I’ve noted before that tragedy tends to build mommyblog traffic. Initially, this was something that just emerged as pattern: it was obviously not something that anyone could or would plan for themselves. Now there are many top mommybloggers whose followings were established (at least in part) in the aftermath of some kind of personal tragedy.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this, it’s just something that happens. If you want to get kind of spiritual about it, it might be seen as a way of righting the universe, because it allows these bloggers some means of healing through a connection with others who are in similar situations.

But what is troubling to me is a more recent phenomenon wherein victimhood is being manufactured specifically for the purpose of generating more blogging attention. Here’s how it works: something happens, usually a small thing on the grand scale of suffering. Then the blogger calls attention to the “misfortune” by writing a blog post about it or tweeting about it (or both). The blogger’s friends and colleagues then retweet or repost about the injustices suffered by the blogger. With each additional post or tweet (or Facebook update, or what have you), the original story becomes more and more muddled, and before you know it there are people choosing sides and declaring team affiliations, petitioning for justice for some kind of perceived slight the specifics of which nobody can remember anymore.

I’m not sure this approach to generating attention would be acceptable in any context, but the circumstances in which it tends to occur make it particularly galling. Often it happens because some blog reader has left a comment on a blog that is not supportive. In some cases the comment might actually be rude or insulting — though this is never necessary! it needs only to be slightly unsupportive to work as a possible means of generating support. Other times, it might be a perceived slight somehow relating to parenting choices that occurs in public — somebody has looked sideways at a breastfeeding mother, or somebody was left out of a playdate because she didn’t have the right kind of lululemon yoga pants — and this is turned into an event worthy of weeks of mobs and torches.

Enough already.

If you choose to participate in this kind of crap, you are encouraging people to act like defenseless children. You are saying that women are not capable of fighting their own battles, that we need to be rescued from the most mundane of everyday conflicts. You are encouraging people to appropriate the misfortunes of others for their own gain, and worst of all, you are trivializing the experiences of those among us who really do need support. Playing the victim is despicable — but assisting people to do so is even worse.

"Why The Commodification of Victimhood In the Mommyblogosphere Makes Us All Look Stupid" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on August 03, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Last week, I questioned whether or not the social media economy could continue to support mommyblogging for cash in its current form indefinitely. Though the answer to this question remains unclear, it occurred to me that, in anticipation of the BlogHer 2011 conference (beginning next week), there are a few possible signs of a lessening of faith in the influence of mommybloggers as an economic force. None of these signs are 100% conclusive, but they’re worth noting anyway, if for no other reason than to track the progress of the business over time. For instance:

1. BlogHer 2011 is still not sold out.

As of the time of this publication, there are still tickets available for BlogHer 2011. This is in direct contrast to the situation with previous years wherein tickets sold out well in advance to the conference, and in fact some were auctioned off on eBay, in some cases for more than their face value.

Of course, it should be noted that last year’s conference was in New York City, which is a more convenient and likely more desirable location for many conference attendees. Also: please note that 2010 had a maximum capacity of around 2,500 people, whereas this year the ticket sales are capped at about 3,200. The facility is larger, and the additional 700 slots could also help to account for the surplus tickets this year.

2. No Social Luxe party this year.

For the past two years, the Social Luxe Lounge has been a big part of the pre-BlogHer conference festivities. Best known for having a choice swag bag full of sponsor-provided goodies, the Social Luxe Lounge has been one of the most coveted private party invites for the past few years running.

For BlogHer 2011, though, there will be no Social Luxe Lounge. The official explanation for the absence of the party, as given on the Social Luxe website is that, “[d]ue to circumstances among all three hostesses, the stars just simply are not aligning this year.” Instead of the Social Luxe Lounge, there will be a lower-profile Blog Luxe awards ceremony that celebrates “inspiring blogs,” but presumably, means there will be no coveted swag.

