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Internet 2007: Where The Remarkable Get Rich And The Boring Die Broke
Welcome to the new media generation baby. Where Lonelygirl15 is the pin-up model and deciding what’s “right” or “wrong” has been replaced by voting whether to “digg” or “bury”.
Spending time paying your dues and doing the hard hours to build success and riches is a thing of the past when you can achieve overnight fame thanks to MySpace and YouTube.
Nobody needs a record company taking half of your money anymore when you can independently offer your album as a “pay what you want” download and still make millions of dollars.
The best part is that you no longer need to find a publisher to print your memoirs when you can start a blog in an hour.
Become a trafficbait-aholic.
Linkbait is for newbies, but creating blog content that attracts over 10,000 more hits than usual in the first two hours after it’s published - that’s trafficbait baby!
But in the blogging world, trafficbait is a dirty word that meets with mixed reactions, the most popular being (in no particular order):
- This is stupid
- Nice PR stunt
- Great marketing
- This will hurt your credibility
Surprisingly, they’re all wrong!
Trafficbait is by no means stupid as anybody who has ever struggled to create content that gets noticed by social media networks will tell you just how hard it is to create.
PR and marketing? I don’t think so! Those two terms are the most overused in the current “make money online blogosphere” and they’re also the most incorrectly used. There’s no “marketing” or “brand building” about trafficbait.
Trafficbait - in whatever form it takes - is purely about being remarkable and being noticed. Let’s face it, if you’re boring and unnoticed then you’ve got nothing to “brand” or market” in the first place. There weren’t any product placements in Lonelygirl15 until after the bait was well established.
And “this will hurt your credibility”…..
oh boy….
get ready for it…
Blogs don’t have credibility
If somebody wants to show me a reputable academic journal that references a blog or YouTube video as a reliable source, I’ll take that back but as it stands now you’ll rarely see a blog referenced as a source of information in even the trashiest of newspapers.
Are they informative? Yes. Entertaining? Of course. Credible? Not in this lifetime!
The only people who reference blogs as being reliable sources of information are other bloggers which gives blogs the same amount of credibility as a madman screaming on a street corner.
The only other people who will reference and talk about him are other people on the street!
Making money in the new media world
Where does it all leave us? If you’re remarkable enough then you can realistically find overnight success yet the online world you’ll be successful in lacks credibility and it’s integrity is open to the highest bidder.
Sounds a lot like Hollywood.
And in Hollywood, writers exploit the system to make a lot of money (when they’re not on strike).
After this article I received no less then 7 (yes, seven) e-mails asking me if I could be hired to write trafficbait for other sites.
It’s a remarkable new generation. It’s a generation where remarkable content will make remarkable money.
You better get remarkable.
Rich people subscribe to Cash Quests
That was, dare I say it, a remarkable post
However I do have to disagree that mainstream media doesn’t link back to blogs. I was lucky enough to get some link love from a mainstream UK publication recently. Sure the academic journals won’t link to a blog but who reads them anyway?
by Mike - Twenty Steps
haha. you’re a good writer. very natural and entertaining. I wonder if your background is in writing. english lit? screenwriting? journalism? anyway nice little bloggers manifesto.
i totally agree. when i was younger i hated so called sell outs but when you think about it. everybody is a whore to the dollar. there is no such like as a noble deed.
writers, artists, performers all sell out. you have to. how are you gonna pay for the bmw and the downtown loft?
good point that you pointed out the bloggers bullsh*t. “this hurts your reputation, i lost respect for you” first of all is blogging really a respectable profession? Not really. Its great but we’re not saving lives or curing sh*t. We’re geeks and if you’re good then you have an audience of other geeks.
anyway this is way to long for a comment. i should be posting this on my blog instead. maybe i can make 50 cents.
by bloggernoob
No doubt being an online money maker, you will probably consider doing those trafficbait jobs but then it goes back to why write those content for other sites when you can write it yourself for CQ and keep all the quality posts dedicated to your own set of readers.
Although you could always attract readers from other blogs and draw them here by doing so. Whats the hiring rate they offering you and would you take it?!
by Steven
It really depends on what your blog is to you, and what your goals with it are. I also believe you have a very diffused perception of the term credibility actually means.
Credibility isn’t just an attribute that you can stick to those sources trustworthy enough to be cited in a scientific article. It’s about how you are perceived by those who surround you, and in this specific case those who read a blog that you run. It’s about how you present yourself, and how people perceive you and your values.
I find it hard to see how someone would work with or surround themselves with people whose most important value in life is money. Of course, it does make for good entertainment, which is above all why I’m reading your blog at this point
It’s amusing to see how far you’re willing to go to make an extra dollar, and as always determination goes a long way towards success!
On a completely different note, sometimes I have to wonder if you actually believe all these things that you preach to your readers? Or perhaps your view, as you said, is that you’re operating within an online Hollywood, and you’ve just pinpointed an act (or a formula if you wish) for attention which works for you?
I doubt I’ll ever know, but I’ll continue to drop by for entertainment, that’s for sure - so keep at it!
by Lars-Christian
what current sites r creating “traffic bait”, i want to know?
by johnCard
Good article, way to use the “google admin area” post to drive home your point.
by A Blog about Nothing
You have a fair point about creditability, or the lack thereof , it is something you can use to your advantage . The mysterious end of the blogging area, making people wonder how do you know all that you know. Are you talking through your a$$ or from a position of real power.
by ProBlogger.US
The tone of this article suggests that the *only* way to succeed these days is to attract huge attention in ways like this. That’s one way, not the only way.
There are many ways to write a blog, many ways to run a business, many ways to provide value to other people and get paid for it. Not everybody has to be a traffic-baiting loudmouth in order to succeed.
by Caroline Middlebrook
I think that you’ll need to be a super star or a star blogger to make real cash online
For example, there’s this star blogger site in Singapore where they have a few ’so called’ star bloggers participating..
by Michael Woo
An interesting post!
Linkbait is really writing about what people want to read. Not what we want them to read or think they should read. It’s about filling their need.
This week one of the posts, on one of my blogs, had over 40,000 hits followed by 23,000+ the following day.
Nothing special in what I wrote, but it was stuff that a lot of people wanted to read - at that specific time.
If there’s a need fill it.
Mike.
by Mike Perry
I agree with you Caroline
by Virtual Lottery
“Blogs don’t have credibility”
Yeah technically speaking that’s pretty much true. Why so? Because blogs are about voicing opinions and what the blogger thinks is good, another person might think it’s trash. Why are newspapers credible? They aren’t opinions, they are facts…
by Ruchir
“Why are newspapers credible? They aren’t opinions, they are facts”
Not all newspapers are the same. Some are better sources than others and hence, some are more credible than others. And who do you think writes newspapers? It’s human beings — there are no facts.
by Angel
[...] CashQuests.com is now at number 13. [...]
by Finally Broke Into the Top 100 | Newest on the Net
It sounds like a question of semantics or are you trying to coin a new buzz phrase.:)
by Stephan Miller