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5 Reasons Blogs Are Effective Political Tools |
I was recently contacted by an MSU student who is studying the impact of blogs. One of his questions was “Why are blogs useful political tools?†As I thought about this, it occurred to me that, although blogs are highly valued, they might not be fully understood. So here is my answer to him, and my attempt to better explain why blogs have become so important to the political process.
| Blogging creates experts. A good blogger will look at an issue from several different angles … he’ll debate himself and be his own critic as he puts his thoughts in writing. He will craft his posts to the point where he can’t help but become an expert on whatever it is he blogs. This expertise translates into more effective conversation with voters and other opinion makers. Over time, quality blogging builds the blogger’s credibility and increases his visibility, so that he can become an effective advocate for his candidates and issues.
Persuasive political blogging is a form of word of mouth marketing, and word of mouth marketing is always more effective than any other kind. If a friend knows that I have a particular opinion on something, he may be more likely to give that opinion some thought. For example, many of my friends were supportive of the Owosso Twp Recall, but were more critical of it after reading my articles. It’s remarkable how many people asked me about that recall when they were trying to decide how to vote. |
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Investigative blogging is more thorough than mainstream reporting. Paid reporters pale to bloggers when it comes to thoroughness and attention to detail. Perhaps this is because professional journalists are doing a job, while bloggers are doing a passion. Perhaps it’s because paid journalists are chasing a deadline, and bloggers can work on our own schedules. Whatever the reason, a good investigative blog will uncover what the msm will miss, and can sometimes change the landscape of a political campaign. As an example of this, I’d recommend this article on Alterra, which many of us believe to be the source for the Governor’s use of this issue in debate #1. |
Blogging can be instant. Bloggers can publish directly from an event. With the advent of mobile blogging and cell phone cameras, there’s no reason a properly equipped (and lucky-to-be-in-the-right-place) blogger can’t report the news as it happens. Traditional media can’t keep up with that … even the ones who have the technical capability still have a bunch of operational and editorial hoops to jump through. If something requires an immediate response, a blogger can always get the info out before anyone else. (with the possible exception of a radio station that does its own news)
| Blogs generate money and volunteers for candidates. Blogs connect like minded people. People who come to my blog are either interested in Shiawassee County or interested in Democratic politics, and people who are reading blogs usually have some discretionary income and free time. As such, I can communicate to a very specific audience. I can write a persuasive article targeted to this audience, and then ask a reader to take action with one click. Bloggers generated nearly $50,000 for Paul Hacket in Ohio, in less than 24 hours, and transported busloads of volunteers to CT for Ned Lamont. This is an amazing performance by blogs, which just can’t be matched by any other media. |  |
Update: A mildly related note — Darren at problogger.net has mentioned that Farsi has become one of the top 10 languages in the blogosphere, which coincides with the rising number of blogs covering the tensions in the middle east. Just thought it was interesting.
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I think you’re right about the bloggers vs. reporters thing. I don’t do a lot of investigative blogging myself, but there were some people doing amazing work leading up to the election. The Alterra story is a great example. DemWave and Hector Solon also had a number of very well-researched posts.
It’s amazing how fast the blogs are maturing. Traditional media outlets can’t (or just don’t know how to) keep up. There’s a reason newspaper readership is plunging.
And of course, as much as I enjoy blogging (essentially) pro-bono, it would be nice if there were a more consistent revenue stream for bloggers like us to do this sort of thing professionally. There are still very few people that can do this for a living.
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Generating revenue off of a non-product oriented blog is pretty tough. You can’t get good google ads going, because they often pick up on context that your readers don’t want more info on … alot of my google ads this year were ads for devosforgovernor.com. None of my readers wanted to go to that site, except for the DeVos for Gov people, and damned if they were gonna click on my ad to get there.
Amazon ads aren’t worth a whole lot either. You have to crank some serious traffic on your site to get something worthwhile out of Amazon.
Chitika mini malls … an EXCELLENT revenue source … can’t generate context relevant products for non product blogs. I had them on my blog for a while and the only ad they ever produced based on my context was an ad for discount magazines.
How sad.
You are really stuck with blogads, which are great but until your page views get up there, you can’t put much of a price on them.
You can check out some other things, like payperpost.com and reviewme.com.
There are alot of ad networks that look great but you can’t even get into them without a bevyload of traffic at your back.
However you can generate $$ indirectly from your blog … like getting a gig writing political articles for a paying site, business blogging, political consulting, etc.
Of course you could go sell ad space on your site face to face with real people, but who wants to do that?
The best bet to make $$ blogging is to blog about something like digital cameras, cellphones, printers, etc., or to blog about blogging.
It’s the hard knock life for us, Zack.
Sigh …
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Ha ha. That’s it. I’m shutting my site down.
Okay, I guess not.
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