“Using the Blogosphere’s Trends for Your Niche” plus 1 more

Using the Blogosphere’s Trends for Your Niche

Posted: 11 Jun 2010 11:55 AM PDT

This column is written by Kimberly Turner from Regator (a great tool that gathers and organizes the world's best blog posts). – Darren

Hello, fellow bloggers! Hope you're having a fabulous week. Since I started this weekly column on April 7, we've discussed strong headlines and opening lines, use of video and images, list posts, effective quotes, and more—all through the lens of the week's most-blogged-about topics. I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversations we've had together in the comments and the knowledge you've all shared with each other and with me.

In the spirit of those open conversations, I wanted to answer the most common question I've received: How can I use these general trends if I don't blog about current affairs? Well, you can find trends on your specific niche on Regator, but the true answer is that no matter what your niche, there is often a way—with enough creativity and research into the details of the story—to make it work for your readers. And tying posts to the week's hottest topics can be a great way to get new readers and attract attention. This week, along with trends from Regator, we'll take a look at how these topics were covered by bloggers in unexpected niches…

Gulf of Mexico – You'd expect the disaster in the Gulf to be covered by blogs on environmentalism, marine biology, perhaps even business and politics, but PopEater managed to find a way to bring this ecological story into the realm of pop culture in "An Interview With the Guy Skewering BP on Twitter."
World Cup – The Next Web's "World Cup fever? Here are 5 apps to keep you on top of things" took what would traditionally be a sports story and moved it into the technology space by focusing on related apps rather than the event itself.
Steve Jobs – Jobs's highly anticipated World Wide Developers Conference talk unveiled the iPhone 4 and was covered widely by technology blogs but Star Trek blog TrekMovie.com was able to make the event relevant to their readers by focusing on the Star Trek references in the talk and technology from the show and movie in "Steve Jobs Invokes Star Trek (Again) While Unveiling 4th Gen iPhone."
Helen Thomas – While political bloggers obsessed over Thomas's offensive comments, women's blog Jezebel covered the story by discussing what Thomas's undignified fall meant for a woman who had been an icon and inspiration to women everywhere in its post "Helen Thomas: When An Icon Disappoints [Iconography]."
MTV Movie Awards – Rather than approaching this star-studded event from the usual entertainment blogger's perspective, gay blog AutoStraddle's "MTV Movie Awards 2010 Celebrate Lesbian Innuendo, Swearing, Twilight" made the awards more relevant to their readers by honing in on the "10 most homosexual moments of the MTV Movie Awards 2010."
Rue McClanahan – While many television and entertainment bloggers focused on McClanahan's television and theater legacy, Ecorazzi's "RIP: Actress And Longtime Animal-Advocate Rue McClanahan Dies At 76" brought the story to their ecologically conscious demographic by focusing on the actor's animal rights work.
Lady Gaga – On a week when Lady Gaga's latest music video was on everyone's lips, Social Psychology Eye's post "Facing illness, belief helps" skillfully worked the pop icon into the blog by discussing the psychological implications of Gaga's recent revelation that she had been tested for lupus, undoubtedly earning them quite a few more readers than they would've gotten on a straightforward academic post on illness perception.
Rush Limbaugh – Rather than obsessing about the details of Limbaugh's wedding, as many entertainment bloggers did, The Daily Beast's "Celebrity Wedding Singers" took Elton John's unexpected role as Limbaugh's wedding singer and created a list post that broadened the appeal of the story.
Israel – Music bloggers aren't the most expected source of news from Israel, but several, including Drowned in Sound with its post "Bands cancel shows following Israel’s flotilla raid" covered what is essentially a political and international affairs story in a way that created value for their music-obsessed readers.
Harry Potter – While film bloggers were busy dissecting the latest Harry Potter trailer, travel blog Gadling put its own spin on the popular character with "London mayor rails against Wizarding World of Harry Potter’s Florida location."

One thing all of these posts have in common is that the bloggers took the time to learn enough details about these stories to find a way to make them work for their blogs’ niches. Have you managed to work a popular story into your blog’s niche by using a creative angle? Tell us about it in the comments!

