Regular readers know that my mantra for entrepreneurial success is Fill an Unmet Need. A couple of readers have suggested that this might also be the formula for blogging success. I got some confirmation that this might be true from reading the results of an exhaustive survey of 17,000 readers of 50 top political blogs conducted by WebAds. Key findings for this unique category of readers:
What are we to conclude from this data? Here’s my take:
If you use Shirky’s Power Law, you can compute that these 50 political blogs, almost all of which are among the 250 most popular blogs overall, attract about 10% of all blog reader hits — about three million hits per day. But there are an estimated 100 million blog readers worldwide, who between them read 30 million blog posts in a given day, only half of which is directed to the top 250 blogs. And there are a lot more non-blog readers out there Googling to find something that meets their unmet needs. So if you’re one of those bloggers (or prospective bloggers) who defines ‘success’ as a lot of readers, how do you go about finding out what current (and prospective) blog readers’ needs are? I suggest you can do this the same way you identify unmet business needs: by doing focused research and getting creative. Here’s where to look for unmet needs (this is exactly the advice I gave budding and struggling entrepreneurs looking for unmet consumer needs, except I’ve changed the word ‘business’ to ‘blog’ and ‘buy’ to ‘read’):
How do you discover these unmet needs? By talking to people who spend some time online, asking them questions and listening. By reading voraciously. When you find them, make sure they’re needs you can fill: If you discover that people want to know what life in North Korea is really like, there’s no point trying to satisfy that need unless you at least know people who’ve lived there. And you might sometimes discover that the reason for an information void is that the information people are seeking simply doesn’t exist. And here’s a reminder about what, from my own previous research and experience, blog readers want to see more of (each of which implies unmet needs):
How important is it that you have a single theme to your blog, something that will keep readers coming back, and not annoy them with stuff they don’t expect to find on your blog and don’t want to read about? As the owner of the world’s most themeless blog (I’m always at a loss when people ask me what ‘category’ or ‘type’ of blog How to Save the World is), I would suggest it is somewhat important, but not important enough to let it get in the way of your muse. Readers will tell you (by their declining numbers, or lack of comments, or by e-mail) when you’re no longer filling a need. Most blog tools allow you to establish different categories for different blog posts, or even maintain completely separate blogs with no cross-posting, if your subjects have completely different audiences. But what if you don’t care how many readers you have? I would suggest that, in that case, blogging fills an unmet internal need for you personally. Whether that’s the ability to think out loud and clarify your own thoughts, or to keep in touch with a small circle of friends you can’t meet face-to-face as often as you’d like, or to practice your writing skills, or to organize and document your personal filing cabinet or your ‘personal memory’ before information and ideas are lost or misplaced, these are important personal needs (for some of us, anyway) that blogging fills. But you might just find, as I did, that in the process of filling those personal needs, you also fill the unmet needs of others, and your audience becomes surprisingly large. And then, like me, you’ll begin to feel a responsibility to continue to fill that unmet need for your readers. That’s when you know you’re hooked on blogging. And if you quit blogging, as most bloggers do, I’ll bet it’s because either you, or your readers, have found something else that meets your, or their, unmet needs better. Photo from Agence France Presse via the excellent Global Policy Forum, a reminder that for many of us, there are unmet needs more urgent than information, inspiration and entertainment. |
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--- My Best 200 Posts, 2003-22 by category, from newest to oldest ---
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What Will It Take?
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Beyond Belief
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The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
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A Culture Built on Wrong Models
Understanding Conservatives
Our Unique Capacity for Hatred
Not Meant to Govern Each Other
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Amazing What People Get Used To
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The Dawn of Everything
Species Shame
Why Misinformation Doesn't Work
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The Right to Die
CoVid-19: Go for Zero
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Ask Yourself This
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No Use to the World Broken
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Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
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No Noble Savages
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If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
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Amazingly the last 10% of your usual fine writings were 90% correct for me. I do enjoy writing blogs immensely. I have absolutely no theme and I don’t care how many readers I don’t have.best regards,
Same here. Except I’d place both percentages higher. It is the interaction, the sparking of new ideas, and the you-rocked-my-boat-again of blogging which charms me to the toes. And, may just help us all to survive (especially our decendents). Here’s hoping. :)