Some months ago I wrote an article here based off a question one of my friends asked me. He asked me “what are you getting out of making videos?” I responded “I like it.” Actually he never heard or saw that response, as I did a video first, then wrote the post.
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In the last few weeks I’ve started thinking about this in a different way after having a Hangout conversation with my friend Joanne DelBalso. We were talking about business in general and she asked me what my intention was for blogging. She further explained she wanted to know what my purpose was, or what I was hoping to get out of it. Finally, she wanted to know if I had expressed that purpose anywhere, if I even knew what it was.
Of course I’ve known since late 2008 what I wanted the purpose of this blog to be. Okay, it has many purposes, but the main purpose is to get organizations to request me to come speak to them, and get paid for it. My long term ambition is to be a professional speaker and presenter. At this point I’ve spoken in 8 states but I haven’t given a presentation outside of my own area in 4 years now.
I had to think about it a bit to see if, at least on this blog, I had indicated that anywhere. I looked at my About page and realized that I had linked to a bio on my business page but never mentioned speaking. I looked at my contact page but there’s nothing on that page about it. It seems the last time I even mentioned it on this blog was on June 16th, 2010, on a post talking about social media strategies. Wow!
You can imagine how disconcerting that was to discover. How is anyone supposed to know what my intention, purpose and reason is for writing this blog if I don’t mention it anywhere? Heck, I didn’t even mention it on my focus post at the beginning of the year, nor put it into the video I recorded about the same subject; Oy!
All of us hate selling so much… at least directly. We also have this thing in our heads where we believe that self promotion is a bad thing. I’ve worked hard on breaking both of these because I’m self employed, and if I don’t promote or market I won’t get business, will starve, my wife will leave me and the dog won’t come home (I don’t have a dog; see? lol) and I’ll be forced to get a grocery cart to push my stuff in and eat in shelters because I won’t have enough money to put gas in my car (which is paid off; whew!) to stay warm.
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By the time you read this I’ll have fixed that About page and added a little something to my contact page, but now it’s time to ask all of you if you’ve stated the reasons for your blogs somewhere? I’ll pick on my buddies Brian Hawkins, Adrienne Smith and Peter Pellicca, aka Sire for a quick moment. 🙂
A true intention for all of them is to make money in some way. Brian kind of hides it in the middle of a very long paragraph on his About page, but it’s there. Peter talks about it early on, saying that once he learned he could make money blogging and had passion for writing he was hooked. Adrienne doesn’t specifically say she blogs to make money, but she does mention her intention well by telling us she makes money via affiliate marketing and consulting others on how to create a presence online.
It behooves all of us to have a stated intention, especially if you’re kind of like me and you’re not writing a niche blog. Even with a niche blog, you should want your visitors to know whether you’re talking about something because you like it or because you’re hoping it works out in bringing you business in some fashion, whether through consulting or selling products or getting hired to do some work for them.
And… well… I guess you should mention it more than once every 3 1/2 years. 😉
Hey Mitch,
Ouch is right my friend and that’s surprising if you knew from back in 2008 what you wanted to achieve with this blog then why was it not at least mentioned on your about page?
Now I know that over the years for me my direction has changed. I’ve tried to “find my place” online and what I enjoyed doing the most so I’ve rewritten my about page to reflect that every time I’ve gone from one thing or the other.
I’ve actually been doing affiliate marketing all these years but back and worth with different network marketing opportunities thinking that would benefit me more financially. I got talked into them to be honest with you but I finally have learned it’s not the place for me.
I also didn’t really want to do consulting but so many people were kind of begging me to so it’s ended up working out really well I must admit.
But as you mentioned, I do have those listed on my blog on my about page and I have a “Hire Adrienne” page which mentions my services. My main goal though is to finish my product and promote that through my blog as well. From there we’ll see where that takes me.
Hope that answered your question and I don’t mind being picked on as long as it’s you! 😉
~Adrienne
Adrienne, you probably charge too little for your consulting services, which would make you hate it. At least that’s how I used to feel until I raised my rates. 🙂
As for the other, you know sometimes it takes a conversation with someone else on a different topic to get you thinking about other stuff. One of those things is that I really don’t advertise myself all that much, and I need to. Just don’t want to overdo it at the same time, as I’m sure you understand. And thanks for letting me use you as the “good example” 🙂
Used to maintain and write on 30 blogs, different niche. Obvious the main reason was this insanity of mine was making money online. Other main reason is that I enjoy it. Right now, I just write blog posts and articles on my own website. It seems that concentrating on one project actually bring more financial benefits that spreading efforts on 30 websites.
Not only that Carl, but I bet you feel better and calmer at the same time. I notice the quality of your comments are better also. And it seems that a lot of those websites you were writing for have disappeared; lots of them turned up as broken links when I ran this program and I ended up having to delete lots of them.
It is much better this way. Actually excepts WebmaisterPro, I doubt that I have ever used any of my websites commenting at Imjustsharing, mostly links by customers of mine.
My About Me page says this:- “I will be 71 years old in June 2014. I am a retired Management Professional with a need to write to stay sane. I use this blog as a vehicle to write about whatever occurs to me. I hope to receive a lot of comments which will help me along the way to nirvana.”