Kimberly Turner is a cofounder of Regator.com and Regator for iPhone as well as an award-winning print journalist. You can find her on Twitter @kimber_regator.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Using the Blogosphere’s Trends for Your Niche

My Dad’s Middle Road Mentality

My Dad always taught me an important lesson in life that still serves me well today…. “Learn from everyone you come across in life – whether they’re on the same path as you or not”.

He called it the ‘middle road’ and told me that in life you’ll come across all kinds of people with different views (in politics, in theology, in business). Many of them would write off everyone else’s experience or views as wrong and believe that their way was the best.

However he’d found that rather than writing those with different perspectives to you off, it was powerful to listen to everyone and to learn from them.

The key was not to just accept everything that they said as truth, but to take what was relevant to you from those on different paths to you and apply it to your own situation – and to leave behind what didn’t fit with your situation, values and approach.

Dad’s advice has continued to come back to me through life in different situations – but recently it’s been applying a lot to my business and approach to building an online presence.

The Middle Road and Online Entrepreneurship

You see in the online entrepreneurship space there are many approaches. Some of them are more extreme than others and often they rub people up the wrong way.

The temptation is to simply write off everyone who rubs you up the wrong way and to ignore their teaching completely – however the problem with this is that you could be throwing out some great teaching that is mixed in with a few bits that you don’t like.

I was a Purist Blogging Snob

I’ve been guilty of throwing out the baby with the bathwater in this space many times. I remember being asked to speak at an internet marketers conference in the USA 4-5 years ago and coming away from the experience feeling sick in my stomach. The hype, trickery and manipulation of some of those presenting turned me off completely.

In hindsight I should have taken my Dads advice to that conference because while there were things in it that I was right to feel sickened by – there was also a lot of good stuff that I should have taken on board.

You see at the time I believed that I simply had to build a great blog and people would come to it and I would make money – I didn’t need to market it, I didn’t need to develop products to sell, I could just build a great site and put some ads on it and I’d do well.

This ‘purist’ approach worked OK…. to a point, but I could (and should) have learned a lot from those internet marketers.

I should have listened to them talking about the importance of building an email list/newsletter
I should have taken note about what they said having my own product to sell
I should have listened to them talk about the process of launching those products

I should have learned a lot that week…. but I didn’t. I allowed the bad stuff that I saw to overshadow the gold that would have taken what I did to the next level.

How I got Back on the Middle Road and Doubled the Size of My Business in a Year

Of course, 3 years later I did learn those lessons. Those of you who read ProBlogger will know that I’ve changed my approach somewhat of late. While I still believe in building great blogs and I still make good money from advertising, I’ve begun to develop email lists along side my blog and have started to release my own products.

I’ve also started to read and learn from some of those ‘internet marketing’ people. I struggle with some of the more extreme ones, but there are a few good people in that camp who are starting to get the social media/blogging space too.

One I’ve mentioned here before is Jeff Walker. He’s known for his Product Launch Formula – something I enrolled in last year when he opened it up and which taught me a lot. In fact he was one of the main people who helped me to get back on the ‘middle road’ and to see that while I was having some success that I still had a lot to learn.

I’ve since launched 4 products which have done really well and this income stream has more than doubled what I was earning previously in just under a year (my accountant emailed me recently to ask me what I’m doing!).

Of course there are a few things in Jeff’s teaching that I’ve left out of my approach – but the stuff I’ve taken on board has been invaluable. The key is to not swallow everything whole but to take what resonates with you and to apply it to your situation and to calmly leave what doesn’t ‘fit’ aside.

Jeff has recently released some videos that talk about product launches. They’re part of the lead up to his new launch of the new Product Launch Formula but whether you go the full journey with him or not the free videos are well worth a look.

Whether you learn from Jeff or not, I guess the take home lesson that I’m trying to communicate is to have a ‘middle road’ mentality. There is great power in opening yourself up to learn from those on different paths who are trying different approaches to online entrepreneurship.

Learn what is working for others, filter it through your own situation and values and you might just find your business grows as a result.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to have a ‘Middle Road’ Mentality and Grow Your Online Business