The Reader Appreciation Project

I found myself at the bank last week standing in a line for around 5 minutes waiting for a cashier. While waiting, I turned around and saw several other people sitting on leather seats talking to the bank staff. Why was I standing while they were sitting? They were new customers, of course. The bank already had my money, and already had my account. Leather was too high of a standard for existing customers like me.

Your blog may be acting in a similar fashion. Because of the popularity of the blogosphere, many bloggers focus on luring in readers in order to let them roam free around their blogs. Such blogs fail to create any extra incentives for readers who have already found those blogs. Instead, such blogs focus on getting new readers to come along and join the crowd. The real prize for many blogs, it seems, is the population that lies outside of the growing crowd that exists within the blog.

In this article, we will go through the question: Are your potential readers better than your current readers?

What do many banks, airline companies and your blog have in common?

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I don’t know about you, but every time one of my readers wants to write something on my site, be it a comment or a guest post, I’m glad. And if any of my readers would express the wish to advertise in my sidebar for free, I’d accept that happily (probably for the first 4-5 requesters only, in order not to scare away the other readers). I would consider that an honour, a sign of appreciation of my blog.

These being said, a few days ago I started to play with Entrecard, to see what’s this all about. I played for about 30 minutes, jumping from blog to blog, dropping cards, then I got back to more serious things. After a while, I noticed in my inbox a message that somebody wants to advertise on my Entrecard. I accepted that, and then I started to place requests for advertising on other blogs. I was shocked to see that there were people who rejected my ad, because they didn’t find it appropriate for their blog. Maybe they cared so much for their readers that they wanted to put only the best in front of their eyes. Maybe.

Then I noticed that for each blog page on Entrecard, there is a message saying:

37.33% of advert requests rejected

Higher percentages suggest a more discerning site owner, applicants should check their advert is likely to fit with the blog topic and format.

The percentage is different for each blog. Never mind the percentage. Don’t you smell some smart manipulation from Entrecard’s side? Are people flocking towards such affirmations, in their wish to appear more discerning, or more sophisticated, or wiser? Yes, it seems that humans and birds have the same origin, and our ancestral need to flock comes to the surface every time a bait is shown to us.

What do you think? Is Entrecard manipulating bloggers with that statement?

By the way, there was one blogger who wrote me a thank you message after I booked an advertising spot on his blog.

Every single day someone out there is supporting or criticizing with an idea or with someone simply because they have a financial interest in some idea. Such trends are concepts of manipulation. Agreeing or disagreeing with someone or an idea simply because you have some monetary interest in the issue, and you do not reveal the existence of that monetary interest, means that you are manipulating everyone else involved in the issue.

Imagine if today I criticized your blog publicly and said that your blog was a waste of time and energy in this universe. Now imagine that tomorrow you find out that I have opened a competing blog to yours, and the only reason I criticized your blog today was to ruin its reputation or to destroy it and to enable my own blog to survive and make money. How much respect would you have for me then? Take that exact concept and apply it to many situations in the online world.

Following are 2 examples of this manipulation tactic: one is clear, while the other is shady and debatable because not all of such behavior means something or someone is being manipulated on purpose from all sides.

Matt opposed sponsored WordPress themes in order to earn money

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What makes a blogger professional? There are very few variables that many consider today in order to qualify someone, or themselves, as being part of the professional bloggers’ community. I once said on my site that you can be professional in 5 ways in almost any situation, anywhere, regardless of any profession involved, or whether you even have a profession. You may have read things to the contrary about about professional bloggers yourself. You may have even seen someone claiming to be a “Professional Blogger.” Many times, you may have noticed that those that claim to be professional bloggers blog only to make money.

Today I would like to draw your attention to the puzzle that defines a professional blogger for many people. Figuring out this puzzle even a little bit can help us appreciate many bloggers more. Figuring out this puzzle can also allow us to see which bloggers are manipulating and twisting the idea of professional blogging in order to simply portray an illusion of superiority and to lure us in as readers so that they can benefit.

Is there a criteria for determining a Professional Blogger?

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Quick: how many professional bloggers do you know who talk openly and usually about how they blog in order to make money, and how they write blog posts to attract readers so they cane make money? One of the common things you see on a lot of self-proclaimed professional blogs is the absence of honest simplicity. One of the reasons for the absence of honesty is the involvement of money. The answer to the above question should tell you the honesty level of the blogs you read regularly.

Like many businesses, many bloggers believe that if they keep talking about helping others while in reality they keep using others to make money, they will make money. This plan works, and it works very well in many cases. The readers, however, usually come out of the situation with nothing at the end. Reader appreciation includes the concept of disclosing the fact of how existence of money can influence ones’ interesting in blogging and the reasons for blogging.

Readers are manipulated when they are told that them, and not money, is the first priority

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