How Selfish Bloggers and a Hapless GOP Are Choking the Life from the Independent, Conservative Blogosphere
John Hawkins wrote a post today called “The Slow, Painful Coming Death Of The Independent, Conservative Blogosphere” wherein he pretty much advised every right-wing blogger to either pull down big traffic numbers of quit.
That’s it. No advice for how to get that big traffic. No mention of smaller bloggers who are doing a good job of building their site’s visibility or traffic. Nothing. Just, well, this:
Bloggers have asked me: So what’s the strategy to deal with this?
Really, it’s simple: Get big or go home.
Find a way to dramatically increase the size of your blog, expand into multiple websites that together are big, hook up with someone who’s already big, or accept that there isn’t much of a future in a small, niche market for you. Maybe that sounds a little grim, but unless something changes, independent conservative bloggers who haven’t already made it big don’t have a bright future.
Gee, thanks, John. What, you couldn’t find a way to deliver an electronic kick to the groin right at the end of that last paragraph?
As I’ve written before, right-wing bloggers do have a couple fairly large problems between them and a respectably-sized readership, but they’re far from insurmountable. Unfortunately, a big part of the solution to those problems lie in the hands of bloggers like Hawkins who have no real interest in spending much if any of their time on community-building.
Take a quick scan over Hawkins article and look at the links. Do you see how all of them — every last one — goes to a big right-wing web site? That’s by design. He’s link-whoring. Now, link-whoring is a venerable blogging tradition and often helps bring in a few links here or there, but if you’re going to write about smaller blogs, why not link to a couple of them? There are sites out there — William Jacobson’s Legal Insurrection, Donald Douglas’ American Power, Stacy McCain’s The Other McCain, Joy McCann’s and Dan Collins’ Conservative Commune, and Duane Lester’s All American Blogger — who would have benefitted from a link and a quick mention as examples of at least some level of success. He could have pulled links from within his own stable of guest-writers (who, by the way, get no special mention anywhere on his site that I can find) for the same purpose – William Teach’s Pirate’s Cove and Lance Burri’s Troglopundit come quickly to mind.
He didn’t because, well, he’s in the game for the links and he’ll get more from a Lucianne sideswipe than he will a direct post from any of the bloggers to whom I linked. Look at his “Linkswap” page. Sure, he’s willing to give a blogroll link to another blogger, but only if that blogger can guarantee him 500 hits a week. How many small, or even mid-sized, blogs can guarantee 500 hits a week to one site? Not many, unless they make an point of giving Right Wing News a fairly prominent link in a couple or three posts a week. The message he’s explicitly sending to other bloggers is “If you can’t help me in a fairly decent way, I have no interest in you at all”.
That’s not how things worked when I was a new blogger. When I started the Sundries Shack, I got links all the time from more popular blogs like Q and O, Captain’s Quarters (the home of Ed Morrissey before he joined Hot Air), and even Right Wing News. Now, years later, I’m lucky if I get a link every few months from the guys who used to link me three or four times a month.
Times change. People change. Job responsibilities change. I get that many of the bloggers with whom I came up in the blogosphere have moved on to much larger professional gigs. Some have sites that pull hundreds of thousands of hits a month. Some work as social media consultants and rarely write anymore. Their lives, and their blogging/writing schedules get pretty busy. The demands on them are more pronounced than when they were hustling hits for their own sites. Their employers demand big, fast results. I get all of that. But would it kill any of them to toss a few links back to the folks trying to get a leg up? Would it truly be that onerous to add a few smaller blogs to their RSS readers and perhaps highlight one of those blogs in a post or newsletter a couple times a month? I can’t imagine it would. I manage to do it pretty much every day with my Clearing the Browser Tabs post. In fact, one of the reasons I do that daily post is to spread some of the linky love to bloggers to whom I know I don’t link enough otherwise. I do it on purpose because I think an important part of my presence in social media is being social. More of us who have been around a while need to remember how good it felt when one of the big dogs noticed us and sent us a healthy dollop of Sitemeter-bulging hits and make sure we do that once in a while for other bloggers.
It won’t kill the bottom-line. In fact, it’s far more likely that reconnecting with the blogospheric community will be good for all of us in the long-term. Not only will we get more links from the little guys, who may well become big guys one day, but we’ll also foster a much-needed sense of community among right-wing bloggers.
One other point. I think Hawkins buried the real reason the right-wing blogging community is in ebb tide right now. Here’s his fifth point.
Most bloggers are not very good at marketing, not very good at monetizing, there are no sugar daddies giving us cash, and this isn’t the biggest market in the world to begin with. In other words, this is a time-consuming enterprise, but few people are going to make enough money to go full time.
