Is There a Blogging Bubble?

We’re mostly moms around here, so let’s play a game we’re all familiar with, thanks to our close affiliation with the Sesame Street crowd. Which of these things doesn’t belong here?: {tulips, dot-coms, housing, higher education, flat panel tv stands, blogging}

I have a theory I’d like to get it in writing so I can say “I told you so” when it becomes apparent that I was right. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the concept of the speculative bubble. In fact, I’d bet at least a few of my readers have been caught up in one or two. Maybe you don’t even know it yet.

Tulips. OK, so we’re all too young and not Dutch enough to have fallen for that one. Dot-coms? You were all over it, just in time to lose your shirt. Housing? Property values never go down! At least, they didn’t until your next door neighbor convinced you that your house was more akin to a checking account than a place to live. Did you decide to go back to school in your early 30′s because you learned on the morning news that you could make a ton more money if you only had a degree in liberal arts? What’s that? You don’t have to start paying back the loans for another year?  Congratulations! You’re keeping company with a lot of perfectly normal people who made bad investments. It happens. You’ll survive. You probably won’t learn your lesson, but you’ll live.

But now that you have to pay down all those home equity loans you took out to pay for the college education that is doing you no good, you’re looking for your next meal ticket and–hey, didn’t that chick you met last week say she was making a ton of money? Blogging?

I think the fact that there are about four thousand blog conferences in the next few months, with hundreds of people in attendance who have no idea why they’re there, might point to a bubble forming. More and more people are jumping into this nifty “new” idea, with little to show for it beyond some neat convo swag. All that’s really needed before I’ll be absolutely certain that there is a bubble a-blowin’ is for some genius to put together an infomercial about how you can make a fortune in the comfort of your own home using this neat new thing called WordPress!

Before you all start screaming bloody murder, I’d like to point out that, yes, some people are making a fairly good living from their blogs. That’s how bubbles happen. It works for a few people, then a bunch of other losers misunderstand the cause of the person’s success. They jump on board thinking it’s a silver bullet-train to wealth and contentment, convince all their friends to do the same, and a bubble is born.

So, are you a substantive blogger? (For the record, I am not.) Or are you the air in a big ol’ bloggy bubble? (I’m also not that, as I’m not the type to expect profit where I clearly am not capable of turning one. Nor am I putting any money into this thing with the expectation of making a profit.)

You might be a bubble blogger if:

• Your traffic is in the tank, but you spend a ton of money to attend conferences hoping to learn how to make money blogging.
• Your blog is about blogging.
• Your Klout page lists one of your biggest influencers as @Klout.
• You think of your blog as a brand, but it’s not really about anything but other people’s brands. (I can think of a few exceptions to this rule.)
• You have to bribe your readers to show up by offering them free stuff.
• You’re completely unaware that some people blog about anything other than brands, and constantly write posts about how they need to step up their game to get the big PR catch.
• You have no idea that being a mom doesn’t make you an authority on anything. There is a reason people sneer when they speak of mommy bloggers, folks.

How to avoid being a bubble blogger:

• Get a life. Your blog will only have value if it is about something. There are two things a bubble blogger focuses on: blogging itself, and monetizing. If your blog focuses on these things, you might be a bubble blogger.
• Have a purpose. The best bloggers don’t even describe themselves as bloggers! Ask a successful blogger what she does, and you’ll get answers like: marketing consultant, homeschooler, political pundit, financial advisor, frugalista. The blog is not the product. The blog is the outlet.
• Don’t spend more money on your blog than you can afford to lose. You’re either going to be successful, or you’re not. Things like conferences are useful and fun, but they will not make you successful. Your content will, provided you pay attention to the first two steps.
• Don’t invest too much of your time in your blog. Most bubbles involve malinvestment of money. Blogging is different. It’s fairly low overhead, unless you’re going to every convention you catch wind of. The loss you’re likely to suffer with blogging is not money, but your precious time–time you could be spending with your children, your spouse, or the business that you could be blogging about.

What think you, bloggers? Are a lot of people completely misunderstanding what blogging is all about, or am I all wet?

If your answer to the question posed at the beginning of this article was “flat panel tv stands”, give yourself a pat on the back. I have, to date, not seen any malinvestment in this area. I do, however, need a new microwave, and putting that link in there will earn me enough money to buy one.