The fact that there is no Social Luxe Lounge this year is likely due to many different causes, but to cancel the plans for the party in the presence of strong sponsor interest seems unlikely. If you have fewer peopled willing to put stuff in the swag bags, it’s a little more difficult to throw a swanky party, and though the change in venue might also have affected the interest from sponsors, it seems like this is in direct contrast to previous years, where the bags were overflowing with brands that wanted to be involved.

3. There appears to be a dearth of special sponsored programs this year.

Remember #GapMagic, the PR campaign that outfitted several bloggers in free clothing for Gap before BlogHer 2010? Even before #GapMagic, there have been many situations in which bloggers have been outfitted with clothing by brands before BlogHer as a promotional technique. But this year, I have yet to hear of anything like #GapMagic or similar promotional efforts. If these efforts had been considered successful, I would think that there would be more of them this year, rather than less. As BlogHer approaches, we may see some crop up, but my instincts are telling me there is just less overall interest from brands this year.

Are you getting a sense that the brand interest for the BlogHer conference is the same or lessened this year?

"Possible signs of the mommyblogging bubble bursting from BlogHer 2011" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on July 25, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

“There are many ways to identify a bubble. The one I like best is to eyeball the self-importance of its participants and their tendency to congregate in cultish packs; make inflated claims about the revolutionary nature of their ideas; and assume that anyone who criticizes it “doesn’t get it.” — Heidi N. Moore, “We Have a Social Media Bubble,” New York Times

There’s an old saying about how the only people who made real money in the gold rush were the people who sold picks and axes. I’ve heard that claim bandied about by people looking at mommyblogging as a business, and though I’ve always felt there’s a little bit of truth to it, I am hesitant to dismiss the significance and business potential of building a large following online. It seems to me that, if you know what you are doing, anybody can turn a good amount of attention into a profit. It just takes a little ingenuity and talent, and for many people I think there could be a solid future in building that type of business.

That said, it’s getting harder and harder for me to not view the enthusiasm and faith in social media in general as being a reminiscent of an economic bubble. And if social media is susceptible to a bubble, then it seems to me that mommyblogging for cash is in even worse shape, what with the fact that most participants cannot continue in it longer than they have young children about whom to write.

The central argument for social media (in general) being a bubble at present concerns the ridiculously high valuation of a privately funded company that doesn’t disclose financial records (Facebook), and its trickle-down effect on other related social media start-ups that have not demonstrated any value to speak of. That venture capital can be thrown at social media companies left and right, using Facebook as a model for what social media might become, is really familiar: it’s what happened with the dot com bust in the late 1990s. Google emerged from that bubble an extremely powerful and valuable corporation, but many of the others who were strongholds back then are now gone. Who is to say the same thing won’t happen now, with Facebook at the helm and everyone else out of business?

This inevitably makes me think about mommyblogging and its monetization. There are a few entities that have proven track records when it comes to driving commerce, and there are pockets of influence where working with (I think mostly smaller) brands seems to have actually worked for all participants. But for the most part I’m wondering how long this can last — how long can sponsored posts be placed on barely trafficked blogs for pricetags in the thousands of dollars? How long will companies feel they need to pay “ambassadors” for information about what moms like, when they can just collate the information available from the thousands of blogs that are out there already? And how long, most importantly, will companies keep paying “social media consultants” to tell them how to engage with their consumers, particularly once they have figured out the landscape themselves and hired far more proficient people to serve as their in-house social media advisors?

I’ve started to think there might be a little bit too much faith in the traditional means of making money through mommyblogging — sponsored posts, brand ambassadorships, display ads, conference and event planning — all of these things have a short shelf life and a questionable future for people who are moving into their post-childbearing years. Are you going to be hired as a Lansinoh mom board consultant when your kids are starting to have their own children? It seems unlikely.

I think the only safe way to make a living — using social media or otherwise — is to figure out the thing that you are best at, that nobody else can do, and figure out a way to market it. And the thing about being a mother (or parent) is that it is the opposite of that — it exists as a coveted demographic precisely because nearly everyone (in some shape or form) can do it.

