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Pinspiration Saturday: Focusing with Cynthia Sanchez

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It’s Pinspiration Saturday here on the NMX blog! Every week, we feature a quote from one of our amazing speakers – and if it is something that speaks to you, we hope you’ll take a minute to pin it to inspire your Pinterest followers as well! (Of course, you can also share via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any of your favorite social networks.)

Focus on the needs of the people you're trying to reach

Today is our first every Pinspiration Saturday, and who better to feature than Cynthia Sanchez from Oh So Pinteresting? On one of her recent podcasts with Lisa Irby, she made a comment that resonated with me about focusing on the needs of your target market.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in sharing cool stuff, but you’re often better served by focusing on your niche as much as possible.

Whether you’re a content creator or social business leader, this applies to you! Are you serving the people you’re trying to reach with the content you’re sharing? If you become a content curation powerhouse in a certain field, you’ll more easily gain the status of “expert,” which leads to more sales, more traffic, and more social shares!

Thanks, Cynthia, for the Pinspiration! And remember, you can see Cynthia live on stage from NMX 2014! If you’re not registered yet, click here to join the revolution.

How PetFlow Cornered the Pet Food Industry

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You may not have heard of PetFlow.com yet, but if you have a pet, I’m sure you could use their service. How many times have you hated to run out and have to lug home a 30 pound bag of dog food? If you answered yes, then you might as well already be a customer of PetFlow, as they offering a full pet food delivery service. What’s even more important than their service, is how they got to where they are today and already doing over a million a month in business, in just a little over a year of going live.

Let’s breakdown the success of PetFlow and what you can learn from their company.

The Pet Industry

Step 1, find a niche that works. Outside of your family and kids, if you have a pet, they are your life. More people are spending money on buying food, toys and medical needs for their pet than even themselves! Here’s a mind blowing stat for you. While the rest of the world’s economy is in decline, the pet food industry is rocking. In 1994, over $17 billion was generated from the pet food industry, jump forward to 2011 and we are not seeing a $50 billion in annual spending. How’s that for a massive increase in spending within a niche that just doesn’t seem to stop growing.

A Little Internet Marketing Background Never Hurt

Step 2, stick with what you know. Before you start ripping your hair our and thinking of how great the pet food delivery concept is, and that it’s something you should have started, you also need to know that PetFlow was started by two extremely smart and talented guys, Alex Zhardanovsky and Joe Speiser. Since we are all in the internet marketing space, the names might already ring a bell, they were the guys who started Azoogle, which then was changed to EpicAdvertising. Using proceeds from their 40% sale of Azoogle, they put forth the idea to create PetFlow, and then put their marketing genius and connections to work. It wasn’t easy to convince the dog food brands to jump aboard a pet food delivery service, as many have failed in the past, but the guys at PetFlow were able to do it, and are now killing it in the pet food industry.

Incredible Ad Campaigns & Marketing

Step 3, what worked for one campaign, might work for another. As mentioned, the guys who started PetFlow have a vast background in internet marketing, as well as a decent amount of advertising dollars to promote the company. Using both of these tactics, the company can get right in the customers face and make them almost have to take advantage of pet food delivery right to their home. From online pet food coupons, offline flyers, over 200,000 fans on their Facebook Fan Page and search/banner marketing that would make any marketer jealous, PetFlow is top dog when it comes to advertising in the pet industry.

Cute Puppies and Kittens as Your Spokesperson!

Step 4, get the customers attention. What are some of the best ways that brands in the pet industry are selling their products, through the use of cute puppies, kittens and animals of course! Using this same concept, PetFlow has been able to incentive their ad campaigns and service to get right in the face of their customers. If you are visiting a web site or looking through a handful of flyers, how you are not going to stop and look at the cute animals that are begging for your attention. A true marketing tactic that seems so pure and innocent, yet works so well.

There is a lot we can learn from PetFlow, as well as a service nearly all pet owners can use. The principles mentioned above can be applied to any business model. Find and create a service that is needed, then build it and market around the customer. Through the use of amazing ad copy, online coupons and relating to the customer with real pets and animals, PetFlow has found success that will last them for many years to come.

Why I Don’t *Really* Blog About Zombies: How to Pick a Great Niche

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I have way too much fun with zombify photo tools...

Zombies are a five billion dollar industry. Five. BILLION. I’m not making this up. 24/7 Wall Street estimates that zombie movies, video games, novels, comics, merchandise, events, music, art, and more all combined to add $5.74 billion to the economy – so really, it is close to six billion dollars than five. Zombies are trendy, but in a growing cult kind of way that suggests that this isn’t some kind of passing pop culture love affair.

