The Business of Blogging
There's this DIY blog I read each week, not because I have an interest in redoing my entire house but because I am fascinated by the family. Husband and wife are both full-time bloggers and make in the six figures basically recording their homelife. They even wrote a book based on the blog and it was almost instantly a New York Times bestseller.
They have a huge following and get sponsors to give them great loot to give away. They have a no swag policy, meaning they won't take freebies from companies. This is genius because it makes them appear to have a lot of integrity when I suspect it's really because if they buy a product or service and then blog about it, they can deduct it as a business expense.
They moderate up to 10,000 comments a day (I am not kidding). And they love to take pictures of themselves and do Q&A videos where you feel like you are right there in their living room or kitchen. They just did a book tour and people all across the country loved them.
If I wanted to be a better blogger, I'd use them as the model.
For those new to blogging and those who have done it awhile, I wanted to remind you that there are laws in place that you need to adhere to, whether you have a readership of 1 or 1 million.
First and foremost, if you review a product you got for free, you must disclose that. Most of the running blogs I read do a good job of it, either with a disclaimer at the bottom of the post or in the post itself. This is a federal law expressly for bloggers. The legislation was inspired by unethical mommy bloggers and celebrities endorsing products without disclosing a business relationship. But running bloggers need to come clean too.
Second, if you use any type of analytics to track traffic, like Google Analytics or Sitemeter, you gotta disclose that too. I have a button in my sidebar and because transparency is important to me, I let you see the same traffic stats I do. This also is based on an actual law.
Finally, this has nothing to do with disclosures, but if you are inclined to lift liberally from peer-to-peer sites for copyrighted materials, such as videos and songs, be aware a new campaign launched this week informally called Six Strikes. The entertainment industry is teaming with the nation's largest Internet service providers to flag anyone who tries to upload or download pirated copies of music, television shows and movies.
First you'll get a warning you cannot download the file because it is an illegal copy. Keep ignoring the warnings -- which come with a required confirmation receipt -- and by the fifth or sixth warning, your ISP can start throttling your broadband connect until it is rendered useless, but only for 48 hours. There are numerous workarounds, but it might be more prudent to just pony up for legit copies.
They have a huge following and get sponsors to give them great loot to give away. They have a no swag policy, meaning they won't take freebies from companies. This is genius because it makes them appear to have a lot of integrity when I suspect it's really because if they buy a product or service and then blog about it, they can deduct it as a business expense.
They moderate up to 10,000 comments a day (I am not kidding). And they love to take pictures of themselves and do Q&A videos where you feel like you are right there in their living room or kitchen. They just did a book tour and people all across the country loved them.
If I wanted to be a better blogger, I'd use them as the model.
For those new to blogging and those who have done it awhile, I wanted to remind you that there are laws in place that you need to adhere to, whether you have a readership of 1 or 1 million.
First and foremost, if you review a product you got for free, you must disclose that. Most of the running blogs I read do a good job of it, either with a disclaimer at the bottom of the post or in the post itself. This is a federal law expressly for bloggers. The legislation was inspired by unethical mommy bloggers and celebrities endorsing products without disclosing a business relationship. But running bloggers need to come clean too.
Second, if you use any type of analytics to track traffic, like Google Analytics or Sitemeter, you gotta disclose that too. I have a button in my sidebar and because transparency is important to me, I let you see the same traffic stats I do. This also is based on an actual law.
Finally, this has nothing to do with disclosures, but if you are inclined to lift liberally from peer-to-peer sites for copyrighted materials, such as videos and songs, be aware a new campaign launched this week informally called Six Strikes. The entertainment industry is teaming with the nation's largest Internet service providers to flag anyone who tries to upload or download pirated copies of music, television shows and movies.
First you'll get a warning you cannot download the file because it is an illegal copy. Keep ignoring the warnings -- which come with a required confirmation receipt -- and by the fifth or sixth warning, your ISP can start throttling your broadband connect until it is rendered useless, but only for 48 hours. There are numerous workarounds, but it might be more prudent to just pony up for legit copies.
