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Why Strategic Partners Can Help Bloggers
- 1. The Cost Burden of Blogging Alone Why You Need Strategic Partners 1 www.MelAclaro.com Copyright:MelAclaro.com - Creative commons. Share-alike. Attribution. Non-commercial.
- 2. The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost Connections 2
- 3. FixedCost Connections 3 The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost
- 4. Total Cost FixedCost Connections 4 The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost = FixedCost + IncrementalCost
- 5. The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost Total Cost = FixedCost + IncrementalCost Connections 5
- 6. The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost Total Benefit = Benefit x Connections Total Cost = FixedCost + IncrementalCost x1 Connections 6
- 9. The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost Total Cost2 Total Benefit = Benefit x Connections Total Cost = FixedCost + IncrementalCost x1 Connections 9
- 10. The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost Total Cost2 Total Benefit = Benefit x Connections x1 Connections 10
- 11. The Increasing Burden of Going it Alone Benefit / Cost Total Cost2 Total Benefit = Benefit x Connections x2 x1 Connections 11
- 20. Reduce Cost Burden of New Connections Outsource content-creation Generally frowned-upon But… you can Outsource “mechanical aspects” of content production Employ technologies to filter, alert and monitor conversations Apply filters Focus on “Dunbar” relationships Create strategic network partnerships Blogging networks Guest blogging List sharing Syndicated seminars Joint venture partnerships 17 17
- 21. The Cost Burden of Blogging Alone Why You Need Strategic Partners 18 There’s more where this came from at… www.MelAclaro.com
Notas del editor
- The increasing burden of going it alone. Of course, I’m talking about social media related activities, especially blogging. But, I suppose it could just as well apply to business in general.I want to show you something I’ve been noodling on for a few days about why it’s important to eventually rise above personal blogging and, at some point, reach out to other bloggers and social media marketers in strategic partnerships or syndicated content-publishing relationships.This idea came about from a discussion I had last week with some friends at a mastermind roundtable meeting.The issue we were bouncing around came about from the statement of a friend of ours, Eric Stegemann, who commented that personal blogging is dead.Now, as controversial as that might sound, he didn’t mean blogging is dead, rather I think what he was getting at was that the effort of blogging in a silo, relative to the noise that’s generated out there anymore and the number of eyeballs we’re each competing for, makes the effort so much more of a burden with each passing day, that something’s gotta change.And the thing is, I agree. Think about it, the more connections you get, whether it’s twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube or blogging – or prospects and customers in your business, for that matter – the more people and noise is generated in the sphere that you gotta wade through in order to get your message out, the more effort it takes from you to wade through it all in order to continue getting benefits from the activities of trying to maintain all those connections so you CAN get your message through. So, there we were last Saturday, debating this topic and at one point actually found ourselves drawing some graphs that might represent this whole dynamic. We got a good start, I think, during the meeting. But, of course, I couldn’t put it down and kept chewing on it a bit. So, I came up with a modification to some of the graphs we were batting around. Eric, you might appreciate this, as well.
- So, I started by drawing a standard graph, with an x-axis and a y-axis. On the x-axis, let’s say we’ll tick-off the growing number of connections with people in our various networks. Then, on the y-axis, let’s have a ruler against which we count the total benefit or corresponding cost of connections at each point.
- My thinking is that, with any number of connections we have in our various social networks, there’s going to be some baseline cost. That cost is usually our time, and whether we say it’s a minimum of an hour, or 5 hours, that represents a minimum cost, just by virtue of saying that we’re bound to put in some minimum amount of effort.
- But, now, on top of that baseline cost, there’s going to be another layer of cost that’s added on, the more connections we make. So, the 200th connection has a greater incremental cost than the 100th connection. And the 1000th connection has greater incremental cost than the 200th, such that, those incremental costs gets added to the baseline cost at each point along the x-axis. That is, the more connections you make, yeah, there’s a baseline cost, but also a larger incremental cost on top of it, relative to the number of connections you had yesterday.Call ‘em costs of maintaining some kind of relationships with those folks, even if its somehow monitoring those connections. Now, hang with me here, because I do realize that filtering technologies and automated alerts can help a lot. But, that’s gonna go to one of the points I’m gonna make. That is, you have to implement some kind of load sharing at some point, because this model of going it alone, just can’t continue scaling indefinitely. In fact, at some point, you’ll implement those filtering technologies and automated alerts, but even THAT is only going to get you so far until you have to change the model yet again.
- So, really, our total burden looks like this across our continually growing number of connections over time.Now, let’s overlay on top of that, some theoretical plot of the benefits you might hope to get for each point along all the connections you’re growing. There’s gotta be some kind of benefit, right? Otherwise, why do it? Even if you say you’re doing it for intrinsic value, my point is that it’s still value, nonetheless.
- So, if you could theoretically plot it out, it would look like this.It starts at the little corner on the left, beause that’s the point of zero benefit when you have zero connections. And, it slants up to the right, because theoretically speaking, the first connection has some incremental benefit, but maybe not as much by itself as when you’ve made a thousand total connections and so on.Then, as you see, both lines cross each other at some point. And, this point has some theoretical number of connections. Now, it’s not absolute, right? Because, depending on how each of us quantifies benefit, cost and the number of connections, that x1-point will be different. But, theoretically speaking, there’s gonna be a breakeven point somewhere. Such that…
- Anything to left of that point, will represent greater cost for the effort we put in. You’ve felt that. Think about the first month you started blogging. Or the time when you only had 10 twitter followers or just your mom and your brother following you as Facebook friends. It seemed like you were just writing or tweeting for yourself. So, that’s represented by this area where each point along the red line – total cost – is higher up the y-axis than any point along the green line – which represents Total Benefit.So, that’s why, conventional wisdom has said that the remedy for that – if you’re going to continue engaging in thee activities and not exit the space – is to increase your number of connections.
