YOU - A Well Paid Blogger?

Blog search merely finds blogs. Twitter, the first of its kind, finds communities.

Why does this completely and utterly change the game for us online? Glad you asked. Here’s a quick example.

A year ago, my garage needed purging and my wallet needed cash. My friend Frank was ready to help, but something seemed missing. I was new to the Chula Vista, CA area, and I couldn’t help but wonder: “Don’t we need an ad in the newspaper?” Frank felt we didn’t, so I left it alone.

Friday rolled around and I was nervous. I’m way too busy to waste my Saturday morning. Where I come from, a trickle of people show up at your yard sale IF you advertise like mad. “Trust me!” is Frank’s answer to everything.

Saturday morning came and 5AM caught me groggily stacked stuff in the driveway. “Where’s Frank?” my wife asked. “Oh, he’s out there somewhere planting his ten homemade signs.”

At 6AM, people by the carload started showing up. Frank promised he’d written “Sale Starts at 7AM” on each sign. “I expected this,” he offered as he sipped his coffee. “You what?” I was dumbfounded. I found myself shooing people away from the lawn: “Sale doesn’t start ’til 7.”

It was like waving your arms at mosquitoes. Somewhat patiently, they waited at their cars, without any idea of what we were selling. Amazement turned to tension as cars backed up down the block and around the corner. Did I need some kind of checkered flag or starting gun…or bodyguards? Wow!

Seven AM was a barrage of expert hagglers. “How much for that whole box right there?” …While their cohort tugged at me about another box. Four exhausting hours later, it was suddenly over. Four hundred dollars and serious amounts of stuff gone. A record for any garage sale I’d ever had, to be sure.

“What just happened?” I was in awe. How in the world did a handful of signs around the freeway and along some streets get that much attention? Who knew there was such a fervent community of professional garage salers here? Who knew there was such an industrious colony, grabbing items for cheap and flipping them for profit south of the border? Frank knew, and he led me to some very unexpected money here.

What This Means For You And Your Blog:

The rich blogger is a rare breed. The average blogger makes a paltry $200 a year (the Daily News, 3/30/09, p.35). Yet everyone, it seems, is an “expert” at getting rich online. Here’s what the garage sale experience tells me:

You can get ahead in this business. You just have to pay very close attention. Make the effort to know EXACTLY what kind of people drive this freeway we call the internet. Study online communities. Learn what they truly want. Find a niche with enough motivated people and you’ve found a gold mine.

Don’t let someone else tell you the answers. Do your own research. Learn from mistakes of the brightest of blogging consultants. Search engines are powerful, but they’re just too dumb to dump the whole answer in your lap. Too many fine shades of difference here.

What you learn will tell you how to advertise where people are looking…Where they’re actually waiting to see you. Twitter has tons of communities. At first they might look similar. They’re not. Study them carefully! I am.

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