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Are You Failing At Blogging? 3 Successful Blogs You Can Learn From

Written by - 22 Comments
Categories: Blogging, Social Media

Blogging is many things to many people and the personal blog is only a recent invention. It is younger than the mobile phone and the personal computer… in fact it has been with us for less than 15 years. The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger in 1997 and was broken up into the phrase “we blog” by Peter Merholz in 1999.Are You Failing At Blogging? 3 Successful Blogs You Can Learn From

In essence the blog is the digital version of a diary, a magazine or even a newspaper. It allows people to document their life, their passions and their interests.  A blog is a type of website and according to Wikipedia there are currently over 156 million blogs globally. If you compare that to the number of websites (according to Netcraft that has been tracking the growth of the web since 1995 there are over 324 million websites based on a May 2011 survey). These numbers put into perspective how pervasive blogging is in the 21st century.

A blog provides the perfect platform to write, post photos, embed videos, receive comments and with the rise of the social web, the blog is providing the foundation and pulpit for people to spread their ideas and showcase their expertise.

So why has the blog resonated with people and why do people blog?

Why Do You Blog?

Early last year I ran a survey to ask people “Why Do You Blog” and the top 4 reasons according to the 766 people who have voted so far.. and I am leaving out blogging for business, are the following.

  1. Share with others – 17%
  2. Passion – 16%
  3. Self Expression – 12%
  4. Put Forward New Ideas – 10%

These are the main drivers behind people’s motivation to create and publish a blog.

Successful blogs that started small are now mainstream media and attract millions of readers every month and are becoming publishing platforms in their own right.

3 Highly Successful Blogs You Can Learn From

Huffington Post

Huffington Post is a blog that was started by Arianna Huffington as a left- leaning blog and now has 20 vertical areas including religion to technology and it is about to add travel. It was recently sold to AOL for over $315 million.

What are some of the numbers for Huffington Post prior to its sale to Yahoo to provide some perspective from its entry 5 years ago to its current success?

  • Over 50 million page hits per month
  • More than 12 million unique vistors in May 2010 according to Compete.com.
  • Moderates 3 million comments a month using 30 moderators
  • 50 Editors
  • 21 Verticals

More reading: 7 Secrets Of The Worlds Largest Blog

Mashable

Peter Cashmore began the Blog in July, 2005 in Scotland and it is now approaching its 6th birthday and claims to have

Mashable success was the driven by the 2 core elements of passion and hardwork.

More reading: How Did A Blog Reach 2.6 Million Followers?

Social Media Examiner

Michael Stelzner is the author and founder of the highly successful blog the “Social Media Examiner”

In 2005 he started a blog called “Writing White Papers” which was quite successful… its tag line “How To Capture Readers and Keep them Engaged”. He wrote whitepapers for Microsoft, FedEx, Motorola and Dow Jones. In just over 4 years he had just over 25,000 email subscribers. So he had obtained some blogging experience that provided him with basics of what to do and not to do with a blog. In late 2009 he started Social Media Examiner.

  • 13,000 people visited the site within the first 2 weeks
  • January 2010 (only 3 months after launch) he had 10,000 email subscribers
  • January 2010 he had 55,000 unique visitors to the blog
  • In February 2010 (less than 5 months after launch) the site was rated as the number one small business blog on the planet by Technorati
  • It currently generates nearly 500,000 hits per month according to compete.com
  • Less than 12 months after launch he has an email list of over 30,000 subscribers

More reading: The 10 Secrets Of A Successful Social Media Blog

So these are some examples of the potential  that can be realized if you are willing to seize the dream and make it happen.

So how can you make your blog into a vehicle that fuels and keeps your fires burning, promotes your topic and markets your personal brand? How do you emulate those blogging behomoths?

How Can You Apply Success To Your Blog?

Here are some ideas to get you thinking. You may need to get up a bit earlier or go to bed a bit later to implement them.

Author

How can an author use a blog as their pulpit to sell more books and get ‘discovered’? A writer without a blog is like a salesperson without a telephone.

  • Publish excerpts from your books as posts
  • Display your writing skills
  • Link to your books on Amazon
  • Exhibit awards that you won to display your credibilty
  • Promote to a global audience
  • Put your book into Kindle format and publish it on Amazon at a lower price than the hardcopy

Artists & Photographers

Artists are often waiting to be discovered and a blog can provide that channel to market your work that can be global and instant.

  • Write about tips for up and coming artists
  • Display high definition images of your artwork on your blog
  • Showcase up and coming exhibitions of your work
  • Publish your photos to the social media image platform ‘Flickr’

Musicians & Bands

Musicians quite often play in quiet bars and deserted pubs to audiences that number in the single digits. Take control and use your blog to promote your music don’t wait for a promoter to ‘turn up’!