"Is mommyblogging for cash (along with the rest of social media) a bubble?" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on July 18, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

A while back, you guys came up with a bunch of ideas for posts you’d like to see here here on ABDPBT Personal Finance. The most common question, by far, that I get from readers new and old is “How do I get more people to read my site?” Building blog traffic is a tricky and kind of zeitgeisty thing, but there are some things you can do to maximize the views you get from the people who are already on your site — making them into more loyal readers who come back again and again. Below are some tips on how to keep the readers you already have, and hopefully turn them into people who will go out and evangelize for your site.

1. Be consistent over a long period of time.

This is the tip that nobody wants to hear, but it’s the truth: web traffic grows slowly, over time, for people who consistently provide useful information or very entertaining content on a predictable schedule. Your first goal should always be to be one of those people, because that is how you win the loyalty of your readers.

2. Respond to comments on your blog and leave thoughtful comments on readers’ blogs when you can.

This is another boring, but essential tip: showing your readers that you value them makes them more loyal to you, and strengthens the community you are trying to build around your blog. Show your readers you appreciate them by responding to comments and emails, and try to comment on their blogs when you have time.

3. Link to other relevant posts within the text of new posts.

It always pays to go back through your old posts and link up to past entries that touch on similar topics. Some of your readers will have seen the posts before, but many readers will be newcomers and therefore will appreciate the links. For example, I’ve written about the EVENTs that seem to have resulted in big traffic for mommybloggers in the past, and I also followed up with a post on things that newer bloggers can do to increase their traffic without having to undergo major life trauma. Both of these posts are relevant to this post, even if they take slightly different angles.

4. Make sure new visitors have a clear place to go to see your best work.

Blogs are tricky because they usually require a few weeks of consistent reading to really win people over. When somebody comes to your blog for a popular post, make sure they have an easy way of finding your best work. To do this, you can create sneeze pages that organize your best posts by category. Once you’ve done this, then make sure to create a highly visible link somewhere so new visitors won’t miss it (like, say, the right-hand sidebar, as I have.).

5. Create a blog support group to help promote your blog.

Online communities like the SITS Girls work because they encourage everyone to help people grow their blogs. Joining up and really getting involved in one of these communities can boost the readership of your blog. If you do join a community, remember that you get out what you put in — people who are just there to get traffic for their blogs will be seen through pretty quickly, so make sure your intentions are transparent.

6. Create useful content that people will want to share.

Even within the mommyblog community, the vast majority of readers are looking for and more willing to share posts that provide useful information. Personal posts do get shared on occasion, but posts that contain tips for, say, better parenting (i.e. Parent Hacks), or organizing your home (i.e. Simple Mom), cooking (i.e. The Pioneer Woman), or making your home more beautiful on a budget (i.e. Centsational Girl) are far more likely to be shared.

7. Use this simple technique to search optimize your useful content.

I’m not very knowledgeable about SEO, personally, and I find most of it to be far too much work to bother. But, if you can learn easy techniques to help with the search engine optimization of your posts that deal with useful information, there’s no reason not to do so. I read this post on Skelliwag last week that outlines a really simple way of optimizing search hits through screening Google suggestions when you’re writing posts. It’s worth checking out, particularly if you are just getting started with a niche blog.

OK, what have I left out? What are your traffic-building secrets?

"Mommy Blog Traffic: How To Increase Yours" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on July 11, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

I think some of you might be waiting for me to comment on the rather large controversy that happened last week between me and Heather Armstrong. I certainly understand this curiosity; however, except in a general way, I don’t plan to do this. In this section of my blog, I am always trying to remain as objective as possible to the issues I discuss. Although I may not always succeed in this, I do always try. On this particular topic, I have no objective feelings: therefore, it would be impossible to even attempt an objective analysis of the facts. What I decided to do, therefore, is make some general observations about online controversies that might serve as a usable takeaway for the people who come here to read about the business of blogging. See below.

