Blogging Your Way to the Bank
Filed Under Web 2.0
Many bloggers hope that their site can attract sufficient traffic so that they can sell ads and make some income on the side. For the best of the best, this business model works. Kos, for example, has hauled in a pretty penny from ads. But I bet that if you were to peek at his tax form today, you’d see that most of his income comes from gigs that he’s landed thanks to his blog. The book deal and speaking engagements surely pay more than the Google Adsense ads touting Gillibrand for Senate.
And that’s the model that bloggers should be looking toward. Instead of focusing on building up enough traffic to post ads that clutter the page, compromise the site’s aesthetic and bring in enough money to cover Friday night’s bar tab, bloggers should rather use their site as one big advertisement for themselves. Use it as a place to demonstrate your savvy, skill and experience in a way that will attract the magazine editors, consulting companies and TV producers with the fat checkbooks.
Consider the case of Jeff Jarvis, author of BuzzMachine.com. In a post last year, he explained that BuzzMachine has generated “$9,315 from two blog ad networks, $1,866 from ads on RSS feeds, and $2,674 from Google ads, for a total of $13,855.” Not a bad haul. But he’s also parlayed the blog into speaking gigs, consulting jobs and a book deal. “The only reason I get those gigs is because companies read the ideas I discuss at Buzzmachine,” Jarvis wrote. “If I add that all up over the past five years and five to come, to me the blog is worth a few million.”
Jarvis’ level of income (and self-praise) is one that few bloggers match, but many use this same strategy. Barry Ritholtz, who writes The Big Picture, is particularly adept at leveraging his blog for media appearances. As his site notes, “Ritholtz is a regular guest on Kudlow & Company, Power Lunch and Fast Money” and “has guest-hosted Squawk Box on numerous occasions, and also appears regularly on Bloomberg, Fox, and PBS.” All of these TV hits serve as a branding mechanism for the Maxim Group, a bank that manages $5 billion in assets where he serves as Chief Marketing Officer.
Similarly, Joel Kotkin, who writes at New Geography, uses the site to post interesting stories about shifting demographics and political geography. Kotkin will often infuse stories with statistics gathered by the Praxis Strategy Group, where he serves as a Senior Consultant. When he’s not writing for New Geography, he’s an editor for Inc. Magazine and frequently pens columns for publications ranging including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, arrangements that all pay nice freelancing checks.
Kotkin, Ritholtz and Jarvis are at the top of their respective fields, but aspiring bloggers can just as successfully parlay blogging into bigger enterprises. A friend of mine was approached by a new media company and major media publication because of his blog. He now earns a salary from that company and a regular freelance check from that publication. He says that the $1500 he’s made from ads on his blog is a small fraction of the opportunities that can be attributed to his “virtual branding resume,” or blog.
The main fact is that ads can pay, but shouldn’t be a blogger’s main focus or goal. “Social media content production results in an influence platform, not a passive advertising doormat,” wrote Brian Clark, author of Copyblogger, recently. If more bloggers thought this way, we might see fewer cumbersome ads and fewer bloggers complaining about “trying to find time to blog.” They’d recognize it’s the most promising business model, and we might see more bloggers scoring those greenbacks.