The Statusphere for Writers and Journalists

When Walt Mossberg was asked, "are newspapers worth saving?" the WSJ journalist replied,"It’s the wrong question to ask. The real question we should ask is if whether or not we can save good journalism.” He continued, “Think about it. Of the hundreds, thousands, of newspapers around the country, there are really only a few that matter. Good journalism and journalists, on the other hand, are worth saving.”

Seems like yet another traditional profession is going through a tech-tonic shift caused by the internet. When distribution costs are minimal and income streams at the mercy of advertising revenues, what does the future hold for journalists? To be fair, there have always been freelance journalists and perhaps their numbers will just increase. What the successful ones are embracing - and what their publishers should also be concentrating upon - is the growth in social media.

This all sounds like more hype for social networking, blogging and community building, but these movements are not going to go away any time soon. As publishers experiment with social media tools they are at the same time locked into their traditional way of thinking as they also test out micro-charging systems and other payment methods. After all, consumers are there to consume, not to just interact then flutter away to the next social buzz.

But journalists and their publishers are now up against bloggers and blogging networks that have had to survive and thrive under the new rules. Marketing people love to talk about brands, but in the case of written content I'd rather call it a voice. Columnists who have personality, insights and engage with their public across the social media networks are creating their own voice. If they were to move to a different site I'd bet many users would follow them. The dedication is to another human voice, not to the corporate brand they may be flying under.

However, all of this means extra work for the writer who wants to succeed. Your personal voice, or brand, has to be created through your own energies and dedication. As in so many other areas, the freedom to freelance comes with an obligation to do all those other tasks that were the responsibility of the publishers, such as marketing, advertising and distribution.

The Statusphere is another of these ugly hybrid words designed to conjure up this new world of fast-moving social interactions. In contrast to the blogosphere, the statusphere is the sum of interactions and contacts that can form across multiple social media websites. However, in all the hype it is easy to forget that this statusphere has no memory - the interactions are ephemeral and what remains are the connections formed. For this reason alone I very much doubt the death of blogs or websites as repositories of histories.

However, one thing that the statusphere is changing is the direction of information flow. Once it was quite simply from publishers to readers, with a trickle of feedback. Now, any article that has the good fortune to spread virally has also spread out of control of the original author. This is good for voice recognition but has already become unwieldy keeping track of one's own influence as so much discussion can happen off-site, or off-blog. It is common to see discussion on a social bookmarking site being far more active than at the site of the original article. People read what they read where they read it and comment where they are - there is no protocol to go back and comment on the source.

Keeping track of all this is surely the task of automated scripts - that do not yet exist and are sorely needed. If all of this gives you a sense of statusfear then just concentrate on your most successful social arenas and let the rest of the network take the strain and bring to you those well-deserved new readers. As this blog is for general writers rather than specifically for journalists, how does all this affect you?

If you are earning from freelance contract work, then perhaps very little. If, however, you are writing for third party websites such as revenue sharing networks then you already have some help in distribution and marketing. But to really spread your own voice you will need to manage this statusphere in the best way you can. The bookmarking and interactions are all your responsibility. The bookmarking is rarely done automatically, although some have added semi-automatic scripts to speed up the process for you. Experiment with spreading your wings and just clip those websites that are not pulling in new readers. At the same time don't forget to engage with those that do show genuine interest or the network will flow elsewhere. Decide where "home" is, set the wheels in motion and let the network do the work.

Despite Recession, Social Media Marketing to Rise. Good News for Writers?

During a recession corporate budgets are tightened, workers laid off and those grateful for a job are supposed to increase productivity. It is therefore somewhat of a surprise to see that social media advertising is due to increase, at least according to a new survey released by Forrester Research.

The reasoning behind this increase is that social media advertising is comparatively cheap compared to other forms of marketing. With social networking, blogging and user-generated content as the most popular marketing channels it would seem that there should be an increase in the amount of work for writers, and especially writer-bloggers. However, just below these top three are mobile marketing, online video, widgets and podcasting, meaning that a lot of the image-centred advertising skills will also be in demand.

I think this should encourage those freelance writers who need to make a living to look at writing and blogging contracts rather than just writing on revenue sharing websites. One small warning is whether the assumption that social media is cheap is due to its effectiveness or that social media experts are working for peanuts. I don't think those who badge themselves as professionals come cheaply but with content producers living around the world some sites seem to expect we can live on crumbs. This is where being already active within social media platforms is a distinct advantage.

First Payment from Writing at Suite101

One writing website that seems to get little attention in the plethora of "Make Money Writing at X" articles is suite101. No doubt this is due to their lack of a referral system and therefore little incentive to promote them beyond links to one's own articles. But this On Writing Online blog is about making money for writers, not always about making money from writers! So it is worth taking another look at suite101, especially as I just got paid by them!

