How do you know if your blogging is a hobby or a business?
Consider the following:
Are you behaving in a business minded manner when you blog?
Does your blog, even if silly or comical, have a purpose to
draw readers or traffic with the intent of creating an income?
Are you putting in enough time and energy into blogging to make
it profitable, or are you half heartedly approaching blogging as
a side hobby?
As you increase your income, are you investing, reinvesting or
utilizing the income for livelihood, or are you considering it
'mad money'.
There is a difference in how you perceive your income and how
you will behave. If you feel it’s just extra money to have fun
with, you may not be taking a serious business perspective of
blogging that you need to take for profit long term.
As you increase your business, you need to be flexible and grow
with the business. This means that what worked in phase one may
need to be upgraded or changed in phase two, and phase three
and so on and so on.
In the past, have you followed through with goals and
activities? If the resounding answer is no – then beware, being
self-employed, even a blogger business, may not be right for
you. However, if you have a support system, a partner or a plan
B, where if you start to fall downward you have a way upward,
then blogging as a business is certainly a possibility.
Some real positives of having a blog as a business is that it
is easy to start up, and easy to maintain, especially if you
use a service to help you glean the most from your business as
you can.
Another great thing, if you are not a people person, that is
fine! If you are, good – communicate more with your fans!
Having positive working relationships is very important and
yet, with blogging, you can make money and not really have to
develop super close relationships. Many people find close
relationships, especially working relationships, to be very
stressful. Again, if you have a service to help you, this is
two-fold easier.
Blogs are great because as far as a business goes, there are
minimal decisions in this line of career. Most business owners
make decisions constantly, have a lot of overhead and are under
pressure. However, with blogging you have minimal overhead if
any, and your big decisions are often simply when to renew your
service contract with your supplier/manager. Usually the
partner/manager/supplier in blogging makes all the nuance
decisions that can drive you crazy.
If planning and organizing are not your strong suits, never
fear… you can certainly hire someone to do this for you; again
there are organizations that take all of that nitty-gritty
stuff away from you for a small fee. But you can also learn how
to organize yourself but realize this can mean you may be
working at your blog a few hours at a time when you’d normally
be spending time with family or friends. Again, blogging will
make you money if you go toward this goal as a business, not a
hobby.
Make sure you survey family, friends on peers in what they may
enjoy seeing or having in a blog. Maybe they will voice that
they’d like to have a place to write in themselves about their
experiences, or just read inspirational experiences or
informative comments. Perhaps, they want an informative site
where they can both interact with others and, purchase
equipment or books. Figure out what you like, then start seeing
how you can tie your interests in with other’s desires.
As you initially start your business you can add ideas or
subtract things that don’t seem to be working, but in whole
marketing research will give you a nice, firm foundation; if
nothing else, it gives you a target starting point which is
easier for you to focus on.
This actually takes you to the next subject of thought, which
is a strategy to market. Once you know what your survey tells
you, you can easily, as outlined above, develop a strategy.
Again, it’s knowing how to take an interest of yours and make
it marketable.
In your blog, don’t just write! Sell! Sell a product or
service. Although some people can make money just from writing,
through banners and such, you will have more success actually
offering a bit more. However, if you have a service working
with you, they can certainly help to promote you as well as
place banners and other marketing tools in to help you get your
business off the ground.
Think of unique promotion strategies. Though if you have a
service, again, you will not have to worry as much – it still
is a good idea to create promotions yourself that are highly
unique to your specialty.
Make sure your prices are competitive or at the least,
considered well within your target market. The moment the Blog
is up to the moment the client or consumer has what they want
from you; and the entire process should be quite enjoyable!
Copyright © 2006 Michelle Bery
About The Author: Michelle is a bona fide professional blogger.
If you're aiming for six figure online profits then you NEED her
fresh, upbeat advice! Read the full CRAZY version of this
article at makemoneyonline.ezguide2.com.
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