Category: Blogging

As blogging becomes more entrenched over time, there has arisen a number of ways that people are going about doing things. Some people have gone into social media consulting. Others are doing freelancing for print publications. Some are are trying to make money selling courses and ebooks.

There are certainly many different ways to go about monetizing and working your blog as a business. However, as the options available increases it is becoming more important to know what you are not about as much as you know what you are going to do.

It is all a matter of focus.

There is nothing wrong with any of the options I listed above, but each one has an opportunity cost in terms of what you are NOT doing. You can’t do everything and even if you could, you’d still want to focus on whatever derived the biggest benefit and stop doing things which didn’t have a big payoff.

I’ve spent the last few months trying to focus and cut back on what I do. This exercise has been primarily one of figuring out what I’m not going to be doing. Here are some of the things I’ve decided to not focus on:

• I am not a consultant. I put a lot of thought into how I can use social media. I have no idea how a tourism board or a hotel should use social media. If you aren’t a photographer traveling around the world, I’m not sure if I can help you. Moreover, having run a consulting firm in the 90’s, it isn’t something I ever want to do again.
• I am not a social media/blogging/personal growth/entrepreneurship guru. Despite occasionally sharing things on this site, I don’t want to get into the business of telling people how to live their life. I’m not comfortable in that role and I don’t think I have the stomach for it. I tried helping some bloggers in the past, but most of my advice is ignored or they end up just copying what I do and trying to compete with me. Either way it isn’t worth my time. I also am not going to create an ebook or course telling people how to create a travel blog.
• I’m not a spokesman for travel blogging. I don’t want to be the guy who does presentations to the greater travel industry about blogging. I don’t want to serve in any sort of official capacity for any blogger/writer/photographer organization. I’ve quit all the travel blogging forums I was a member of in 2012 just so I could remove the distraction and focus.
• I am not a freelancer. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with freelancing. In fact, if you are starting out I think it is a great way to bring in money. However, I’m not sure that writing for other publications will do anything for me in terms of building my site. There are some benefits to strategic guest posting, but that isn’t really a moentization scheme. I would actually consider doing some selective freelance articles for magazines/newspapers, but it would be more to build social proof than it would be a career choice. It would basically be glorified guest posting. I’m also not going to go out of my way to get photography gigs either, but if someone wants to run a photo I’ve already taken, I’m open to it.

Once I’ve whittled away everything I don’t want to do, what I do want to do becomes much clearer. I want to focus on what got me into this business to begin with.

I want to focus on my readers and focus on creating content. Not just writing posts and taking photos but also expanding into other areas as well: books, video and podcasting.

For the record, there is nothing wrong with any of the things I’ve decided not to do. They just aren’t the things want I want to do.

No matter what you want to focus on, you have to explicitly know what business opportunities you are going to avoid in order to excel at what you choose.

I’ve been blogging long enough that I’ve tried almost everything. Not surprisingly, most things have failed. Some however, have succeeded. Here is a list of things I’ve learned the hard way. I hope you can learn something from my experiences:

AVOID Blogging Contests

A few times a month some company launches a “contest” where bloggers have to post something to have a chance of winning some prize. These are totally absurd and should be avoided by all bloggers. The odds of winning are miniscule and the company running the contest gets links from hundreds of bloggers for very little cost. If you are going to write a post promoting someone, at least get paid.

NEVER Take Part In Online ‘Awards’ That Involve Voting

These too are just scams to increase pageviews by whoever is hosting the award. Actually, it is wrong to call them awards because they aren’t awards are all. Awards are awarded. These are nothing more than contests. They aren’t even popularity contests because they tend to attract people who are desperate more than popular. You only have so much social capital you can spend on your audience. Why waste it on meaningless contests??

DO NOT Autofollow People Who Follow You

I used to do this on Twitter. I saw the Robert Scoble’s and Guy Kawasaki’s of the world do this and figured that is just how you do things on Twitter. Two years ago I actually attempted to look at the Twitter stream of people who I followed and it was incomprehensible. An endless stream of crap. I made the decision to unfollow everyone and start from scratch, just following people who I was interested in listening to. I lost about 30,000 ‘followers’ and was better off for it. Since I did that I gained back all 30,000 and plus about 10,000 more. Autofollowing crappy accounts wasn’t necessary at all. Don’t worry about taking a hit in the number of followers, because anyone that unfollows you weren’t really paying attention anyhow.

DO Experiment

Every bad thing I mentioned here came from me experimenting. As in science, most experiments fail. However, you can learn some very valuable things if you are willing to see what works. The trick is to be willing to abandon ideas which don’t work quickly. Don’t get attached to any idea unless you have some data to back it up.

DO Put Effort Into Improving Your Craft

When I began traveling I knew nothing about photography. I can’t express just how ignorant I was. I didn’t know what ISO meant. I began a methodological effort to improve the quality of my photography. As the quality of my images has improved, most people view them and share them. You need to start with an honest assessment of your abilities and then seek to improve in every area. It doesn’t matter if it is photography, writing or interviewing.

REMOVE Distractions

I found myself engaging in many things which were doing nothing for me. Attending meaningless conferences and getting into arguments online about blogging were two big ones. Now I try to think if something is going to actually do anything for me before I commit to something. I can only do so much, so I want to make sure that what I do advances the cause.