So, when it came time for me to develop a direction for my new blog, the idea was simple. I wanted to blog about zombies.

Yet I don’t really blog about zombies. My site, Blog Zombies, is actually about blogging. It’s just zomie-themed, which means I use a lot of metaphors and fun games that involve the undead to teach others about blogging. I love zombies. I love blogging. It seemed like a natural direction for me.

But I already blog about blogging as part of my job here on the BlogWorld blog. So why not just blog about zombies?

Zombies are rad. They’re popular and fun. I love anything zombie-related. They just don’t make a good blog niche. For me. Picking your niche is super important, and is part of the reason your blog might be failing or find success. Let me give you a few reasons why I chose a zombie-themed blog about blogging, not a zombie-themed blog about zombies:

  • I like zombies, but I’m not passionate about sharing information about them.

Zombie-related stuff fall into the “hobby” category, and while I’m always ready to watch Dawn of the Dead or dress in a zombie costume, it’s not what I would call a passion. Some zombie enthusiasts spend every single day engulfed in zombie culture. I don’t. I’m not an expert, and it’s much easier to monetize your expertise. Because I’m not as passionate about this topic as many people, I don’t really feel as qualified to blog about it, at least in a professional sense. Someday, I may get the itch to start a hobby blog about zombies, but when it comes to business, a blog that you hope is profitable, passion is important. I’m super passionate about the topic of blogging, so that’s the best fit for me.

  • Zombies are entertainment.

You can certainly make money from an entertainment blog. Lots of people earn affiliate and ad income blogging about celebrities, movies, music, and more. It’s a different mindset from the start, though. People don’t need entertainment. They need things like good health and a liveable income. It’s much easier to make money, especially with informational products like I enjoy creating, when you blog about things people need, not entertainment topics. Like I said, you can certainly make money blogging about entertainment topics; it’s just a different process, and I’m more comfortable with another type of plan.

  • I connect better with blogger than zombie lovers.

Part of monetizing a blog well is understanding and liking your audience. Nothing against zombie lovers. I love a lot of zombie fans like myself. But with a topic like that, you’re also going to deal with the worst of the worst online. You deal with a ton of trolls, attacks, and other negativity. When your target market is other bloggers…well, you still run the chance of dealing with immature people, but these are generally people on the fringes of what is otherwise a great community that I’ve come to love. In general, I would rather go to dinner with a group of randomly-selected bloggers than a group of randomly-selected zombie fans. You might feel differently, and that’s okay – but the point stands that you should choose the community that is most attractive to you.

So, in review, picking a niche for your next professional blog is about:

  • Finding a topic that you passionate love
  • Making sure it fits into your monetization plan
  • Enjoying the community you’re trying to attract to your blog

Zombies are awesome, just not for me at this point. I think the niche I’ve chosen for Blog Zombies is awesome! Now it’s your turn: Give us your best niche-picking tip by leaving a comment!

Parent Bloggers, Do You Need a Niche?

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As soon as I decided that blogging was going to be more than just a “way to keep relatives informed,” everyone wanted to know my niche. What do I blog about? Well, just about everything that I like. But that isn’t a very good niche. I resisted for a long time narrowing down my blog to a particular niche.

When you blog about your life, it is very difficult to narrow it down to a quick one sentence tag line or elevator pitch. And I’m going to go against what all the “experts” say. I’m telling you that you don’t need to pick your niche…..right away! I have been blogging since before there was the word, blog. I created websites in Microsoft FrontPage and I always wrote about whatever I wanted and put up lots of pictures of my kids. In 2007, I realized I had readers that weren’t related to me and that was when I made the switch to being a blogger for business.

That is when the trouble began. I went to conferences and everyone wanted to know what I blogged about. My answer was different for each person because it depended on what I had written about that day. I read over and over that I needed to have a niche, I needed to know what I wanted to do with my blog, I needed to have a goal and a plan. I didn’t have any of those. I just continued to write.

The more I blogged, the more I realized I enjoyed blogging about technology and social media. I wrote about those subjects more and more and less about what my kids were doing. I continued to write and now four years later, I finally figured out my niche.

Did I just waste four years writing about something that wasn’t my niche? Not at all. I spent four years experimenting and improving my writing. Now, I have an elevator pitch, a niche and I’m working on a formal mission statement, goals and a plan.

