Sick of hopelessly blogging for dollars? Instead of taking the easy way and giving up, consider using your blog to:
- Make you famous, or at least position you as a bona fide expert in your field. Ideas can carry much more currency than dollars, especially when people trust you.
- Expand your brand. Sounds cliché, but it’s true. Look at Shoemoney: he blogs everyday without a hint of sales pitch. Yet, his brand is strong. In fact, if it wasn’t for his blog, Shoemoney wouldn’t have a brand at all. Money in the bank—yes—but no brand. Huge difference.
- Exercise your 1st amendment rights. Free speech is ever so precious. So why not trade in some of your inner capitalist for some outer expressionist? Stop worrying about the market and start speaking your mind to the world. It feels grrrrrreat, by the way.
- Make conversation. I could tell you that conversation has been the lifeblood of human relations ever since Neanderthals, but you already knew that. Right?
- Influence, educate, inform and entertain people. Now there’s a boatload of opportunity. Pick one or two and go for it.
- Impress potential future prospects. Resumé is to dead fish as blog is to professional introspection. The right people (employers, professors, VCs, soulmates) can and will notice you when you’ve got a blog.
- Build content for future projects. Labor of love today, book deal tomorrow—or something like that. All the time and energy you’re putting in now is adding up to chapters of your best content. You own it, so use it.
- Direct readers to your money making ventures. There’s nothing wrong with using the internet to make money. Use your blog to drive attention and traffic to the sites you monetize. Like I said—there’s nothing wrong with using the internet to make money.
- Make friends and connections. Virtual, smirtual—we’re still human. We thrive not from technology but from each other. So reach out and touch someone—with your blog.
- All of the above. My personal favorite.
Here’s what Malcolm Gladwell says in Outliers about building success: work is meaningful as long as it’s autonomous, complex and rewarding. This is what blogging is all about!
Photo by barisione.
[Disclosure: Outlier link is Amazon affiliate.]
aloha charles,
that was a great post, thanks articulating the main points of why i also blog outside of money efforts (which is not my main concern at the moment). i have you bookmarked for fantastic posts that i look forward to in the future.
mahalo.
noel
Thanks and Aloha, Noel.
I totally agree, being famous and making lots of friends and connection online is another reason I blog.
Good point, which is why I have three blogs. One I created specifically to help me make money, though it’s not quite working out that well. One is attached to my main business, and the third one, which turns out to be the most popular, is pretty much whatever I want it to be. But I figure all 3 help me expand my brand, which is, overall, me.
Good post – thanks. Reminds me of this quote I copied down the other day:
“Every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
Sajib, Mitch and Joe — thanks for seeing the value in what I’m saying. Blogging has so many uses and making money is–in all honesty–for the lucky ones.
Love this! My blog is as important to me as my journaling. Ideas continually roll i my mind and i love having a place where I can be completely publicly authentic. Of course, showing other people how to do that is part of my business so it’s good modeling!
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