sharing.
People who can still benefits with this strategy are people with enough resources, like a team, money, skills, time and experience, they can still cut in and get a share in this competitive market.
But what if you don’t have all the time, all the resources or experience?
Maybe you should consider the next blogging strategy.
2. The Tribe Blogging Strategy
Tribe here describes a group of people with common interests. Unlike Autonomous, they don’t require a huge amount of numbers to thrive.
The Tribe Blogging Strategy involves building a network of people that trust you and have an interest in the value you are creating.
Mostly, It requires sharing unique information that is aimed at adding value to people, this unique information can be experiences or specialty knowledge or skills.
The Tribe Blogging Strategy is a kind of content marketing that requires that you offer valuable information to people for free in order to earn their trust and confidence, before offering them valuable service or product for a cost.
One of the differences between The Tribe Blogging Strategy and The Autonomous Blogging Strategy is that in the former, you don’t need hundreds and thousands of traffics to start seeing reasonable progress with your blog. All you need is a few people who have built trust in you and are willing to allow you to help them solve some of their challenges.
Here is an example of how the tribe strategy works:
Let’s say you run a blog about health, and on a regular basis, you share posts about health related issues, maybe daily or weekly, people who are interested in becoming healthy can source and locate your blog through search engines or links you shared on social media or other platforms online. If they find your post valuable, they might bookmark it or sign up for your newsletter so that they can stay in touch with you or your blog.
And by reading useful information about health from your blog, they might develop trust and the belief that you can help them solve health related issues.
If making money with your blog is part of your blog objectives, you can use data and insight from your readers to develop products or services like ebooks, books, course, training, seminars etc which you can charge your trusted reader for a fee, most of them will gladly buy because they trust that you can deliver on the matter your product tends to address, because they know and trust you.
Here, you don’t need a large audience to start earning from your effort as a blogger. If all you have is 2,000 unique web visitors and out of that number 10 to 20 percent of people who trust you and are willing to pay for products or services you offer at a cost, you can do the maths with any estimated figure you will see the potential profit you may be making on your blog using tribe blogging strategy.
This is just an estimation, there are possibilities that the numbers can either go up or down.
Actually, these whole analysis doesn’t make The Tribe Strategy a cake walk, working with this Strategy still requires a lot of virtues like hard work, patient, skills and value adding mindset.
You need to develop lots of skills, skills to create something valuable for free and to create valuable products and services for a cost, you also need time, this strategy doesn’t buy into the ‘get rich quick scheme’ blogging idea, you will also need much more time than you think to build trust and loyalty, but everything you build in the process of developing this strategy are assets.
Another advantage of The Tribe Blogging Strategy is that it’s flexible, you can keep your day job and still work on it maybe during weekends, It gives you a chance to be unique, you won’t be competing with everybody who is competing with everyone, since most of the content will be from personal experience or specialty knowledge or skill.
One other thing about this strategy is that it gives you an opportunity to express yourself or do what you love, you don’t have to ignore your passion just because you need a niche with a large audience, you can serve the little people in the niche you are passionate about and still make reasonable progress.
The most important thing with this strategy is the mindset you will develop working with it, value adding mindset, and the idea that you don’t need everybody, rather, what you need is few persons out of everybody, a tribe, unlike the former where what you need is everybody.
Now, regardless of any strategies you choose to run your blogging with, what should be noted is that blogging is not a shortcut to success, it’s necessary to know that work is always needed to make any of the strategies work, you need to commit, persist and always show up.
I believe no worthy thing in life is easy, if they were easy, there won’t be anything like failure and everybody will be successful. Blogging is a worthy course, I believe it deserves necessary efforts if anything like progress and success can be measured from it.
What do you think about the two blogging strategies? which one are you using? Which one are you going to use? share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
