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Blogging, vlogging, Instagramming, Snapchatting: today’s media is filled with voices competing on channels that keep multiplying. But with such a crowded marketplace how do you cut through the noise and become truly influential? And once you have a following, how do you take it to the next level and make that influence pay?
At the VIVID Ideas festival discussion, Taking it to the next level, panelist Kate McKibbin (who produces the successful blogs Secret Bloggers’ Business and Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily) set out the challenge: ‘You want to be able to replace – if not exceed – your full-time income with profit from your blogging.’
For expert influencers, blogging is not just an online diary or a replacement for a scrapbook, it’s a shopfront for a business. These are people with more than a million followers whose blogs have gained a cultural and financial foothold.
Finding your niche and sticking to it is the key, according to Jim Butcher, who produces Mr & Mrs Romance with his wife Christina. He said it was essential to write about what you know, not set out to drive traffic.
‘We write about the life we live,’ said Butcher, whose channel explores travel and lifestyle from a male and female perspective.
There are many options for turning your expertise into income. The most common cited by successful bloggers are:
- Display advertising
- Sponsored content
- Online challenges to drive sign ups and community
- Online courses
- eProducts
- Offline events
Lorraine Murphy, of The Remarkables Group said bloggers need to diversify their income. ‘It is important to have several different income streams – you can’t relay too much on one thing or one advertiser. Think of it like a stool – it needs three legs to stand up.’
Jen Bishop, whose biggest source of income through her blog Interiors Addicts is display advertising, agrees it is important to have several irons in the fire. ‘To rely on one thing its dangerous; it is just not sustainable. Everything we make goes back into the blog. Anyone starting out needs to have a reliable income outside of your blog. You are lucky for it to support one full time salary.’
Tara Francis of Collective Hub said opportunities are growing quickly. She said brands that were nervous about advertising with digital influencers four or five years ago are now completely “with the program”.
For Kate McKibben display advertising proved unsuccessful. She started blogging just as the GFC descended with its financial gloom.‘I realised very quickly that was dead.’Instead she turned to sales. ‘eProducts have been a big thing for me as well as online challenges, online courses and eBooks,’ said McKibbin.
When it comes to sponsored content, all expert influences advise bloggers to be extremely clear what you want to get out of a partnership with a client, and what you can give in return while maintaining the integrity of your own product.
McKibbin said: ‘A lot of influencers coming up don’t know how to work with brands.’ She said that being aware of the add value that you can provide, and professionalism in developing that relationship with a client and providing reporting can make a difference.
The right investment
Deciding where to invest your time and money is also essential to monetising your blog.
For Jen Bishop the decision that turned her channel around was getting good lighting and sound equipment to upgrade her video content. ‘The quality shot skywards and so did the clicks,’ she said.
Choosing the right social platform is important. While there has been a lot of commentary surrounding the growth of Instagram – 72% year on year – all our digital influences swear on a combination of Facebook and Instagram.
But all that posting is fruitless unless you drive audiences to your site. The game-changer for all these influencers has been driving their email databases. Find a carrot which will tempt people to give you their email addresses: a free download, premium article, course or newsletter.
Once you have your own database you no longer are left to the whim of changing algorithms and have more control of your business.
Read: Coping with digital overload
Finding the men
At the Vivid talk 95% of the audience was female. But that doesn’t mean you can only speak to half the population. The only male panelist, Jim Butcher, of Mr & Mrs Romance, said that there is an opportunity to find a male audience if you understand what they want. ‘Men don’t tend to build online relationships – they don’t hang around very long. They want to find it and get out, so I write how I find it.’
Francis said that readers of Collective Hub weight 70/30 to female. ‘The vast majority of magazines purchased in Australia are by females so skew is naturally towards them. But if you drill down into the content we produce it is gender neutral. It is about a mindset.
‘You have to actively look at and ask “Is it too female?” that mix of interviews within articles, whose in the images being posted and so on. It is completely foremost everyday in our minds,’ she said.
Eight tips to monetise your blog
- Find a niche and stick to it.
- Identify the value that you provide.
- Be real. Be honest. Be authentic.
- Think boutique. Sometimes the smaller the idea the more people are interested in it.
- Have a realistic content plan based on what you can deliver in a week, every week.
- Create a social schedule and stick to it. Don’t be tempted to be available 24/7
- Register every channel even if you are not using it heavily to avoid other people taking your traffic.
- Always lead people back to your site.
