In the summer of 2017 I took The Marketing Seminar online course with Seth Godin. This is an adaptation of a post I wrote in the course forum. It helped clarify my thinking about the purpose of blogging.
For years now there has been a lot of talk about “monetizing your blog.” The thought is that you blog for free for awhile then eventually you start converting all those blog readers into buyers of your products.
Here are some questions to consider:
- What change are you trying to make?
- How can you spend the emotional labor on behalf of the people you want to help?
You don’t monetize a free blog. You create a tool that someone can use to help make the change you wish to see in the world.
The blog is where you built trust. It is there that you can build tension, too.
But you don’t monetize it by slapping a bunch of adds or affiliate links on the site. Even that online course you want to create should be born out of the empathy you have built up with your audience as you write.
Don’t blog with the intention of some day monetizing it.
Write a blog for a very small, specific handful of people.
Help them.
Serve them.
Connect with them then let it spread if others find it valuable.