He’s right about that. Let me make two points here. First, John mentioned earlier in his post that the left-wing blogosphere exploded in 2002-2003 because they hated George W. Bush and wanted to give voice to that hate. That may well be, but I think something else was at work. Let me list a few of the more popular left-wing blogs and bloggers, and the year they were founded.
- Daily Kos, Markos Moutlitsas – 2002
- TAPPED (The American Prospect blog), Matthew Yglesias – 2003
- Think Progress – 2003
- Ezra Klein – 2003 (Interned for Washington Monthly in 2004)
- Media Matters – 2004
- Political Animal (the Washington Monthly blog), Kevin Drum – 2004
- Firedoglake, Jane Hamsher – 2004
- Unclaimed Territory, Glenn Greenwald – 2005
One of the big reasons the left got a jump on conservatives online is because the left-wing establishment used its money and influence to push a number of bloggers into positions where they could be more influential. Democrats continue to do this, too. When Andrew Sullivan moved on from The Atlantic, the magazine kicked one of his writers, Conor Friedersdorf, to a more prominent spot. The right? Well, let me just say that a blog has a far better chance of getting hit by a bus on the Ross Ice Shelf than they do getting an offer to be part of a new media team at the RNC. The right-wing establishment barely shows an interest in the blogosphere and so long as that continues, the left will always beat us.
Here’s my second point. John is right when he says right-wing bloggers are not good at marketing and monetizing. Neither subject is particularly easy to pick up on the fly. But let me suggest that bloggers could use some useful advice from a guy, like John, who is good at marketing and monetizing. Plenty of bloggers (or former bloggers who are now professional marketers and monetizers) could give new site owners some truly helpful information, but too few of them actually do. I can’t tell you how frustrated I’ve been at conservative political conventions when I’ve sat in on a panel discussion on blogging or podcasting during which the participants spent most of their time talking about themselves and promoting their own projects rather than sharing a few crumbs of their accumulated experience.
I get that we conservatives are ruggedly-individual capitalists. Yay, Adam Smith and all that. It doesn’t make much sense to me, though, to write a piece on the death of the conservative blogosphere when you’re one of the people with your hands around its throat. I’m not a big-traffic guy like John, and so if you’re inclined to dismiss what I have to say as the whining of a failure, well, I won’t argue with you. But consider that the real strength of social media isn’t the second word but the first. If you’re stressing the wrong part of that phrase, you can certainly do well for yourself, but you’re not doing anyone else any good. And isn’t that the point of being a political blogger in the first place? Blog traffic isn’t a zero-sum game — the pie is plenty big enough for all of us to get a huge piece, even if we spend less time hyping our own projects and a little bit more time helping to lift up the people whose piece isn’t all that big right now.
UPDATE: Ed reminded me that Hot Air’s Greenroom does feature a number of smaller bloggers (like me) and that some of those posts do get promoted to the main page. I had forgotten that an apologize to Ed and Allah for the oversight. I believe that the Green Room was the launching pad for John Hayward (AKA: Doc Zero), who is now a regular contributor to Human Events’ web site. So, the situation isn’t as dire as it could otherwise be. I’m still not convinced it’s anywhere nearly as good as it is on the left, but it’s not entirely hopeless.
UPDATE 2: Let me be clear (wait…where have I heard that before?), I didn’t write this as a way to bemoan my own plight. I use myself as an example because I know my own history the best. It’s clear to me that the the left wings establishments, both political and media, have made a habit of looking to its own talent. I’m simply saying that we used to have that habit on the right and we would be better off if we got back to it.
Other Posts of Interest:
- John Hawkins’ New Web Page, TrendingRight, is Live
- Hey, Donors. Why Not Fund Some Bloggers?
- Maybe Rule Two Ought to be Rule Number One
Category: Blogs and Blogging
Great post. I think there's a bit of resistance to doing anything that even appears to be similar to something liberals do. Liberals are good at community building, so we avoid it, if only unconsciously.
Because of that, there's a huge chasm between people like you and me, and the people and organizations that essentially distribute new conservative talk – Fox, Beck, Limbaugh, etc – even Malkin and Coulter are on the far side of it. There is no middle ground, it's either us or them. And making the leap is practically impossible without whoring.