That works well for you Ramana, since you’re not looking for work. However, I’m thinking you should add something about constantly learning and tweaking, or something like that. lol
Hey Mitch, when I first started blogging it was for SEO purposes because I read somewhere that Google love sites that were continually updated. That being the case I started my first blog on the same domain as my static website.
From there I developed a love for blogging. Especially when I found you can make money from it. I don’t promote myself on any of my pages because I have nothing to promote. Although I do sell my services for setting up blogs for people. Actually I give the service for free as long as they use my hosting affiliate and stuff.
I know the hosting and stuff continually pays whereas creating the blogs is a one time thing. 🙂 Was your first blog BlogSire?
Nope, it was WellBlogMe. At the time I thought it was a pretty cool name 😀 Blogsire was my second blog.
I don’t think I ever saw WellBlogMe. Still, I think we met before that online.
The message of the picture said it all. It is what I am thinking actually. Your true intention should be clear. If you are selling on your blog or not, tell them. Your about page is always there whenever you wanted to update it if good things come your way. I think I will not share mine. 😀 I have to improve it a lot. The comments were helpful to me.
Which picture Metz? There are two of them. lol Most of us probably need to improve a lot; I have more About pages to eventually get to.
Because I am Batman!
Just kidding 😉 I just wanted to say that in one of my comments 😀
Anyways, I blog because I love it.
I started blogging as a hobby, but now I am more serious about it.
The reason why I blog (now) is to learn. I do plan to pursue a career in business (along with my other interests :D), and blogging is my first venture.
Honestly, blogging has changed my life…opened a new world for me (in a literal sense…plus, it also helped me to appreciate my life more).
My ultimate goal is of course to help people (how I want to do it…well, I have 2 or 3 different paths – I haven’t chosen which one I should go for. I am leaving that to the world, or fate or whatever you want to call it).
Great stuff Jeevan. I think you’re going to do well. I have to admit a little bit of jealousy because I wish I’d been in my 20’s when I started blogging instead of my 40’s. You’re going to do well because you have lots of time; I wish I had as much.
Hi Mitch,
It’s been awhile since I was here! My purpose for blogging is credibility. The secondary purpose is to sell my services. It’s funny, but it took me five years to figure out that a blogger blog was not going to cut it for me. Once I hosted a WP blog on my domain my results skyrocketed. You’d think I would have figured that out sooner. Ha. Oh well. At least I finally caught on.
It’s interesting that you say you want to attract speaking gigs. I’ll be checking back to see if your results improve now that you’ve added that copy to your about page. Good luck Mitch!
Suzanne
Welcome back Suzanne. I’m not sure that’ll get it but it’s one reason why I integrate my videos into some of my posts, in hopes that maybe someone will decide to watch a video (fat chance lol) and say “hey, this guy might not be so bad”, although I tend to believe my live speaking is way better than anything I’ll ever do on a video.
Mitch, the timing of your blog post fits me perfectly. I’ve just started a new blog and social strategy this year. It was important for me to explain why I am running my blog and what I hope to get out of it. I too think that writing a good about page of sorts is very worthwhile and it’s best to revisit it annually. You can even set goals on this information page that way your viewers might see the connection or relationship between your content and your objectives.
Glad my timing worked well for you Tom. It’s funny when these epiphanies hit you and you wonder why you weren’t thinking that way all the time. You’re right, as times change we should probably change those pages as well. I wish you great luck with your blog.
The main reason for me Is to Develop an online presence. The other reason is to make money online. According to me, making an online presence is little bit difficult because there are so many big bloggers doing really a hard work to attract audience to their blog.
Aman, it’s hard if your goal is to make money via affiliate marketing. I wrote a piece probably a year ago telling people how most folks really make money via blogging, if you want to try to find it.
Hi Mitch,
I have to fix my “about me page too” because as we grow and change, we need to sell ourselves.
I used to be quite shy about “hire me” kinds of things on my blog and especially about me but the longer I blog, the more people I do consult, the more I value my time.
It’s funny that you didn’t include your most important thing of all….speaking! I think it happens to many of us.
Thanks for the reminder Mitch because I see on some of my social sites that its such a mess. Now, I received my own call to action: Write a wonderful about me and copy and paste it to all the sites I’m on.
No excuses!
-Donna
Glad I helped spark that one in you Donna. We always seem to miss the small things in the quest to get out something new and to change ourselves don’t we? Gotta market better right? 🙂
As I was writing my media kit for my community site, Shorty: Your Chicago South Side Resource, I had to re-think everything. When I first started the site the goal was to share community resources, which I still do. However, now that I want to get paid, I have to change the pitch.
I can confidently say that my goal for Shorty is to get paid for making the South Side look great, which is possible. I just have to change my message and include a business model to make it happen.
When you do that Marcie, do you think you’ll have the opportunity to make money via advertisers or products geared towards those who enjoy reading about what you’ll be writing on?
I have a childhood fascination of becoming an author and so blogging was like a breakthrough for me to get a great experience of writing. I loved to share and help people especially when they needed motivation.
Charmie, your site seems to have content that fits that. Maybe it’ll make a good book one day right? 🙂