Expat Bloggers Are Going Pro
Maria Foley
Years ago, bloggers tended to write only for pleasure. However, the sophistication of many of today's blogs (which generate regular, quality content and sometimes field dozens or even hundreds of comments and questions per blog entry) has made it necessary for many blog owners to rethink their blogging effort. Understandably, many bloggers are now trying to generate an income from their blog - to help support and/or reward their online writing habit.
Susanna Perkins, the owner of the Future Expats blog learned the hard way that there is a clear distinction between hobby blogging, which is done solely for pleasure, and professional blogging, which is done to generate income. She is unapologetic about her decision to join the latter camp. After the high-traffic website she ran several years ago ruined both her health and her credit rating, Susanna reconsidered her online approach.
"The decision to monetize my blog," says Susanna, "was a no-brainer."
"I will never again put so much of myself into a 'hobby' effort," she says now.
"Bloggers have living expenses, and their blogs also have expenses. To produce great content, day in, day out, bloggers must have financial support."
Direct Versus Indirect Monetization Strategies
In Problogger: Secrets for Blogging your Way to a Six-Figure Income, Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett separate professional blogging into two categories:
Direct Monetization includes strategies - such as advertising sales, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing - that generate revenue directly from the blog itself.
Opinion is sharply divided on the appropriateness of paid advertising on blogs. Susanna, who has affiliate links and Google AdSense ads on her blog, feels that displaying ads that align with her message and the needs of her readers can be a win-win situation. "The more tightly I target these offerings to my blog and my audience, the better the results," she says.
Indirect Monetization comprises any strategy that allows the blogger to make money from the content of her blog, including:
• Product sales (e-books, courses, paid newsletter subscriptions); and
• Employment (online and offline writing jobs, book deals, speaking engagements, consulting, coaching).
Indirect monetization is gaining traction among professional bloggers: 44 percent of respondents to a 2010 poll on problogger.net sell their own products or services on their blog. The success of this strategy depends entirely on the credibility of the blogger. Providing consistently valuable content creates trust, which makes readers more likely to take the next step and buy the e-book, engage the coaching services, or make the job offer. Blogging can therefore be a key element for anyone looking to build a platform on which they can capitalize both financially and in terms of boosting their online profile.
Megan Fitzgerald, Expat Career and Personal Branding Coach and CEO of Career by Choice, agrees:
"Blogs can not only help you to showcase your expertise and personal brand online, but increase your chances of being found by those who you are looking to connect with most: employers or clients who have a problem for which you have a solution... Blogs are such a powerful tool for building one's personal brand online that a branded blog is usually part of my clients' overall brand communications plan."
Expat entrepreneur Jo Parfitt understands the role blogs play in building a strong personal brand. She focuses her blogging efforts on mentoring expat writers because that is the crux of her business these days.
"I have only ever blogged as part of my online strategy," she says. "My goal is to ensure that people keep on hearing about me and following my blog or signing up to my newsletter."
It's Your Blog; You Make The Rules
It is possible, of course, to blend direct and indirect strategies within the same blog. Many of the following expat bloggers that I interviewed combine their passion for expatriation with e-commerce on a modest scale, and they mix and match monetization strategies according to their objectives:
"The main goal of my blog is not to make money, but rather to create a sort of online brand for myself and a place where I can 'meet' other people. While I do offer advertising, I have made more money from freelance contracts and other projects that I have been able to get involved with after potential clients found me through the blog." Heather Carreiro, Expat Heather
"I started my blog to see if I could find an audience for my expat stories. I have written romance novels, but my non-fiction expat stories have a different market and I wanted to explore it with this blog, build a platform and possibly find an agent and/or publisher for my finished manuscript." Karen van der Zee, Life in the Expat Lane
"Part of my mission is to support expat writers, and I specifically link to their books in my Amazon sidebar. I also have an Amazon store where I have collected items that would be perfect for a Swiss Survival Kit, but this just brings in pennies. The real income comes from getting hired for other blogging jobs based on the quality of my own blogs." Chantal Panozzo, Writer Abroad and One Big Yodel.
Susanna, who started monetizing Future Expats when the US financial crisis depleted her retirement savings, is exploring other revenue options. With the recent release of her first e-book (which she makes available to readers at no cost), she has begun to shift her efforts away from direct monetization.
"My marketing mix will evolve over time," she says. "I aim to get more consulting work through the blog. I also plan to produce more content, some of which will not be free, and will drop the AdSense and similar revenue streams when I do so."
Professional Blogging: A Final Word
With its interactive nature and emphasis on storytelling, blogging was tailor-made for expatriates. For many expat women, the satisfaction gained from connecting with others and expressing themselves online is compensation enough. Those who prefer to earn an income through their blogs, however, must decide which monetization methods will best serve their needs, and those of their audience. Then they need to stay flexible, to be able to adapt their strategies, according to what works and what does not.
As professional bloggers become more established, their goals often change. The increase in traffic to Heather's blog, for example, is causing her to re-evaluate its moneymaking possibilities.
"Now that I know it's not only my mother who is reading," she says, "there is a lot more potential for future monetization!"
If you are a blogger with a growing online following like Heather, yet you have not thought about monetizing your blog, then 2011 may be your year to experiment.
If you are already producing great content, why not take a chance? You could be the next expat blogger who successfully goes pro(fessional)!
Maria Foley is a Canadian repatriate, married to Chef Boyardee (not the famous one, but an excellent cook nonetheless), and proud mother to two darling TCKs. Born in England and raised in Canada, she has lived in France (twice), Australia and Singapore.
Maria considers herself a hobby blogger - for now. You can read her musings about expatriation and repatriation on her blog: I Was An Expat Wife. |
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| February 2011 |
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