1. There is a fraction of the audience who loves a fight.

Controversy for controversy’s sake is something that is greatly appealing to a portion of people. Temporary attention and traffic comes along with this.

2. There is a fraction of the audience who hates a fight.

Controversy of any kind is something that is repugnant to a portion of people. Temporary attention and traffic loss comes along with this.

3. It is more common to feel before thinking.

Most people to react to a controversy based on their feelings about the issues discussed and/or participants in the controversy before they weigh any kind of argument. It is unusual for a first reaction to a controversy to be based on logic over feelings. Though opinions might change over time, it is futile to attempt to inject a logical argument (for either side) into the overall reaction to controversy, because it mostly operates outside of logic. The process of uncovering all of the nuances of a disagreement takes far too long to uncover for most observers to bother.

4. Controversy is, generally speaking, not an effective online traffic-building tool.

Traffic spikes that result from controversy tend to be temporary (with a very few exceptions). This is true whether you are at the heart of the controversy, or if you are merely weighing in on the controversy from the sidelines. People come to figure out what happened. Then they leave. Most of them will not return unless their controversy-driven visit to your site happens to result in them finding something they had not found before. Therefore, if you are hoping to cash in by being part of a controversy, or weighing in on a controversy, this is probably not going to happen.

5. The only way to avoid controversy is not to blog.

While it is true that some bloggers attract controversy more than others, there is no way of putting your life and your opinions on the internet (or any other portion of the public sphere) without putting yourself at risk for controversy. People will develop good and bad opinions of you and your thoughts regardless. Some of these might be articulated in a blog post someday, and still others may not ever see the light of day. Even the most universally beloved bloggers have found themselves the targets of criticism on occasion — that is part of the business.

6. You cannot control criticism, but you can control how you react to it.

Given that criticism and controversy is a part of blogging, if you find yourself at the heart of a controversy, there is no point in attempting to shut it down or control it in any way. The only thing that you can do is accept it, and base all further actions on those things that you can control. Despite how it may feel, you can control what you do in the face of criticism, and you can control what you do when you’re in a storm of controversy. Decide what your best-case scenario is — given the current circumstances — and act accordingly. If you’re too close to it to decide, ask a trusted friend or, better, an uninvolved observer, for their take on your best course of action.

Finally, to all of you who have sent your support, and to those of you who continue to read here, please know that I am so grateful to have a community of readers who are interested in discussing these topics with me. The number one most common comment I receive from readers contains the words, “I don’t always agree with you, but . . .”, and I cannot imagine having it any other way. So thank you.

"6 Observations On Online Controversies" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on July 04, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Babble.com is best known in the mommyblogosphere as the purveyor of traffic-grabbing “Best of” lists that crop up every three months and send mommybloggers into a frenzy of retweeted requests for votes. But if the recent rumors coming out of Canadia are accurate (or anything close to it), there will soon be another reason to think of Babble — Her Bad Mother.

Rumors have been going around about Canadian blogger of note Catherine Connors taking a position with Babble.com. Babble Media CEO Rufus Griscom confirmed that Connors is set to join the Babble team, but stated that the specifics of her employment and job title are still being worked out. There has been some talk about the Connors’ position being somehow connected to a sale/acquisition of Connors’ group parenting site, The Bad Moms Club (estimated traffic via Quantcast is 30,000 pageviews per month), by Babble Media. Though Griscom was not able to provide any more details about the partnership between Connors and Babble Media at this time, he stated that this partnership “does not involve the sale of Catherine’s site.”

In order to work with Babble, Connors is reportedly moving her family of four from the Toronto area to New York City. The specifics of the move are unclear, and Connors was unable to be reached for comment on this story. UPDATE: Catherine Connors responded to my email and said the move will take place at the end of the summer, and that she will be able to answer more fully once all of the details of employment are worked out.