Clues to Your Niche

Here are a few things to pay attention to that may help you find your niche.

  1. What do you like writing about the most?
  2. Look at the types of blogs you choose to read on a daily basis?
  3. Look at your tags on your blog. Which ones are used the most?

My point here being, if you enjoy blogging and you have no idea what your niche is, don’t worry about it. Keep writing and it will come, even if it takes four years!

Image from Microsoft Image Gallery.

Do We Really Need Another Blog About Social Media?

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Earlier, I was talking to a friend about my job, and she mentioned that she’s really been enjoying learning about Twitter and Facebook for her job. She’s a great writer, so I asked her if she ever considered running her own blog about the topic.

“Sure,” she replied. “But it seems to me that there are already hundreds, maybe thousands of blogs out there about social media. Do we really need another one?”

Is this niche too crowded?

She’s right. It’s not just social media – it seems like the make money online/online marketing niche is getting more and more crowded every day. When I compile my Brilliant Bloggers posts, there’s never a shortage of bloggers writing about SEO or copywriting or social networking strategies or whatever the new media topic of the week may be. My feed reader is overflowing, and every day, hundreds of links about social media and other online topics pass through my Twitter stream as people work to promote their work.

And I love it – I enjoy reading interesting posts. But at the same time, one of my pet peeves is seeing new blogs pop up that are saying the same thing that could be found everywhere else. Do we really need another blogger giving us Twitter tips? Do we really need another blogger writing about how because to market your blog on Facebook? Do we really need another blogger selling another e-course or ebook or whatever about promoting your posts?

Yes. We do.

Because here’s the thing – although this is a super crowded niche, if you have a real passion for new media, I want to read what you have to say. Maybe I’ll be interested in your point of view. Maybe it won’t be for me. But you’ll find your fans, as long as that passion for the industry shines through. As long as you let yourself come through in your posts, your blog will have something special that no other blog has.

Believe me, I’d like to tell you to stop. I’d like to say that we have enough – but we don’t! Every day, I’m amazed to find intelligent bloggers who have original ideas about the same old topics. The best is when I find a gem that is so smart that I’m mad I didn’t write it myself. You don’t have to be someone who’s been blogging for five years to write such a post – in fact, often the newest bloggers have fresh opinions that throw my mind for a loop.

I hate reading thrown-together blogs that people start without much thought just because they think blogging is an easy way to make money. I hate seeing blogs that have no personality, that are filled with content that is essentially rewritten posts from other sites. But if we’re being honest, that’s not what most bloggers are about. Most bloggers love this industry and really do want to get their opinion out there.

And I want to read it.

It is undeniably harder to stand out if your niche is crowded, but for bloggers that truly are passionate, it isn’t impossible to be successful. There’s always room for one more. In my opinion, no niche will ever be so crowded that someone who is passionate about the topic shouldn’t start a blog if that’s what they really want to do. The water’s fine; come on in.

So yes, we really do need another blog about social media (or whatever your overcrowded niche of choice may be). We need you. There might be a million other blogs covering the same topic, but only your blog has you.

Why Your Blog About Blogging Sucks

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I’m not sure there will ever be a way to measure this, but of all the blogs in the world, I wonder how many of them are about blogging and social media. It seems like everyone is blogging about blogging, in part because some of the people making the most money in this industry blog in this niche, so there are definite role models who have proven that it is possible to make money with this type of blog. There’s nothing wrong with blogging about blogging. What do you think I’m doing here at the BlogWorld blog, after all?

The problem is that nine out of every ten blogs about blogging I visit…suck. Hard.

If you are passionate about blogging and new media, I definitely don’t want to deter you from writing about these topics. You can be very successful in this niche. But there’s a reason why such a high percentage of bloggers aren’t successful. Here are the reason, in my opinion of course, why so many blogs about blogging suck:

1. You aren’t saying anything new.

What are you saying on your blog that hasn’t been said on one of the major blogs about blogging that already exists? There’s only so much to say about blogging and new media, so there will certainly be some overlap, but when’s the last time you had an original thought? When is the last time you questioned a major “rule” or made your own rules? When’s the last time you expressed an opinion that isn’t the same thing everyone else is saying? What’s the last time you wrote something more than just common knowledge?

Your blog about blogging bores me to tears.

Yes, you need posts for beginners, but keep in mind that most of the readers who are going to blogs about blogging have blogs of their own and read other major blogs about blogging, such as Problogger.If you just rewrite what’s already been said on other blogs, you aren’t going to find much success.