Enter social media. Now that Glenn Beck, for instance, has a Twitter account, any half-wit with a keyboard can put @glennbeck in a tweet and flood his mentions. Most of the people who aren't hating on him are on some quest to use him as a get-rich-quick scheme. Personally, the only question I want to ask Glenn Beck is, "To what e-mail address should I send press releases for consideration on The Blaze and GBTV?" (There is no contact information on either site.) But he is so inundated at all times that it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. Therefore, a rigidly conservative view like mine – offering what I have, letting it succeed or fail on its merits, asking for no favors or celebrity endorsement – is next to impossible in the conservative marketplace. When everybody is special, nobody is special, and I can't get something clearly different to him because he doesn't even have a chance to find my messages among the hundreds of millions he gets every day, and a perfectly respectable skepticism due to the volume and nature of the messages he gets would keep him from taking my messages seriously if he saw them at all.
It's worse because in the music industry, most people – conservative or liberal – believe the lie that the work is its own advertisement. It would be if people could hear it, but how will I get that? Well, these days, the social media market demands it's through retweets from famous or influential people. We have seen to it that we are exacerbating the problem we are lamenting.
That's why I'm sticking with you, Jimmie. You realize that communities have to exist and we need to help each other. If that's a liberal construct, so be it – we are living in a world that has been created by liberals. Social media democratizes absolutely, but it also destroys any notion of a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio. We must accept this and realize that oldschool free market principles have been damaged by the environment in which we live, and while I don't recommend abandoning them completely, rigdly adhering to them and ignoring the evidence that they don't work the way they used to will hasten our trip to the dustbin of history.
Hey, maybe I can help! I know that Billy Hallowell (@BillyHallowell) does some new media outreach for The Blaze. I don't know if he's The Man, but if he isn't, he'll know who will. And he's at least amenable to outreach from the mooks. I don't know what kind of success people had getting their stuff linked over there through him, but he's at least seemed willing to engage on Twitter.
I don't know if Sullivan getting a promotion is the same as the RNC not hiring AllahPundit. Also, guys like Sullivan, Greenwald, Klein, etc are pretty reliable Democratic shills, as opposed to a considerable amount of conservative bloggers who make it their mission to attack the GOP.
If I were doing comms for the GOP, there's no way I'd hire most conservative bloggers. Why would I bring someone on board who's got a dozen posts calling GOPers wimpy, traitorous, RINOS? If that's how a blogger feels, ok, but don't be surprised when the Comms, Director for Sen. Wimpy T. Rino (R-Est.) doesn't look to the blogosphere for messaging help.
As far as bloggers not being treated like real media — and hired on by pubs. like NR, TWS, and others the only thing I can say is that writing some rant about how Mitch McConnell is a traitor to conservatism or that Boehner is a lying hypocrite for not getting everything the writer wanted is not reflective of professional journalists.
Those publications all have standards, and all of them rule out flamethrowing of the type typical of many blogs. I mean RS saying McConnell should be burnt in effigy is insane. While I realize that was at the Completely Nuts end of the spectrum, it's not too far off the mark from the typical flaming that goes on.
You were at the Competely Nuts end of the spectrum and I think you sorely misrepresent the right-wing blogosphere. From my experience, there are plenty of bloggers who are employable right now. They reason they're not is because the GOP and RNC make a conscious choice to ignore them except when they want friendly links to their press releases and conference calls. Then, the GOP complains that bloggers are not kindly disposed toward it? I'd say they're exactly as well-disposed toward the GOP as any reasonable person would be toward their mooching cousin.
Jimmy, very interesting. I feel like I know a lot of conservative bloggers but I seldom know the behind the scenes stuff, and I didn't see Hawkins piece. When I have seen conservatives on Fox, there has seldom been a time they have not been followed by a RINO-type pol (McCain comes to mind) who then denigrates the blogger (even if ever so gently).
As for the bigger bloggers being hesitant to give others an assist up, I notice on Twitter, many will not follow back, just as many politicians will not follow back. That's insane. Linking is an art, I guess. I link for my readers. I can't write on everything, and I can't say everything, so I help my readers continue to find the news. I think most come back, but who knows, maybe I'm wrong.
For me, moving up to a media job has never been my goal. Sure would be great, though, to be one of the 'big guys,' whatever that means. Thanks for an insightful post.
Maggie, thank you for that. I'll disagree with you only on one point. Linking isn't an art, it's a habit. Like every other habit, it takes regular reinforcement. My biggest problem with the bigger bloggers is that most of them don't even try to build the habit.
Good point and I agree. It reminds me that I need to take the habit more seriously.
That's good advice for anyone, I think, in the blogging world…
Link more.
[...] of others commenting on this. Professor Jacobson noted he’s addressed this issue before, and Jimmie Bise had quite a bit to say that’s worth reading. John Lilyea also offers a little bit of advice. [...]
