I’m not sure about other parts of the world, but in the U.S.A. we’re famous for having radio station “remotes.” This is where the DJ of a popular station in any given town sets up to broadcast from a local business location.
The businesses pay for this service and the radio crew works hard to bring as many of their listeners down to “Bob’s Toyota” to eat free hot dogs, popcorn, rides for the kids, and, of course, buy cars.
Radio stations spend millions of dollars and many years becoming popular and have a strong listener base. They know their demographics sideways and know exactly who they are serving. “Bob” is spending his money and time on building his content: cars and deals on buying those cars. He hardly has the time to do more than that.
He networks at the Chamber of Commerce with all the other business leaders in the community and works deals to help others and himself out with publicity and referrals. He networks with the big dogs in his “niche” to get more exposure through people who have the attention of thousands throughout the community via their respective businesses and contacts.
Bob also networks with his previous customers and people who sign up for his contact list at events like the one above. But that is an internal marketing process. He isn’t trying to build mass awareness by himself through those channels. Bob needs thousands of people to come to his lot and check out his cars, not hundreds.
By himself, Bob can place ads in the local paper and online. That helps. But it isn’t the end game. He must tap into the energy of people who command attention by spending time and money getting it.
You, as a blogger, need to tap into the energy of sites and the people behind them, who are in the business of being wildly popular.
This requires good detective work, networking and schmoozing skills, and a passion for finding ways to get the attention of the masses via their leaders rather than one at a time by yourself.
(More tactical intel like this at Blog Success.)
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I have seen bloggers offering to review products and services on their sites for $40. By just reading the content, you won’t be able to tell whether it’s something that a blogger decided to write about or was something commercially agreed. I guess in that scenario, the blogger is acting like the radio crew, huh?
Tak – Yes, perfect example!