2. You are boring.

It doesn’t matter how smart you are about blogging. If you are a boring writer, I’m probably not going to be a regular reader. If I want to learn about writing great headlines, I might come to your blog to read a post you wrote about it, but if you don’t captivate me with an interesting post, I probably won’t subscribe. I guess the question you have to ask is this: is it better to help lots of one-time readers or is it better to have loyal readers? Obviously, when you have a strong personality, you aren’t going to appeal to everyone, but if you’re boring, you aren’t really going to appeal to anyone.

3. Your blog has too many guest posts.

Bloggers who blog about blogging tend to do a lot of guest posting. There’s nothing wrong with that – I love a good guest post, and I love to see guest posts on other blogs. But when’s the last time you wrote a post? I know that not everyone will agree with me on this point, but I stop reading blogs if there written more by guest posters than by the blogger him/herself. Part of the problem is that when you accept so many guest posts, most of them probably aren’t perfect for your blog. That doesn’t mean that they are low-quality by any means, but not every well-written post is right for every blog. Does it not only fit your blog in terms of subject matter but also in terms of style? If not, are your readers really benefiting from the post?

4. You’re an “expert” with no credibility.

If you blog about blogging, I want to know what credentials you have to give me advice. How long have you been blogging? Do you make a full time living this way? Do your tactics work? If your first attempt at blogging is to run a blog about blogging…why should I listen to you? Because you’ve read every post on Problogger and can regurgitate Darren’s advice in your own words? Credibility doesn’t have to mean that you’ve been blogging for decades or made a million dollars as a blogger. It could mean that you’re a critical thinker who tests his or her theories. It could mean that you do interviews with others who are experts in the field. It could mean a lot of things – but there has to be some kind of credibility for me to want to read your blog.

5. You don’t put in the time.

Blogging is a lot of hard work, especially at the beginning as you’re working to build your readership. Before you start blogging, make sure you have the time to put into making it great. I see a lot of blogs about blogging that give advice they don’t follow themselves. If you’re going to write about the need to promote your posts on Twitter, promote your posts on Twitter. If you’re going to write about the need for great design functionality, make sure you have great design functionality. If you’re going to talk about maintaining a posting schedule, maintain a posting schedule. In short, if you’re going to teach me how to best run a blog, you better be taking your own advice!

Do you blog about blogging? What sets you apart? Have you read blogs about blogging that suck? What makes them suck, in your opinion?

Why the Crowded Niche can be a Good Thing

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Gurus who teach others to make money blogging talk a lot about niche selection (and rightfully so). It doesn’t matter how passionate your are or how well you write about any topic if there’s no audience and if your audience is too general, you’ll have trouble pleasing anybody in attempts to please everybody. Niche is important, without a doubt.

But one of the pieces of advice that I hear often isn’t one that I necessarily agree is true. So many people avoid starting a blog about a certain topic because the niche is already crowded with bloggers. With so many bloggers writing about the same topic, new bloggers in that niche fail at an incredible rate, leaving many experts recommending that you don’t choose that direction. To that advice, I say, “Fiddlesicks!” An overcrowded niche can be a good thing, if you know what you’re doing.

Passion and Money

Few people get into blogging solely because they see it as a lucrative income stream. The sad fact is that blogging is hard and most blogs out there don’t make a livable income for their owners. Many bloggers start blogs with the intent to make money, but I think it’s pretty apparent that this is not a get-rich-quick scheme.

So why do we do it? Passion. Most bloggers start blogging because they enjoy writing or because they want to share what they know about a specific topic. If income follows, that’s awesome, but passion is the driving force.

Which leads me to ask you this: if your passion involves a niche that is already super crowded, why should you be the one that has to walk away, looking for another way to make money blogging? Why does the top earner in your niche get to pursue his/her passion, while you’re stuck blogging about a lesser interest? Because he/she got there first? That doesn’t seem fair.

You should blog about the topic that inspires you. Period. If that means you’re competing with ten other bloggers, fine. If that means you’re competing with ten thousand other blogs, that’s also fine. You don’t have to give up your passion just because it doesn’t happen to be unique or weird.

Crowding = Demand

If there are a lot of Italian restaurants in a certain neighbor, chances are that it is because Italian food is in high demand. Sure, you can do something different and open a Chinese buffet, but you run the risk of not giving the people what they want if you do that. If you open another run-of-the-mill Italian place, it may get lost in a sea of restaurants, but if you run the best Italian restaurant place, you’ll be swimming in customers.