"Canadian Blogger Takes Job With Babble, Moves To NYC" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on June 16, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

It seems to me that web traffic is largely self-perpetuating. Unless you have already existing, independent celebrity to leverage, it generally takes a huge amount of effort and time — coupled with a dash of luck — in order to build a large web following. That first huge mountain is an obstacle that is almost always too large for individual publishers to surmount; however, those that do manage it often are rewarded with regular, nearly self-sustaining traffic levels.

In other words: if Il Duce stopped posting altogether tomorrow, would her traffic disappear? Or are there so many links out there, interviews and mentions in prominent media outlets, and her established reputation to keep the traffic going in her absence?

I’m not sure, but I think there might be.

Now, if you take a site like ThePioneerWoman.com (who puts out about 4 or 5 posts per weekday), or one of the Gawker Media sites (each of which put out upwards of ten or more posts per weekday), and cut down their output, it stands to reason that their traffic will drop. Those sites are built upon providing lots of useful and/or entertaining content for their readers, so if you take that content away there won’t be much left to hold on to.

Personal blogs are a little different because readers develop a connection to the blog’s author that might encourage them to keep clicking back to see if there has been an update. Still, I believe the same is probably true for more personal blogs who reduce their output — the traffic would have to dip slightly, if not dramatically, over time with decreased output. But what I have never (yet) seen is a blog that has reached over, say, a million pageviews per month to drop back down below that point without the blog being completely shut down and allowing domains to expire.

Who cares? you’re wondering.

Well, because personal blogs are a lot like soap operas in many ways, and without the infusion of new characters and plot lines, a soap opera dies. Nobody wants to watch a soap opera about some character who has become older, less attractive and less prone to sleeping around and causing intrigue. In fact, in the current media climate, it has become increasingly difficult for soap operas to continue even when they do switch up characters and keep things moving. It seems that when there are other choices for shows to watch during the daytime (via Tivo and increased cable options), people finally noticed that soap operas are cheesy and that they mostly suck, and that nobody takes off their earring just to answer the phone.

So do blogs — even very popular ones — have an expiration date? I wonder. Thoughts?

"Is It Even Possible At This Point For Popular Blogs To Die?" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on May 13, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Hi people, long time no see.

I thought I would pull back the curtain a little bit here for you guys and let you know what has been going on with this particular blog. As you might know, my posting schedule has been spotty in the wake of morning sickness, and though I am almost fully recovered from that now (knock on wood), the truth is that I am still struggling with the direction of this section of the blog a bit.

I love this section of the blog. It is really important to me, and I want to continue to write about the business of blogging in a constructively critical way. I don’t feel like anybody else does that, despite the rash of oddly timed “tell us how much money you make” posts that cropped up while I was getting IV fluids a few months back. I particularly want to continue to provide a forum for people who are new to blogging to find out how they can get their foot in the door — how to develop a plan to make this whole thing profitable from the very start.

That said, I have found, over the past few months, an increasing distaste for following and reading the amount of unbridled douchebaggery I must in order to achieve these goals. I find that many of the people I am obliged to “keep an eye on” in order to report on the business of blogging are people who mix with me like oil and water, and as a result, when I’m dealing with them, the absolute worst in me comes out to play. This has always been the case, but I think perhaps the increased estrogen of pregnancy has made it more difficult for me to ignore the “be nice!” imperative that is part and parcel of being a woman in late capitalist America.

So what I am wondering is — how can I provide more valuable content for you guys? What kinds of posts about blogging do you want to see? What kinds of questions — particularly for those who are new or kind of new — am I not answering? Are there things going on behind the scenes that you wonder about, but don’t want to ask?

I need your help in brainstorming a list of topics that will be useful to you in the next few months — at least until my douchebag tolerance goes back up in the postpartum months, that is. Thoughts?

