Turn your blog into a business or turn your business into a blog ?

Originally very personal, the blog has become, today’Today, it is a very popular source of income, both for freelancers seeking to supplement their income on the Internet, as well as for companies seeking to develop traffic to their website to exploit potential leads. Back on the’history and opportunities of blogging.

The blog as a diary

Internet content tool used since its beginnings, the blog was originally conceived as a ‘diary’ allowing everyone to express themselves on particular subjects, to defend positions, to give opinions, to describe feelings… In short, it allowed to transmit, share and express oneself.

In the era of social networks, free speech and new needs of expression through communities, it has been strengthened by integrating new tools, especially video. And we now call ‘vlogging’ the fact of expressing oneself in the form of integrated videos on download platforms. Some people, very followed for their charisma, their opinions, or simply their way of speaking…, are now called ‘influencers.

The blog as a marketing tool

At the same time, companies’ marketing departments have focused their actions on increasing the personalization and individualization of the customer relationship. With the objective, no longer to “attack” potential targets with traditional advertising, but to influence them via their opinions, their consumption patterns, their own characteristics and their psychology. This is what marketers call inbound marketing.

And the blog has become a tool and a perfect example of inbound marketing because it allows to directly influence opinions. Thus, corporate blogs have developed, with varying degrees of effectiveness, as knowledge of the psychological makeup of its targets is a prerequisite for any content strategy optimized for natural referencing.

A win-win partnership

These parallel developments in individual blogging/vlogging and marketing techniques have come to intersect, with individuals needing to economically monetize the time spent creating content for their blog, companies needing to reach out and touch specific communities to influence them and make them aware of their products, and sometimes having limited means to employ experts in the field.

Bloggers, or vloggers, ‘influencers’, have now become entrepreneurs monetizing access to their community. The “diary” has turned into a sometimes very profitable business (for example, the biggest French influencer earns an average of €45,000 per month). And thanks to them, companies expand their audience, boost their awareness and visibility and generate qualified traffic on their website. A real win-win partnership that leads us to believe that blogging has a bright future ahead of it..