But the web is not the same place it was in 2009. Attention and advertising dollars have moved from blogs to social media networks and YouTube. Instagram celebrities rack up follower counts in the millions and make thousands of dollars from endorsements. We watch more videos than we read articles. RSS is on life support, having been supplanted by Twitter. Does it even make sense to start a blog in 2019?

A blog is unlikely to route you to great riches, but that doesn’t mean that a blog can’t make money or that blogging is dead. In fact, it is very much alive.

Why Start a Blog in 2019?

A blog based on a self-hosted application like WordPress or Craft CMS has benefits that social media, YouTube, and other platforms do not. The blogger controls the platform and the content. The audience bloggers build are their audience; they aren’t working to build an audience for a platform like Medium.

It may not seem like platform control is important, but changes to social media networks and publishing platforms have burned creators often enough to make self-hosting the smart choice. Facebook’s decision to prioritize personal posts over pages in the news feed decimated audience engagement. Medium is not so much pivoting as spinning as it searches for a revenue model, forcing dizzy creatives from the platform in droves.

When bloggers control the platform and domain, they can monetize it in a way that suits their audience. They are not beholden to the decisions of a platform whose interests may not align with those of the writers and other creators. They are free to choose their branding, design, application, and hosting provider.

Ownership and control of a publishing platform do not prevent a blogger from using Medium, Facebook, or any other tool. Instead of being the primary channel, they become secondary distribution channels, funneling traffic to the blogger’s site.

While all of that sounds good, freedom from social media and traditional publishing platforms is worthless if bloggers cannot turn their work into money.

Making Money from Blogging in 2019

Display advertising is the traditional way to make money from blogging. The blogger finds a niche, creates some high-quality content, sprinkles on a few AdWords units, and waits for the money to come rolling in. 

In reality, it has never been that easy, but, in 2019, the chances of making a living from display advertising are slim. CPM rates — the amount advertising networks pay for a thousand clicks on an ad — are so low that bloggers need millions of views to make a reasonable living.

If display advertising is not an option, than what is?

Sponsorships

Sponsorships are a valuable marketing opportunity for businesses that want to reach a niche audience. Sponsorships typically take the form of a bundle of promotional content that might include a blog post, advertising in the blog’s RSS feed, and promotion via its social media channels.

MacStories and Daring Fireball, both Apple-related blogs, use this approach. The blogs are focused on a lucrative niche and have built a large audience that advertisers want to reach.

Daring Fireball sponsorship costs $8,000 per week, for which sponsors get a display ad on every page, a sponsored post, a follow-up post at the end of the week, and social media promotion. There is only one sponsor per week.

Daring Fireball’s audience is large: 2.5 million views a month. That’s not an impossible goal. For bloggers who can live with monthly revenues below $32,000, Daring Fireball-sized audiences aren’t necessary to make a sustainable income.

Affiliate Marketing

Many online retailers and service providers run affiliate marketing programs. Bloggers can add product links to their pages, and, when someone clicks on the link and buys something, the blogger gets a percentage of the sale price. Amazon’s affiliate program pays the bills of thousands of bloggers. Review sites like Tools & Toys rely on revenue from Amazon’s affiliate program.

Apple was once a favorite revenue source for bloggers in the technology niche. But last year the company announced that apps and in-app purchases would be removed from its affiliate program, devastating the Apple blog ecosystem. Bloggers should not put all their eggs in one basket; it’s better to take advantage of a variety of revenue streams.

Premium Content

A blog can be an excellent promotional platform for premium content. There are several different revenue models based on premium content, which might take the form of paywalled articles, ebooks, or newsletters.

• Blog and premium newsletter. Stratechery is the blog of technology analyst Ben Thompson. Content published on the blog is free, but Thompson also sells subscriptions to “The Daily Update,” a thrice-weekly, in-depth newsletter. Newsletter subscriptions are $10 per month, and it’s estimated that Stratechery generates around $200,000 per year.
• Blog and educational courses. Shawn Blanc is the master of diversifying income from online content, but here I want to highlight the way he built an audience with his personal blog before leveraging that audience to sell premium educational courses such as The Focus Course (which has its own blog) and All The Things.
• Blog and ebooks. David Sparks is a lawyer with a sideline in podcasting and ebook publishing. Sparks’ blog and podcasts serve as a marketing hub for premium content aimed at the same audience. The MacSparky ebook range covers Apple-related topics like 60 Mac Tips, the Hazel Field Guide, and the Siri ShortCuts Field Guide.

