The A-list blogs rule -- or do they?
Despite being down with the flu today, I happened across the article in New York Magazine titled Blogs to Riches: The Haves and Have-Notes of the Blogging Boom. It's a terrific article explaining the network effects that drive the A-list, B-list, and C-list blogging phenomenon, and why, in this most democratic of journalistic media, hierarchies have developed. It also notes (as I did last week) the tyranny of too much problem that the A-list bloggers face when every blogger and their brothers ping them for links to their latest products or stories.
But what I found most insightful was this comment at the end:
But at the same time, the article notes that the long-tail argument -- namely the fact that the audience for C-list blogs actually exceeds the audience for the A-list -- means that C-list blogs aren't doomed to obscurity and failure; they simply need to occupy niches that people care about. Find advertisers that want to target those niches, and you've got yourself a business, since targeted advertising is more efficient than broad exposure. And if you keep ads on your archived content, you may end up making more money off your archives that the A-list pages!
The bottom line: marketing a blog is like marketing a magazine or newspaper -- except when it isn't. Yes, there's an A-list, but even the C-list can thrive and make money. Successful blogs will target a specific audience with regular great content and some smart business thinking about that audience. Everything else is just details.
But what I found most insightful was this comment at the end:
“The good news is that it’s still possible to create a top-ranked blog,” says Shirky. “The bad news is, the way to get into the top ten now seems to be public relations.” Just posting witty entries and hoping for traffic won’t do it. You have to actively seek out attention from the press. “That’s how they’re jump-starting the links structure. It’s not organic.” Indeed, when Huffington announced her venture and her celebrity guests, bloggers grumbled that it weirdly inverted the whole grassroots appeal of blogs. Larry David and Danielle Crittenden are hardly what you’d call outsiders to mass media.
But at the same time, the article notes that the long-tail argument -- namely the fact that the audience for C-list blogs actually exceeds the audience for the A-list -- means that C-list blogs aren't doomed to obscurity and failure; they simply need to occupy niches that people care about. Find advertisers that want to target those niches, and you've got yourself a business, since targeted advertising is more efficient than broad exposure. And if you keep ads on your archived content, you may end up making more money off your archives that the A-list pages!
The bottom line: marketing a blog is like marketing a magazine or newspaper -- except when it isn't. Yes, there's an A-list, but even the C-list can thrive and make money. Successful blogs will target a specific audience with regular great content and some smart business thinking about that audience. Everything else is just details.
Technorati Tags: Blogs, Marketing, New media, Publishing, Web
posted by Carl Howe at
2:41 PM
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