So last week I broke a good story — about the Hong Kong judge labelling Mokotedi Mpshe’s use of a 2002 judgment of his without attribution in the statement dropping charges against Jacob Zuma — and my page traffic and unique users went through the roof. Read the original blog by clicking here. After a bit of canny marketing (i.e. letting people I know at IOL, The Times and Politicsweb about the story), I did more in a day than I did in the previous two weeks. Great stuff (and I was mightily chuffed). 
It wasn’t a hard story to do. It took some time tracking down the judge through his Oxford University alumni and then filling him in on what was potting in SA, but these are all skills I picked up as a salaried hack. I intend to keep doing original content but the tricky thing for a small fry like me is the marketing.
I have no budget to speak of so advertising campaigns are out of the question though I’ve investigated a few options. I am hoping that some of the people who visited the site on the back of the Seagroatt story liked what they saw and will keep coming back. Otherwise my main marketing techniques, for now, are limited to social networking sites. It’s tricky thing for bloggers, methinks and I’d love to hear about your experiences. Most of the successful blogs are infused with the bloggers personality, which means they tend to be one-arm bandtis — not corporations. The catch-22 is that if you’re small, so is your budget. Eventually the horizontal traffic will mean that your rating with news aggreators like Amatomu will rise and that will keep you there at the top. Think of 2Oceans.Vibe, for instance. He’s been around a few years. But I do also think there is a new era of blogging upon us in SA. There are quite a few news and writing porfessionals (for example, the guys at Hayibo) like me entering the fray and we are far too impatient to sit around and wait for a couple of years. Horizontal, I think not.
Popularity: 10% [?]
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May 5th, 2009 at 11:05 am
With a foot still firmly in traditional media (radio), I think mainstream media channels should be doing more to profile bloggers and raise awareness of quality sites. Often these brands want to play in the niche space of social media but fail to recognise the obligation they should have to bring some audience attention along for the ride.
It would be good though to get an RSS/similar aggregator of “blogger news” drawn from blogs, twitter etc, where mainstream news organisations could view content posted as breaking news from these sources and run it with appropriate credits. If there’s such a thing already I’d love to know about it. Its hard to get a newsroom to constantly watch Twitter etc.
Finally if you’ll forgive what seems to be a shameless plug (but actually I do believe it could be helpful), register at http://www.classicsme.co.za for info on an SME rate card that makes advertising on Classic fM RADICALLY cheaper (25% of normal rates), so maybe conventional advertising isn’t out of the question entirely?
Nick
May 5th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Hmm. Shot Nick. I’ll check it out.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:32 am
And, in fact, I welcome shameless plugs. I do it all the time.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Is your main source of income on the site Google ads? I think most people have become totally oblivious to them?
May 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Erm. Income? Dunno if I’d call it that yet?
May 5th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Oh are you only looking for traffic then?
Your host is commendable imo – they managed the flood of traffic from IOL quite well? I’d think that a lot of visitors from then will return, your Seagroatt story was a knockout and they’ll come looking for more.
BTW Google used to be great – I ran a webdesigner’s forum as a hobby for a few years in the UK and I averaged about $1.5k to $2k per month from clickthru’s for a while. Then it died, rather quickly too as people just became blind to google ads.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:00 am
I was bit worried about crashing myself but I’m hosted in the States and it seemed fine.
It’s interesting what you say about Google ads, Chris, as that’s my sense too. Actually, I started the blog (and it’s only about 3 months old now) not really knowing how to make money out of it — I do other freelance work (website content) to bring in some bucks so I guess Grubstreet has turned out to be a marketing tool for that work.
I figured I should just get something going (also to keep my hand in the media game as you get forgotten quickly) and the revenue models would come later. If you don’t play, it doesn’t pay, is my ethos.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
“I am hoping that some of the people who visited the site on the back of the Seagroatt story liked what they saw and will keep coming back”
We are. It is now on my list of sites to check every day.
Was a great story. Unfortunately, in our newsroom, it is entirely impractical to attempt to track down and follow up where international calls are involved.
We can’t even dial direct from our phones – you have to go through switchboard (working 9-5), which becomes a prohibiting schlep.
Hoping to pick up future leads in future, so keep up the good work
May 7th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
That’s cool to hear, Ella. Don’t feel badly about the phone thing. I can’t afford to phone overseas at all for the blog, which is why I had to do Justice Seagroatt over email.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:44 am
You should try one of the new-fangled prepaid calling services, like Sundial Telecom (http://www.sundialtelecom.co.za/). You pay R100 or so upfront, and you can call internationally for hours and hours, with excellent quality (because it’s landline, not Internet). They’re terrific for journalists, and they make the cost of calling overseas a relatively trivial matter. Enjoying your blog, I always follow your Twitter links.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Hey Gus! I’m honoured you follow my Twitter links. I think I read every article you ever wrote for Style when it was hot and happening. And shot for heads-up on Sundial.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Hey Gill: http://tinyurl.com/q7ctu8
Cheers,
Jan
May 15th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Gill,
Totally off topic (sorry, dunno how to contact you otherwise) but take a look at this IOL article:
http://tinyurl.com/rc7lqj
Maybe something for you to follow up as it’s absolute bollocks. I lived there for 12 years and didn’t meet one single Saffa with even a modicum of interest in Brit politics; they’re all too busy working their backsides off building a new life.
May 17th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Shot Chris. Will check it out!
Jeez Lousie! Does the security recaptcha really say “soiling defender”? I certainly hope that’s random. I don’t want to contemplate the kind of mind that comes up with a phrase like this.
May 17th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I just checked it out. What a peculiar story! By the way my email address is:
gill@grubstreet.co.za
Easy peasy lemon squeezy!