In 2019, a blog that relies on display advertising is unlikely to generate a sustainable income, but blogs are one of the best platforms for building an engaged audience that attracts sponsorships, follows affiliate links, and buys premium content.

A blog is also the best way to control your content. Social media networks grow, change, and die. VC-backed publisher platforms are expected to make money eventually, and no one who publishes on their platform has a seat in the boardroom. 

A self-hosted blog, however, is yours forever. You get to choose what it looks like, how it is monetized, and where it is hosted.

The post Can You Still Make Money Blogging in 2019? appeared first on SiteProNews.

In this article, we’ve provided you with 10 essential tips on how you can improve your company’s social media strategy. Implement each tip with careful analytical research and you will see success almost instantly. 

1. Not all networks are the same

Presence on multiple channels is always recommended, but you have to respect the unwritten rules of each network. For example, Facebook is mostly used to strengthen customer-brand relationships and generate leads. 

Instagram can help you create hype for new products, updates or anything else that involves visual marketing. Before you devise a social media strategy, you should explore the current trends involving each network and model your campaigns around them. 

2. Have a pre-designed content plan

The best form of free marketing on all social media platform is organic content. Create blog posts centered around your brand or related topics. 

It’s excruciating to write new content around the clock, so we advise you to make use of online writing tools. NinjaEssays and Best Term Paper are two of many writing tools that can help you get custom written, original content for your company’s social media. 

3. Have defined goals

Whether it’s content, interaction or something else – you have to have a plan. Not only will this lessen the workload for your entire team, but you will also get evaluations of your ideas. 

By defining a deadline and setting goals, you will see if a strategy is viable or not. It’s also advised that you separate big goals into smaller ones, for easier workload distribution.  

4. Know who your audience is

You cannot target everyone and hope someone sticks with your brand. Identify your brand and the services you provide. Think of the ideal customer and what approach would be ideal for him or her. 

Come up with a strategy that targets just one or two types of customers. Effective targeting gives you better results in both organic campaigns and PPC ads on all social media platforms.

5. Be ready to adjust

There is nothing more important than having a plan B. No matter how much research you do and how devoted you are, things might not work out. 

For content promotion, it’s essential that you know how to prepare second options if your primary campaign doesn’t work. To be absolutely sure, you can adjust your content using A/B testing, mainly for Instagram and Facebook. 

6. Use tools for scheduling and automation

We’ve come a long way from manually posting content. Conduct research and figure out the best times to post each type of content. 

After you’re done scheduling, you can rely on tools such as BuzzSumo, Sprout Social or Hootsuite to post batches of content all at once. Using tools doesn’t only save time, but it also gives you an extra layer of security if something goes wrong. Your content will be posted, no matter what. 

7. Be more human

Nobody wants to receive automated responses and generic comments. Interact with your followers. Like their comments, joke with them and even respond with a meme or two. This will bring you closer to your audience, as you will seem more human. It’s important to follow global communication trends, as well. 

8. Let your content do the promotion

In promoting your products, we advise the 80-20 approach. 80% of your efforts, funds and time should be devoted to content that sparingly mentions your brand. The other 20% should be reserved for straight-to-the-face PPC ads actively urging people to buy your products. 

9. Be consistent 

It’s not enough to just sparingly promote your brand. You have to establish a consistent voice that will become a sort of a trademark. 

Everything in your social media presence has to be equally orchestrated. There can’t be inconsistencies between your tone on Facebook and, let’s say, Instagram. Adopt a single image and run with it.

10. Collaborate with influencers

There will always be pages with more followers than yours has. Why not use them to promote your products? Reach out to influential individuals and ask them to promote your products. It can be either via monetary compensation or because they like your brand. Be sure to pick someone with a “clean image.” 

Conclusion

We hope that reading this short guide will help you improve your results from social media activity. Promoting your company on various networks helps you build trust with your customers and respond to any issues on an immediate basis. You will also see your brand awareness rise drastically. 

Follow these tips and you will create powerful marketing tools that will gift you a constant influx of new, loyal clients. Stay creative and there is nothing you won’t be able to achieve. 

The post 10 Tips on How to Improve Your Social Media appeared first on SiteProNews.