Essentially, crowding implies want. So it’s ok to be another person giving the people what they want!

In the blogging world, a crowded market also means that you have tons of networking opportunities. It’s easier to find places to guest post. You’re more likely to be linked on other blogs. You can build your social networks more easily. There are likely more professional conventions in your niche for you to attend. Companies related to this niche are likely already working with bloggers. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that having competition is a good thing!

You Don’t Have to Be the Best

If you can be the best blog in your niche, bar none, that’s awesome. But you don’t have to be the top dog to make money. You just have to be best at what you do.

For example, let’s say you want to blog about cooking. There are already tons of cooking blogs out there, and the top blogs are run by people who have tons of education and experience. If you’re a 23-year-old amateur chef, being the top blogging in this niche is probably pretty impossible. But what about being the top food blogger who focuses on organic cooking? Or what about being the top food blogger who focuses on chocolate? Or who focuses on cooking for a single person? Or cooking with cheap ingredients? Or using a microwave? Or writing funny posts about cooking blunders? Or…

You need a “spin” to be successful in a crowded niche. You’re passionate about cooking. Awesome. But what makes you different? Narrow your passion a bit to find what really makes your heart sing – and grow your brand around that. You should be able to describe you blog in one or two sentences, and that description shouldn’t apply to any other blogs out there. If you can do that, it doesn’t matter how many other bloggers are also talking about your topic. You have a chance to succeed too.

Overheard on #Blogchat: Comments and Niche (@idiot_girl)

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Do you participate in #blogchat? Every week, this weekly discussion on Twitter focuses on a specific topic and bloggers everywhere are invited to join in. Because I often have more to say than what will fit in 140 characters, every Sunday night (or Monday morning), I post about some of the most interesting #blogchat tweets. Join the conversation by commenting below.

(Still confused? Read more about #blogchat here.)

This week’s theme: Blog Comments

A few months ago, I spoke with someone who was extremely discouraged about the number of comments left on his blog. For every post he wrote, he would get thousands of unique views, but only one or two comments. I asked him what he blogged about. His answer? Weekly round-ups of real estate news.

Well, there is your answer. No one was coming to his blog for the conversation. They were simply coming to read news they may have missed.

During #blogchat, one tweeter expressed this concept well:

idiot_girl: I think some bloggers should also realize that not all blog types invite comments.

Take a look at your niche. Are they a vocal group, inherently? Does your niche lend well to discussion? Are your readers comfortable with leaving comments on blogs? The answer isn’t always yes.

And that’s ok.

Most groups of people are vocal somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding them. That can be online or offline. For example, my friend with the real estate blog may not be starting conversations on his blog, but his target market is made of people who go to tons of conventions, expos, and other types of events every year. Another example – I know someone whose target market is made up of tweens and teens. They aren’t super comfortable with blog comments, but they definitely are vocal on Facebook. If you want the feedback, find where your community hangs out…and bring your blog to them.

But at the same time, you don’t need comments to be successful. I know someone who makes five figures every month from a shopping-based blog network where he’s lucky to get 5 comments per post. He has a different focus from a blogger who is talking about parenting, though. It’s all about understanding your niche. Sometimes, the lack of comments is no reason to worry!

Thanks to idiot_girl for a tweet during #blogchat that was definitely not idiotic!

Overheard on #Blogchat: “Nichify” (@CatsEyeWriter)

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With all the BlogWorld Expo work I’ve been doing, I haven’t had time for Overheard on #Blogchat for a few weeks. Glad to be back this week!

Do you participate in #blogchat? Every week, this weekly discussion on Twitter focuses on a specific topic and bloggers everywhere are invited to join in. Because I often have more to say than what will fit in 140 characters, every Sunday night, I post about some of the most interesting #blogchat tweets. Join the conversation by commenting below.

(Still confused? Read more about #blogchat here.)

This week’s theme: Generating interest in your NEW blog

One of the most interesting #blogchat quotes I’ve read this week was from @CatsEye Writer about the topic of your blog, which plays a big part in building your online community.

CatsEyeWriter: New blog? Don’t be afraid to “nichify.” Your right people will find you.

I love this tweet in part because I make up words all the time and in part because it’s really solid advice that I feel like most bloggers get wrong.

A few months ago, I offered free freelance writing consulting on my blog, After Graduation. Of the people who signed up, 90% of them wanted to talk about their blog ideas, either for existing blogs or blogs they were thinking about creating. I found myself saying one thing more than anything else:

FOCUS!