"Oh yeah. I have a business blog, don’t I?" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on May 11, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Mr. Right-Click and I saw Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold this weekend, a “documentary” about the practices and procedures governing product placement and sponsorship in movies/entertainment. The premise of the movie is that Spurlock approached the movie with the intent to have the entire thing financed by product placement while keeping the entire process transparent for the audience (FYI: technically, the movie is called POM Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, because POM Pomegranate juice paid $1 million to have naming rights of the movie). It’s a funny movie and though it doesn’t necessarily teach you anything you don’t already know, it does expose the specifics of product placement sausage making in a way that you don’t usually get to see.

The movie reminded me of the product placement experiment I conducted about a year ago on this blog, that ended ultimately with me deciding that product placement does not work for my blog. I am still struggling to articulate the reasons for this, and I think Spurlock comes to a similar conclusion at the end of his project (though it is never explicitly stated). The odd thing about the mechanics of sponsorship in this movie is that while on the one hand I left it feeling like Spurlock might have damaged his brand (however slightly) by making the film (his brand is fairly tied up with integrity and thumbing his nose at corporate America, so to walk around in a NASCAR-inspired sponsored suit — even tongue-in-cheek — might be something that turns out badly for him), I also left feeling a degree of increased goodwill for the brands who signed on with Spurlock for this movie, because they were willing to take a chance on an unconventional idea/project. For me, I worry that Spurlock comes out of this thing with some of his integrity compromised (as much as I don’t want that to be the case), whereas the brands are clear winners. That seems wrong to me, but it also is in keeping with what I see happening in blog sponsorship, so I thought I’d try to figure out why. See below.

1. Once you open the door to sponsorship and product placement, you give up a little of the control you have over your content.

Most people who run sponsored campaigns on their blogs will be quick to tell you that they do not change their content in order to do so, and I believe this is absolutely the case usually. The problem is, what happens when you invite a sponsor into the fold is that there are ways they influence you that happen on levels that are almost unintelligible — ways in which they are filtering your creative voice almost without you knowing it. There is a scene in The Greatest Movie Ever Sold in which Spurlock is talking to executives from Ban deodorant (the first sponsor to sign on to the project) and they say they don’t need to influence the content directly, except that they would like to ensure that Ban is not portrayed in a negative light. This seems reasonable, right? Because why would they pay money to have their product portrayed badly? So Spurlock says something like, “Of course not. If you’re paying to be in this movie, I’m going to feel positively toward your brand,” and that makes sense as well. I’m sitting in the audience and I’m thinking, “Wow, *I* feel positively toward Ban deodorant right now because they’re considering this.”

But wait — once Ban signs on you have lost some control already: 1) you have to feature Ban in your movie, and how likely is it that you would ever have done that otherwise?; 2) you cannot do anything with Ban that might be construed as being negative, because that will upset the sponsors, and so you’ve already eliminated a large portion of possibilities because they are not likely to be considered “positive” by the sponsors; and 3) you don’t even WANT to portray them negatively, you’ve decided you like this brand to which you were previously neutral just because they are giving you money. How is that artistic freedom? It’s not, even if it’s just a matter of a small degree of control you’ve given up.

2. Once you open the door to sponsorship and product placement, your opportunities start to increase.

Once Spurlock was able to get one sponsor, opportunities started opening up more easily for him. At one point in the movie, he plays a voicemail message from an agent who wants to put him in a prime project that involves heavy corporate sponsorship — an unsolicited offer with big name stars already attached to it. With getting brands to back you, it seems like the hardest sell is the first one — once you get your foot in the door, the rest come much more easily.

3. Once you open the door to sponsorship and product placement, you start to lose perspective.

The flip side of the increased opportunities is that the line between getting paid and “selling out” starts to get blurrier. Spurlock was shaken by the unsolicited offer because he realized how attractive it sounded to him now, when just a few months before he was inspired to do a whole project based on the sliminess of product placement practices. He states, “How are you supposed to say ‘no’ to that?” when he plays the voicemail message containing the project offer. But a few months before, he would never have considered it in the first place.