  • Upload music so it can be played on your blog
  • Create and publish a music video on your blog
  • Showcase a successful gig
  • Upload the music video to YouTube (the second largest search engine on the planet)

Consultants & Speakers

Consultants and speakers sell knowledge and expertise. A blog is a perfect channel to display that.

  • Publish posts that showcase your insights
  • Write articles that cover topics that are hot within your niche
  • Upload videos displaying your speaking skills
  • Publish your  PowerPoint presentations to the social media presentation portal ‘Slideshare’ so that Google can find you a little more easily

Unemployed

What a perfect opportunity to start a blog! All the time in the world between those interviews to continue to learn, keep you up to date and sharpen your expertise.

  • Write posts that you always wanted to write but you never had the time
  • Research and write articles about the latest trends in your industry
  • Write a book one post (chapter) at a time

Are you waiting for someone to “pick you” to publish, or are you ready to curate, connect and lead you own tribe of fans, readers and viewers and wrangle your own audience?

A blog that is socially web enabled and promoted is all you need. What is holding you back?

More resources

Image by Behrooz Nobakht


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  • http://jeffbullas.com Jeff Bullas

    Thanks Mitch for the comment. Some stats. Over 100,000 hits a month to my blog numerous and well paid speaking gigs plus watch out for my new book which will go into more depth on things mentioned and much more… soon to be published

  • http://www.ashy2classy.net Diggame

    Very very good info!! I know the Huffington Post has went crazy only thing about it that it really gains it weight from using others posts…

  • http://diyblogger.net/about Dino Dogan

    Wud up Jeff :-)

    I didnt care for the first two examples. Too obvious outliers that benefited from awesomely stupid lucky timing.

    Social Media Examiner on the other hand came in late in the game and had to carve out a niche when carving out a niche was a difficult thing to do. And yet, Mike and the team did it.

    However, Im biased I suppose. I’ve written for SME, but have not written for Mashable or Huff post, so take it with a grain of salt :-)

    Awesome conclusion of course. I especially agree with your point about writers having a blog.

    For many writers, having a blog seams contradictory to what they are “about” but nothing can be further from the truth.

    Anyways…I feel like Im going on and on. Cool post, new fan :-)

  • http://www.tuubol.com Deepak – Tuubol Blog

    Jeff, this is a really insightful post. Your survey of “Reasons for which people Blog” seems to be a good representation of why people blog.

    Thanks

    Deepak

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  • http://www.watches-works.com/ omega seamaster antimagnetic

    Your survey of “Reasons for which people Blog” seems to be a good representation of why people blog.

  • http://twitter.com/iamluca Luca Massaro

    This is a great post with the content being spot on and informative, however, what does it say as advice to those climbing the ladder in digital, when the author of a post like this doesn’t engage on twitter and uses a follow back script to build a non authentic following?

    The first thing I do when I find good content is check out their social presence and if you don’t engage with your audience, how the hell can you preach to clients about the importance of engagement?

    I’m sure if @garyvee and @chrisbrogan:twitter can find the time to engage, then Jeff Bullas can too.

    The information here is spot on though nonetheless.

    • http://jeffbullas.com Jeff Bullas

      Thanks for the comment Luca. Engagement is a big word and I engage personally on Twitter with feedback many times each day and personally respond to every Facebook friend request plus many other engagement touch points. If you didn’t notice it is because you were not watching all the time :)

  • http://www.ryanjknapp.com/blog/about/ Ryan Knapp

    Jeff – I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on what is a blog v what is a website. I see sites like Mashable, Huffington Post and I would see them as simply being websites, no real difference from them and CNN, minus some of the tone of content. But I wouldn’t call CNN a blog.

    It’s probably a semantic argument, but the line is becoming blurred between what we consider a website and a blog. If a traditional website publishes content which is engaging, includes audio, video, etc, has it now become a blog?

    • http://jeffbullas.com Jeff Bullas

      Thanks Ryan for the comment. A blog is a 2 way conversation where the blogger can receive comments and reply. It has become blurred as popular blogs with a lot of comments reduce the ability of the blogger to respond due to the volume of the responses. Websites are generally static with no conversation happening and are more about telling. :)

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  • http://twitter.com/harveygardner Harvey Gardner

    Establish yourself as an authority in your field.  Blogging (writing) objectively about your field of expertise establishes you as an authority without your having to toot your own horn.  aka: low key, non-threatening, problem-solving selling.

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  • Anonymous

    Established as an authority in your field. Blogs  on your area of ​​expertise, established as an authority, without having to toot your own horn. aka: discreet, non-threatening, problem solving sales.

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  • http://twitter.com/jay_badenhope jay_badenhope

    I really respect SocialMediaExaminer as a reader of their articles, participant in their events, and admirer of their results. Thanks for the article.

  • http://www.vancouvergadgets.ca Vancouver Gadgets

    Great article Jeff! Thanks for sharing your insights into the world of successful blogging.

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