Let’s say you start out with a personal blog where you just talk about whatever topic pops into your head. It’s about as far from “nichified” as possible. Unless you’re a celebrity or there’s some other force bringing your readers together to like you, how can you market that blog? You don’t have an average reader. You aren’t solving a problem. Chances are that you aren’t even being entertaining – at least not to every reader with every post. Reader A might like Post #1 but not Post #2. Reader B might like Post #2 but not Post #1. Because only the occasional post is relevant, no one subscribes or makes an effort to support your blog in any way.

So let’s say you “nichify” a bit by deciding that you’re going to write about parenting. That’s a huge niche. Again, you don’t really have an average reader. Because you’re so general, your posts are going to initially attract all kinds of parents. But Reader A is a young, new mother from the Midwest who is interested in your budget tips for parents, while Reader B is an experienced father from New York City who wants tips on helping his child choose a college and Reader C is a couple dealing with a child with autism. If you’re trying to write to all of them, your posts are going to be watered down and not convert. You can’t build a community if there’s nothing to bring them together.

Don’t be afraid to really find your niche. While there are more general parents than parents with children who have autism, if you write for Reader C specifically, your people will find you – and they’ll stick around.

So, as @CatsEyeWriter says, don’t be afraid to “nichify.” It’s better to have a small, dedicated readership than it is to have a million hits a day with no community. A dedicated readership that becomes a community is the key to building traffic and making sales, and that starts with defining your niche.

Overheard on #Blogchat: Passion vs. Skill (@DaveTaylor)

Author:

Do you participate in #blogchat? Every week, this weekly discussion on Twitter focuses on a specific topic and bloggers everywhere are invited to join in. Because I often have more to say than what will fit in 140 characters, every Sunday night, I post about some of the most interesting #blogchat tweets. Join the conversation by commenting below.

(Still confused? Read more about #blogchat here.)

This week’s theme: Who are you writing your blog for, you or your readers? Who should it be?

As you can guess, a lot of the discussion this week pitted two valuable ideas against one another:

  1. You should blog for yourself, about topics that you’re passionate about, because your posts will be more interesting and you’ll enjoy your job more.
  2. You should blog for the reader, because it is really your community who makes your blog what it is, especially if you blog for money.

Many people agreed that the best case scenario is a little bit of A and a little bit of B, but along the way, we certainly got some interesting comments on both sides of the argument. One that I thought was especially worth noting:

@DaveTaylor Btw, not sure I agree you “must” be passionate about your subject if you’re a skilled, pro writer…

So, do you have to be passionate about a topic to write about it? For some people, the answer is yes, but for professional writers, nearly any topic can be covered if you’re willing to do the research. I should know; I’m a freelance writer and I’ve definitely written about topics that do not particularly interest me.

The disconnect between DaveTaylor’s tweet and practicality, however, comes when you consider the very nature of a blog. Answer this questions for me:

Why do you blog for money versus do something else for money?

The American Dream – or really, the human dream in general, this isn’t just about being from the USA – is that you make a living doing something that you love, something that doesn’t feel like work. Yes, a skilled writer should be able to cover just about any topic. But the whole point of blogging is to get away from having to work in a job that you don’t feel passionate about. Otherwise, why not just get a 9-to-5 and not have the stress of trying to figure out how to make money with your blog?

I don’t care how skilled you are as a writer. If you aren’t passionate about a topic…

  1. …it will be a chore to write every blog post.
  2. …you’ll miss out on big stories because the topic isn’t something you naturally follow in your free time.
  3. …you won’t connect with your audience well because, yes, they are passionate about the topic.
  4. …it will take longer to write every post because you have to do more research.
  5. …you won’t really care about your blog, other than whether or not it’s making money.

If you aren’t passionate about something, you can certainly do a wonderful job blogging about it for a client. A good example of this is how I spent years blogging about weddings for a client of mine. Yes, writing posts was still a chore and they took longer to research, but I didn’t have to worry about building an audience, networking, etc. because it wasn’t my blog. I wasn’t emotionally invested. I just did a good job with the text and collected a paycheck.

But if you’re going to start your own blog? Please have passion. For your own sake, pick a topic that you really enjoy and even feel emotional about. In the end, even if another niche looks more lucrative, you’ll build a better blog if you have passion.

Check out “Overheard on #Blogchat” here every Sunday to read about some of the most interesting tweets from participating bloggers.

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