Blogging for Money – Stockholders and Customers

Darren from ProBlogger asked his readers to get something off of their chest about blogging. One comment in particular by a guy named Jeff caught my attention.

Bloggers who are only in it for the money are ruining it for the rest of us. My opinion, anyway (link to comment)

Bloggers Who Blog for Money Are Like Corporations

I don’t have a problem with bloggers who blog for money. I know quite a few, and most of them just make enough to break even and are fine with it. I would equate these bloggers to the “not-for-profit” organizations out there.

However, there are quite a few that are solely in it for the cash. I would compare these bloggers to corporations. Corporations are more-or-less run by the stockholders. If a corporation doesn’t meet the expected earnings for a specific time period, stockholders will typically bail out and the corporation’s stock price will go down.

A blogger’s advertisers are like a corporation’s stockholders. A blogger may have started off serving the readers, but soon the advertisers developed a controlling interest in the blog’s future. The content started to be more geared towards advertisers, and perhaps the theme changed to accommodate better placed ads.

As readership increases for a blog, and more links start coming in, the blogger can continue to charge a premium for advertisements. However, if the readership falls, so will the price the blogger can charge.

If you equate readers to customers in the corporation analogy, the more “sales” a blogger has, the more happy the advertisers are. And if the blogger can’t make the sales, then the stock price will go down for the blogger as advertisers begin to pull out.

So if the blogger wants to keep the advertisers, he needs to make them happy. And by making the advertisers happy, he needs to generate more “sales” from his readers. Now one question one must ask yourself is, in this situation, are you serving the readers or the advertisers?

Serving the Stockholders

Corporations have done very well making the stockholders happy. It’s typically the stockholders who fund new ventures, approve mergers, and keep the company a float. However, the corporation relies on customers for the much needed income that will make the stockholders happy.

The stockholders want customers to be happy as well. The more money the corporation brings in, the better chance of the stock going higher. But when it boils down do it, a corporation serves its stockholders more so than the customers.

Serving the Customers

An unhappy customer will be unwilling to make a purchase from a corporation, so corporations typically have a motto that a “customer is always right”, or that a customer should come first. The theory is, a happy (and loyal) customer will continue to make purchases over the long run.

The reality is, it costs less to keep a loyal customer than it does to lose one. So by treating the customer well, the customer will continue to buy, and if enough follow suit, the stockholders will be happy.

To Serve the Readers

One must ask himself, is it serving the reader or the advertiser by placing advertising links within the content? Is it serving the readers by placing obtrusive advertisements on a website? Is it serving the readers by doing paid reviews?

Sometimes the answer could be that one is serving both the reader and the advertiser — by making one happy, one hopes he’s making the other happy as well.

And indeed I feel it’s possible that one can advertise and still keep the reader interests at the forefront. However, I despise the blogger who advertises at the expense of the readers.

Conclusion

Readers are like customers, and advertisers like stockholders. Can one really blog for money and keep the readers first? I think it’s possible, but by monetizing a blog, the corporation analogy comes to mind as to what’s really driving a blog. Is it the readers driving the blog, or the advertisers?

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