- Such that, at some point, after you've made enough connections, it starts getting a little more real. A little more beneficial. At some point, there’s an area to the right of the breakeven point where benefit – plotted along the green line – becomes greater than the effort we’re putting in – which is plotted along the red line. That’s when it feels good and makes us want to keep blogging and keep tweeting, or whatever floats your boat. The point is, it feels like you’re getting some return and so you keep doing it.And that’s sort of the conventional wisdom, right? And here’s where I think my friend Eric has it right. This conventional wisdom doesn’t really scale. That is, I see what this picture is trying to say theoretically. But the reality is it may be like that for a time, but after enough people start swimming in that pool, so to speak, it starts feeling a bit like too much work again.So, what I’m saying is, this I feel like there’s a change we have to make to this picture, so it comes closer to what reality feels like.
- And what I think that change is – or at least one of them, because you might have some other thoughts, too – is that, in reality, although the total benefit we each get from an increased number of connections does, in fact, continue to grow. The reality seems to feel like Cost also continues to grow, but much more quickly.
- Such that, at some point, when the pool gets crowded enough -- as its starting to feel like now with all the new bloggers and new social media consultants that spring up everyday – the cost of wading through all that noise to continue getting our message out just seems to grow much more quickly than the benefits we continue to earn. At some point, the cost crosses the Benefit line again and hits another breakeven point.
- And that happens at another theoretical number of connections that’s bigger than the number we had before when it was feeling good.
- I mean, when we started off, it didn’t feel like we were getting a whole lot out of it because we didn’t have enough connections.
- Then we did and it started feeling great, so our objective became to get more followers.
- But then, if you continued following that path then at some point it starts to feel sorta bad again. I mean not really, right? because in this area you’re still getting a lot of benefit out of it, but it just really feels like work now. Some of you might be feeling this now with your thousands of twitter followers and blog readers who are starting to make you feel like you gotta keep pumping out original and compelling content every week. I mean, you keep doing it because it feels good—that’s that green line continuing to slant upward—but the fact is, you’re one person. You won’t be able to keep scaling this way forever. That’s the increasing burden of going it alone.At this point, something’s gotta give. What can you do about it? Well, clearly, you can DECREASE the number of connections. That’s one valid remedy. If you place your finger near the x2 point on the x-axis and then trace it back to the left while holding a pencil vertically up the top of the page, then you see it starts pulling you back into that green zone. So, clearly, that’s one thing you can do.But, the other thing you can do, too, is to reduce the cost burden. Now, I won’t go into the math of it. But, as it turns out, the line representing cost has a slope-coefficient to it. If you can reduce that coefficient, represented by the cost burden, then…
- … the effect is to push that cost line out a little more in the shallow direction, like I’m showing here with that dotted orange line.The net effect is that you actually increase your capacity to continue gaining benefits by pushing the new breakeven point further up the curve.
- Theoretically speaking, you get yourself more time in the green zone of benefit if you can reduce the cost burden by sharing the load. That’s what I’m showing here with the new crossover points after you successfully tip that cost curve over a bit more by being strategic about how you create content.During that meeting I told you about last Saturday, we talked about what some strategies might be for reducing those cost burdens. And, I’ll share some of those with you in the next post. But, in the meantime, let me know what you think. If this makes sense to you, and you believe that at some point, if you keep growing your network and keep producing magnetic content, what are some tips and strategies would YOU suggest in order to reduce the cost burden for yourself so you can continue scaling?
- The increasing burden of going it alone. Of course, I’m talking about social media related activities, especially blogging. But, I suppose it could just as well apply to business in general.I want to show you something I’ve been noodling on for a few days about why it’s important to eventually rise above personal blogging and, at some point, reach out to other bloggers and social media marketers in strategic partnerships or syndicated content-publishing relationships.This idea came about from a discussion I had last week with some friends at a mastermind roundtable meeting.The issue we were bouncing around came about from the statement of a friend of ours, Eric Stegemann, who commented that personal blogging is dead.Now, as controversial as that might sound, he didn’t mean blogging is dead, rather I think what he was getting at was that the effort of blogging in a silo, relative to the noise that’s generated out there anymore and the number of eyeballs we’re each competing for, makes the effort so much more of a burden with each passing day, that something’s gotta change.And the thing is, I agree. Think about it, the more connections you get, whether it’s twitter, facebook, linkedin, youtube or blogging – or prospects and customers in your business, for that matter – the more people and noise is generated in the sphere that you gotta wade through in order to get your message out, the more effort it takes from you to wade through it all in order to continue getting benefits from the activities of trying to maintain all those connections so you CAN get your message through. So, there we were last Saturday, debating this topic and at one point actually found ourselves drawing some graphs that might represent this whole dynamic. We got a good start, I think, during the meeting. But, of course, I couldn’t put it down and kept chewing on it a bit. So, I came up with a modification to some of the graphs we were batting around. Eric, you might appreciate this, as well.