Branding David

Recently, I attended the Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, and while in the city of excess, I noticed very few people seemed worried about the negative slide that has been occurring in the American economy.

Personally, I am very interested in what happens with the American economy, as it is strongly tied to the Canadian economy, and the economies of many nations around the world. While China is jokingly said to produce everything, the majority of the media content that I consume comes from the United States.

Economic shifts tie in strongly with being a web worker because advertising dollars are usually the first things to be reduced as belt tightening happens within a company, and a large percentage of the revenue being moved around online today to pay my own, and many other peoples, wages is directly related to advertising sales.

As a web worker, I feel as though we are in the height of the conference and events scene in my industry, with many companies spending thousands of dollars for a small booth at these events, and dozens of sponsors spending an arm and a leg to have their logo adorn the promotional materials and session halls. Will these events dry up as the economy shifts, advertising revenue slows, and bloggers pay is continually reduced for bloggers, freelance designers and other web workers?

Despite being a positive person and a bit of an idealist, I find the current outlook to be fairly bleak.

I hope that as the economy shifts, more businesses will realize that the web is an inexpensive way of reaching a wider audience, and so, as certain advertisers leave the table, or reduce their spending online, a new group of businesses will throw their money, in a cautious but substantial way, into advertising online and at conferences, events and trade shows.

How does a diminished American economy effect your bottom line? How will it effect the way you work, live, and network with your peers? If you are a speaker or consultant, how will it effect you in the short term?

Things are definitely changing, and more now than nearly any time in history, it may be time for both businesses, consultants and employees alike to evolve and adapt or struggle.

For the longest time, the only way to compete in blogging as a business was to start a blog and own a niche. The more narrowly focused your niche was, the more likely you could find a way to compete and become a resource for people on that topic, but what ended up happening was that many bloggers began focusing in on niches based on the advertising revenue being spent on them, and quickly bloggers found themselves having higher and higher amounts of competition.

One blog network that took niche blogs to the extreme was b5media, a company that I greatly respect. They started hundreds of blogs focusing in on fairly tight niches. They had half a dozen blogs on gaming, a blog for each separate major celebrity, and television series, and they ran like this for a few years before realizing the power of the portal system.

They have since started creating portals for their blogs, bringing together the best content from each niche blog under one brand. An example of this is the recently launched Starked, an entertainment news portal taking the best content from all of their celebrity, television and movie related blogs. This, to me, shows the major shift just starting in the blogosphere, especially where business blogging is concerned.

No one has a single interest. Most people aren’t interested in one celebrity, or one television show. They are interested in a variety of people, shows, topics, and have reached a saturation point when it comes to subscribing to RSS feeds, tracking blogs manually, or connecting with writers. People are starting to go back to looking for one stop where they can find all of the information they are looking for in an efficient way from sources they can trust.

If you are starting a new blog today, while it might be more difficult than focusing on a tight niche like a single product or device, you may be better off, instead, focusing on a demographic that you can connect to, and become the number one source of content for.

Become the portal that like-minded people can connect to and trust, and you won’t have to ever hear the word niche again. Build a brand, be a trusted source, and connect to people that are as diverse as you are.

Over the course of my career, I have become very used to starting fresh on a new site and I am equally used to doing so in my personal life as well. I have started many blogs, and moved from blog to blog, honing my talent, and refreshing my perspective, and recently the time and opportunity came once again for me to start anew.

I have long held a personal blog, but updating it has become more of a chore than anything, and has never strongly reflected my abilities nor the work I have done, and as such, it has made a horrible portfolio for someone who generates all of his income online.

It reminds me of the various web designers that have a horrible design on their own site as they are too busy with client work. It is great that they are too busy, thanks to paying clients, to work on their own site, but it doesn’t help earn the confidence of potential new clients to fill the void once that busy time dies down.

Recently, I was able to sit on two panels at Blog World Expo, and in doing so, I realized, once again, how much I enjoy teaching others. I have always though of myself as a teacher, and continue to try to find new ways to explore that interest, but like my personal blog, I haven’t been able to devote much time to it.

With this site, I hope to expand on what I have done on other blogs, in teaching others everything I can, while working towards finding new opportunities for myself to consult, teach, and speak as my career continues forward.

This blog will cover all of my interests rather than any single niche, and will be my place to connect with other like-minded individuals. This blog is not going to try to generate tens of thousands of readers, but is instead, hopefully, going to be useful for a small cross section of geeks, bloggers, educators and thought leaders that think and feel as I do.

I will be writing about blogging, business, events, technology and trends, while also covering some of my random interests and personal life. I will delve deep into what I, and those around me are doing, and what it means to brand yourself as a web worker today.