4. Brands have more to gain from these partnerships, content creators have the most to lose.

I think that what happens with this stuff is that you go into a movie with low expectations for how a brand is going to come off. Basically, unless they do something egregious, you’re at worst going to feel neutrally for a brand. At best, you might walk away from a product placement feeling better toward a brand: you’re going in at zero, so it takes very little to improve.

But with content creators (filmmakers, bloggers, etc.), we presumably go in with a higher opinion and it takes very little to lower that opinion. Surprisingly little. Does this mean bloggers or filmmakers shouldn’t ever use product placement? I’m not sure — but I do think that they have more to lose than the brands that are paying them.

Hey everybody, we’ve got a new featured blogger ad up and running! Please check out Josie’s ad for Yum Yucky in the sidebar ASAP! If you’d like to participate in the ABDPBT Featured Bloggers Program, please email me and I’ll put you on the waiting list.

"Things Mommybloggers Can Learn From A Movie On Product Placement" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on May 02, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.

Last week, I argued that the quickest path to money from blogging for most people is to use blogging as a marketing tool for their unique skill sets. The complaint was made in the comments that references to alternative blogging revenue streams are made but that nobody ever explains precisely what these alternative revenue streams may be. This is because, in order to determine what you can sell on your blog, you need to take into account your own talents and your own marketable assets — there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

The online marketplace works the same way as the offline marketplace: you need to figure out something that you have to offer for which people will be willing to give you money. There is no magic bullet, and the answer to how to make money from your blog might be far less glamorous than you were hoping. However, if you want to make money online, quickly, the best way is to market your skills with a blog, rather than sitting around and waiting for your traffic to increase to astounding levels. Here’s how to figure out what you can offer.

1. Figure out what your marketable skills/salable products are.

In order to use a blog as a marketing tool, you need to have something to sell. The first way to figure out what you have to sell is to think about what you could do, today, if you went out into the workforce and tried to get a job. Are you able to do web design? Editing? Freelance writing? Accounting work? What would you be doing if you were working at a regular job (or, if you are working at a regular job, what is it)?

Alternatively, maybe your skills are more creative — are you somebody who can make jewelry? Bake? Cook? Write down all of the things you can make and/or services you can provide that have a tangible market value on a piece of paper before you do anything else.

2. Figure out a way to make a “product” out of those skills.

Depending on what skills you have, you can either create tangible products to be sold from the platform of your blog, or you can use your blog as a means of attracting the attention of people who might need your services. If you are good at some kind of consulting, you can launch a consulting business and use your blog to sell it. If you are good at making jewelry, or baking, you can use your blog to sell it. Alternatively, you might be able to think of new products that can be created that package your expertise in an easily accessible form to be sold. An extremely financially successful example of this concept can be seen in the travel guides that Chris Guillebeau sells on his blog: these guides are summaries of travel tips and pointers that Chris has gained over his years of world travel, and they are sold in ebook form to people who visit his website.

3. Use your blog to provide consistent, free, high quality content that is related to your products for people who want more guidance.

Though I make some money from advertising on this blog, by far the most financially successful venture attached to this blog is my consulting business. People read my site and get some general advice for running their blogs, and when they want more specialized attention they hire me to consult them. The same thing works for people who want to sell ebooks or other products as offshoots for their blogs; if you want to sell baked goods, post a recipe for cupcakes and link to your etsy page, and if you want to sell jewelry, feature pictures of your latest styles and how you made them, and give your readers a way of purchasing. The blog allows you to soft sell to your readership without bothering them, because people who don’t want to buy anything from you never have to get involved, and the people who do come to you are usually ready to give you money.

"How To Generate Ideas For Alternative Revenue Streams From Your Blog" was written by Anna Viele for ABDPBT Personal Finance and was originally posted on April 25, 2011. Copyright ®2011 Anna Viele for ABDPBT, Inc. and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0. All other rights reserved.