I’ve just completed a week at World Travel Market in London. This was my second year attending and I’m not sure if I’ll be coming back for a third time.

It actually had nothing to do with the quality of the conference. I enjoyed myself and had fun meeting other bloggers who I seldom get to see. The problem is that it was a week taken out of my life and I’m not sure I got a week’s worth of value from it.

World Travel Market is a big event. Technically, it isn’t really a conference so much as it is a trade show. No one is there to meet with bloggers and the vast majority of the journalists who are there are there to cover the show and the announcements which are being made. Because the show isn’t oriented towards people like me, finding the right people to meet with is like searching for a pistachio nut in a big full of shells. If they created some sort of tool to get interested people in touch with each other, it might make the show more worth while.

That being said, I did have several productive meetings, but they all could have been done in the space of a single day.

It brings up the larger question of just how many and which conferences I should attend in a given year. In 2012 so far I’ve I’ve been to events on 5 continents. I was a speaker at all but one.

The novelty of speaking at conferences has worn off for me. I don’t want to be the face of travel blogging to the travel industry. There are only so many places I can visit in a year and we’ve already created a sizable database of PR/marketing people for destinations around the world.

The opportunity cost of not creating content is getting larger and larger for me as my audience gets bigger and bigger.

Several conferences which I have been very pleased at attending in the past (Canadian Media Marketplace for example) I still might not attend going forward just because there isn’t much left for me to do there.

Here is what I’m thinking will be the events I’ll be attending in 2013. This is of course subject to change.

• New Media Expo, Las Vegas – January 6-8
• ITB, Berlin – March 6-10
• TBEX, Toronto – June 1-2
• TBEX, Dublin – October

I’m sure a few other opportunities will come up, but unless it is something special I’m not sure I’d accept an invitation.

This is all part of a larger movement on my part to cut away everything which doesn’t matter and doesn’t advance the cause.

Myself and many, many other have gotten sidetracked wasting time worrying about the community and the industry. Those things are not going to get you anywhere. In the end it is audience, audience and audience. Anything which distracts you from that is counterproductive.

This post is probably going to piss a lot of people off.

I considered writing it earlier but have been putting it off until now. This a response to an article written by Alastair McKenzie at Travelllll.com: Why Community is Crucial for Travel Bloggers. Read it now if you haven’t.

I like Alastair and I consider him a friend. I also totally understand where he is coming from. Applauding the benefits of community is like extolling motherhood. Not many people are going to argue with you.

However, I have found the focus on “community” that many bloggers develop is ultimately distracting and counterproductive to what they are trying to do: create a successful blog.

Let me back up a bit.

Last year, immediately after Facebook launched their groups feature I started a group for travel bloggers. The group grew quickly and became the largest group of its kind for the travel blogging community.

Eventually, however, I realized something. I was spending more time on the travel blogger group than I was on my own Facebook page or my own blog.

• I was getting sucked into arguments that didn’t mean anything.
• I was letting myself get agitated over things that shouldn’t have mattered.
• I was answering questions from people who didn’t bother to take 5 seconds to do a Google search to find basic information. They wanted everything handed to them.
• I didn’t know most of the people in the forum. They were part of the “community” but they weren’t my friends. I’ve never spoken to most of these people nor had they ever introduced themselves to me.

None of this was helping me move the chains forward on my own stuff. (that is a euphemism from American football that means making progress).

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of bloggers who have replaced the “community” with making progress on their own site. The spend more time talking to bloggers, commenting on other blogs and talking about blogging than they do actually building and engaging with their audience.

I know many people who are considered respected travel bloggers who seem to mostly engage only with other bloggers and have never built up an audience outside of that community.

Back in March, without any fanfare, I left the travel blog group I created on Facebook and all other blogging forums.

The amazing thing was, no one noticed. I didn’t get a single comment or question about where I was or what was going on.

I was able to take all that time I spent on the “community” and put it back into my own projects. The result was a net positive for me. I got more work done and didn’t have my blood pressure rise every time someone said something stupid.

It isn’t just forums, however. Professional organizations have been about as unproductive. I’m a member of SATW, NATJA and IFWTWA. Has there been any real benefit to being a member? No.

As a blogger I’m not looking for freelance work. The conferences they put on offer very poor professional development, usually on topics that have nothing to do with what I do. I’ve never been contacted by someone in the industry due to my membership. At best they offer discounts on some services, but that is it. (Why am I a member? Good question.)

I have many friends who are bloggers. I like talking to other bloggers and I enjoy answering questions about blogging. I even have attended conferences like TBEX for the last several years.

However, bloggers are not my business. Too many people use community as a substitute for an audience. They start a new blog, get involved in the community and then get sucked into it. Other bloggers are the low hanging fruit to get traffic and comments, so that is where they start and where they stay.

I’m all for community, but not when it gets in the way of what matters.

You aren’t going to make a successful blog by pandering to the community. You needs to reach out and engage with people who don’t have blogs.

I have a big problem. I don’t write nearly as much as I should. This is primarily a result of the amount of traveling I do. It is hard to sit down and write when you are constantly moving.

This month I’m going to be in one spot. That means no moving around and more time to focus on writing and getting things done.

One thing I’m going to try and do this month is to post something beyond my daily photo every single day in October. Podcast, photo essay, article, whatever.

I have some suspicions about what will happen, but I’ll talk about those once the results are in next month.