Firstly, the payment wasn't astronomical, but I did manage to edge past their minimum $10 payout. The thing is, I had stopped writing there for a couple of months as I was moving around and had other things to do. But when I came back to looking how my writing was doing on various sites, that's when suite101 was a pleasant surprise. In contrast to the pathetic cents accumulated at Associated Content and Hubpages my suite101 account was just a couple of dollars short of a payout. Even without an affiliate system the articles on their own do seem to get the views and the clicks to make writing profitable.

I have thus returned to writing regularly for suite101 and hope the second payment will not be too long in coming. The one thing about writing at suite101 is that they have very strict rules about how articles should be written. They also demand one-year exclusive rights to your articles so that you can only copy them elsewhere after a year from their first publication. On the plus side, this means there are no cut-and-paste articles and the quality of writing is overall good (if sadly unemotional and bland). There is also an increase in profits by becoming a Feature Writer for a category. Indeed, there are still many topic categories that seem under-represented by writers so, if your writing is good, it is relatively straightforward to be elevated to Feature Writer status.

Overall, suite101 demands a little more work than some other writing websites but the rewards seem to be commensurate. From the still fairly small sample of my own articles I can say that earnings there are about 20 times higher than at AC and HP combined!

How to Gain Momentum from Social Media Websites

How many times have we seen articles climb up the social bookmarking ladders and wonder... Why? How often do your best-written most-researched articles just sit there earning crumbs and then something you've knocked up in no time rockets to success? Well, the internet seems to run on momentum. This is not so very different to what I wrote on getting published – do the hard work, be prepared and push that momentum when it happens.

Hot Stories

Perhaps the easiest way to generate momentum is to pitch yourself in the slipstream of a news story that is already hot. It is very easy to quickly bookmark these stories on places like Xomba and Infopirate and earn a bit of money in the process. But to really grab other people's attentions you'll need to do some quick research and create a value-added article. This could be a comparison with competing products or a brief historical overview to put the news story into context.

When there was much talk about LIBOR interests rates I wrote a piece explaining in layman's terms precisely how LIBOR is calculated and the inherent flaws in it. The article continues to get steady views even today.

Popular Sources of Stories

Look closely at the most popular stories on a particular social bookmarking site and see which websites the stories originate from. You will quickly realize that some news sources have a loyal following of social media users. If you're lucky enough to bookmark an article first then you can go away and write your article as mentioned above in the near-certain knowledge that it will be voted up. You will then have extra kudos when you come to promote your follow-up article.

For example, Yahoo Buzz is filled with stories from Yahoo News, so don't bother trying to Buzz up the same story from another site – join the herd and you'll get noticed. And if your follow-up article is based on a piece on Yahoo then this is where to promote it.

Focus Your Efforts

There are over 1000 social media websites on the internet. You need to find the ones that seem to work best in your particular topic area. The previous section will give you a very good idea. Some news sources have also decided to focus on maybe just half a dozen bookmarking sites. Don't try and be clever to bookmark a site on a different social media site and expect it to succeed. It is worth experimenting but keep those speculative tasks to one at a time and see what works and what doesn't. As I said near the top, sites like Xomba and Infopirate are not yet considered in the top rank but the huge advantage there is that you're already earning money on your bookmark before you've even written the article!

For example, I tend to use StumbleUpon for my science and religion stories rather than Digg. StumbleUpon has a religion category and various related groups whereas Digg has no such category and similar articles are scattered across the site, often ending up in Arts & Culture. Why waste my time Digging when I can Stumble more easily!

Creating Your Own Momentum

For the lone online writer this is the hardest to achieve. It could potentially be very lucrative but it needs some careful planning. You can Buzz and Digg and bookmark your own articles on pretty much all the social bookmarking sites and then hope for the best. Luck happens! You need to try and that's fine but how would you plan such a promotion? Without a ready-made receptive and cultivated following your efforts could look like spamming. Sure, tweet your followers, message the groups you belong to and maybe post the story on some forums. Just be careful your story doesn't get buried just because your efforts at generating traffic look... manufactured. By far the best source is the readers you have following you on your blog or writing website. Encourage them to vote.

Buying Success

There are now website services that can generate the momentum you need to make a huge social splash. They are not free and it is probably the worst thing to do. As I said above, the algorithms used to calculate a news item's success are usually a well-kept secret as social bookmarking sites attempt to keep their listings as free of spam and artificial hype as possible. Getting caught once will result in your being banned from that site immediately. Not exactly what you paid for is it!

Overall, use the skills you have to your advantage. Whichever websites you write on will have a better search engine placement than your personal blog. Use that muscle rather than dreaming of the big break-through. Cultivate your readers, ride the trends with new insights and slowly build up that blog. One day the hoards will be at the gates and if your blog has more than one article worth reading then you're a star!