Christopher Jan Benitez
When you’re at a family gathering, it’s normal for one of your older relatives to ask you what you do for a living. When you say that you’re a blogger, they either give you a confused look and just walk away, or they ask you what a blogger does. Once you try to explain them that you publish content on your blog and use different monetization tactics for profit, they’d end up giving you a confused look and walking away as well.
Even if you did try to take the easy way out and say that you’re a writer, they’ll be asking what newspapers are you writing for or what book are you working on.
While it’s not really their fault if they can’t comprehend what a blogger does, you still owe it to me to explain what you do for a living in an explanation they can understand. After all, blogging is about communicating thoughts and ideas in the most digestible way possible to your audience. If you can’t explain blogging to an old person, then you’re probably not doing your job as a blogger.
If you find yourself attending family gatherings, here are ways that you can explain to old people how blogging works.
You’re like a publishing company in and of itself
Since blogging is similar to writing because both entail the creation of content for publishing, you can expand this further by drawing similarities of blogging with an actual publishing company. Not only do you write content to be published on your blog, but you also find ways on how to make money with your blog earn by applying different methods and do the marketing yourself. In other words, you oversee the whole publication process involved in blogging.
A blog is like real estate
The biggest challenge that you will need to explain to old people is what a blog is. This will become much harder if they are not familiar with the concept of internet.
To make the concept of a blog much more relatable, you need to ground it using a similar concept that is most understood by people. A great comparison is real estate. The job of a real estate agent is to increase the value of the property so they can sell it to a buyer. It is up to the agent on how to make the property much more appealing to its target market to compel each one of them to make the purchase.
While bloggers may or may not sell the blog once they’ve built it by following the best blogging practices, they nonetheless share the principles espoused by real estate agents with the properties they’re selling.
One thing to point out in blogging is that a blog takes time to develop. Unlike a property which has an existing value that increases in the hands of a right agent, a blogger needs to pull out all stops when building a newly established blog from the ground up.
“Depending on how you are planning to manage your blog, you will need to consider the amount of time the work will require,” according to First Site Guide’s The Beginner’s Guide to Successful Blogging. “Perhaps your blog is your online journal, and you’ll write a few paragraphs or articles a week. Or you might want to take it serious and update your content on a daily bases. It will take time to establish your web presence. Be prepared to wait, make the effort and be consistent.”
It is up to bloggers to develop the web design and content before applying the most appropriate marketing and promotions techniques. If these things are observed, bloggers can expect increase blog traffic and higher ROI, both of which are key indicators that a blog is gaining value in the market.
Blogging is investing
Bloggers can be more than just publishers. They can play the blogging game by owning multiple blogs to build and develop over time. Once they have maximized the value of each blog site, they have the choice of using the blogs to earn passive income from online ads, use it as platforms to sell their products and services, and sell them for the right amount.
This approach to blogging draws similarities to investing in startups or properties. Investors oversee how their properties are developed over time and make sound investment moves from what they see.
Final thoughts: By familiarizing the blogging profession by grounding it using common examples that old people can relate to, you make the family gathering much less awkward and fulfill your blogging job of effectively communicating your ideas.
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