I blog because I need a place to rant. I'm glad there are a few people who like to read my Ramblings but I would blog even if I had no readers.
I wish I had more time to post links to my blog proper. Instead, most of my links end up in a Recent News section on the sidebar. Also unfortunate is the fact that because of my limited time, I have to be choosy about the blogs I read. Yes, many of the "big guys" are there, Hot Air, Ace, etc but I also have this site, Jenny Erikson's and a few others in my stream. The diversity of voices is a good thing.
Thank you, Jimmie, for standing up for all of us peasants to Mr. big important Hawkins (who I actually don't read much of ha ha ha). And thank you for all that you do for other bloggers every day, you are as they LOL cats would say, teh awesome.
I quoted from & linked to you here:
Take Your "Death of Right-Blogs" Proclamation and Shove It! http://zillablog.marezilla.com/2011/07/take-your-…
Oh, and Hawkins has a followup post, now he says he didn't say small bloggers should quit, and apparently he took your post at least a little to heart, because he linked to you & a few others who are discussing his original post.
"I can’t tell you how frustrated I’ve been at conservative political conventions when I’ve sat in on a panel discussion on blogging or podcasting during which the participants spent most of their time talking about themselves and promoting their own projects rather than sharing a few crumbs of their accumulated experience."
This is really discouraging to read, especially if the panel was supposed to be about blogging and podcasting in general as opposed to "Hey meet these cool podcasters!!!!!" I've gone to (and participated on) panels about costuming, and in every one, the panelists gave the audience information about the essential tools and skills, using their skills and products as examples of what they can accomplish.
It sounded a little too much like Hawkins just wanted everyone to toe the party line––you don't get traffic b/c you're a bad writer/crazy/whatever, so you should just quit and spare us from your crazy new ideas. I think it's easy for people to get involved in a big media blogging community and forget where they came from and the fact that all of this is built on ideas. It's easy to see how many people visit your site, but it's impossible to see the effect your post has on a visitor, and that's what's really important in the long run.
I've done very little blogging lately for assorted reasons, and haven't spent much time reading them either. However, I did run across Hawkins' post, although it was hard to spot on the page as the girlie pic links rather overwhelmed its placement.
Sarcasm aside, what is our purpose for blogging? Are we trying to educate and inform? Build consensus and community? Or all go after the biggest piece available of the exact same pie everyone else is striving to devour?
We need to promote each other because the other person has something to say, not because we hope doing so will score brownie points with the in crowd. We need to get our message to the people, not each other.
How do we show ourselves to the world? Are we focused? Can people who come by our blogs have a reasonable anticipation of what to expect? Are we offering something more than "me too" or "eff u?" Or worse of all, "look at me – SQUEE?"
Hawkins isn't helping.
Bravo, Jimmie!
[...] and with Jimmie Bise: It doesn’t make much sense to me, though, to write a piece on the death of the conservative [...]
[...] we have a stubborn inability to spread marketing and branding knowledge to our fellow bloggers. Jimmie Bise from Sundries Shack summarizes this serious deficiency within the our blogging [...]
Take this for what you will from a guy who has been hemorrhaging traffic due to life getting in the way, but I believe that a whole lot of us have lost our way. We've let that little part of us that cannot help but click on someone else's SiteMeter button and hope that the information is public take over the part of us that decided to publish that initial post in the first place.
Maybe it's because I never really planned on defining myself foremost as a conservative blogger in the first place, but I find myself increasingly in tune with discussions among two types of people in New Media: those who do what they do in order to drive uniques and hope beyond hope for a chance to settle in next to the "leg chair" on Red Eye, and those who understand that the national discourse is a whole lot bigger than the most-trafficked of blog sites and use whatever pulpit they can manage to build to focus primarily on perpetuating their message rather than whoring for hits.
Are we looking to inform and educate, or are we just *really* holding out for that almighty link from the Drudge Report? Driving traffic and providing an education go hand-in-hand, for sure, but more often nowadays it seems as though folks are leading with the "traffic" hand and hoping that the education keeps up, rather than having faith that the opposite will hold true.
All that being said, you can find more of my stylings at America's Right. That's A-M-E-R-I-C-A-S R-I-G-H-T dot-com, folks. Tell your friends!
[...] From The Sundries Shack: Take a quick scan over Hawkins article and look at the links. Do you see how all of them — every last one — goes to a big right-wing web site? That’s by design. He’s link-whoring. Now, link-whoring is a venerable blogging tradition and often helps bring in a few links here or there, but if you’re going to write about smaller blogs, why not link to a couple of them? [...]