If you have been on the blogging scene for a while, you know that blogging changed the online world quite a bit. This happened long before COVID hit the world, but I daresay that blogging in a COVID world brought even more changes to the blogosphere.
It used to be that people saw bloggers as a sort of joke. Mostly because blogging really did not bring everyone the money they needed. And, to be honest, blogging really became a mom side gig, where moms tried to earn a few dollars while they raised their kids.
Usually, moms earned money another way and then blogged in their late night or early morning hours to earn some extra money. The few moms that really made money, did well, then told everyone how lazy they were…
As a special needs mom, I dropped the emails of most of those people, because honestly, they didn’t have a clue. Then, I wondered if they really were making a living from blogging anyway. I mean, I wasn’t. Did they say that because they thought they were lazy? 😉
But, I didn’t have time to chase their sales marketing rabbit trails. I spent most of my time raising and caring for my special needs son FULL TIME. So, anything I did on the side to earn money could not be a high priority. And, since my son got me up in the night, every night, I knew laziness was not my problem.
So, yes, I asked tons of questions, read plenty of blogs and books on the side, and then realized that probably there were far more liars in the mom blogger world, and since they spent TONS of money (obviously), then perhaps there was the justice in it all.
So, I refused to buy their course anymore, and I spent my money raising a family and blogging on the side, FOR FREE. Yep, for years I did this. Why? Because I did not have the money to invest in something that would cost me more money than I put into it.
So, is it Marketing or Writing?
While many people believe that we bloggers got this confused. I promise we didn’t. Some people found themselves needing money and tried the marketing get-rich-quick scheme. While it probably landed them a few sales, I cannot say if it created an income for them.
Obviously, I am not much of a marketer. In fact, when you receive emails from me, it usually comes in the form of a newsletter. Why? I launched my blog for two reasons—to write and to help others. If I made a ton of money from it, I would be thrilled.
Sure, I need and want to make money, but if I don’t help you or make your life better, then, well, I do become a marketer. Will I offer you something to buy? Sure, I wrote a couple of books and created some teaching units for kids. I cannot promise you that I have all the answers about anything.
The long and short of it is that the purpose of a blog remains with the author. Some blogs, like mine, fall in the writing category, while others fall into marketing.
The truth about blogging
So, while you know that blogging includes writing, the full gamut of blogging also includes the technological skills to run a blog, creating images and graphics, as well as social media. Sure, you collect email addresses, but this helps your readers keep in touch, and yes, it does open the door to sending out an occasional sales email.
Do you need to know how to write? Yep. This simply goes without saying.
Is the technology really difficult? If you start with Blogger, then no. They make it super easy. But, if you launch into the world of WordPress, the setup is quite different.
I would list the use of WordPress on a mild to medium scale, especially if you are not very technical. But, you don’t need to learn coding, and most everything today on the Gutenberg platform uses blocks to add or delete. But, then there are the times you need to add in code from a website to display a button or an ad. Or, the black hat hackers get into your website dashboard.
Finally, you add social media and email to your list of skills. This is where any marketing you do enters into the blogging picture. Creating sales pages and an online store makes you more of a business than just a blog. That doesn’t mean that all you do is write to sell something.
Read more here about what blogging is.
What marketing is
The skinny, as we know it, is that marketing is simply advertising. Some people intentionally set up blogs or sales pages to sell something. They write the sales page to grab your interest and convince you to buy from them.
Then, once they sell you something, they offer you other items to purchase. If you really like their products, you happily buy from them. But, if you really are not sold on the idea, then marketing emails and online ads become an annoyance.
Some bloggers dip into marketing, but they still mostly blog and write. Yet, still others blog minimally or own a website specifically designed for marketing.
In short, blogging is really writing
Think about it, when you read a blog, what do you go there for? Is it to learn? Or, do you enjoy someone’s ideas about life? And how about their just awesome skills?
You see, when we blog, we write content to share with you, as bloggers. We usually write about a few categories shown in our menu at the top of our blogs, but we add in a few personal posts as well.
The goal of a blogger is to write well and to engage our readers with our content.
So is it marketing or writing?
Well, generally marketing may occur on a small scale, but generally, blogging really falls into the writing category. Sure, you might run across an ad for one of our personal products on social media, but that is only an ad. Click on our blog, and you find out that we have plenty of content to share for free!
Truth be told, a blog shares ALOT of free content. In fact, creating a solid blog means writing HUNDREDS of blog posts. As I said, blogging may include a bit of technology and marketing on the side, but writing good, solid, amazing content in your blog genre makes the blog itself.
