This post was written by Jennifer
Should You Take Advantage of A Media Circus?
I hate when bloggers jump on every single media circus that comes along. It may be smart SEO but to me it looks spammy and needy.
What’s ironic is I posted the words “Hannah Montana” in a post yesterday. However, I had written the post on the weekend and had no clue about the whole Vanity Fair vs. Miley circus that was about to break, honestly, she was the only teen star I could think of when I wrote the post on Saturday. But the whole day I felt like a sell-out.
I work for some clients who urge me to jump on each and every media circus that breaks but I usually don’t. It’s one thing I just don’t do as a blogger. This is partly due to my total non-interest in celebrity events, and most of these media circuses seem to involve celebrities, but more importantly, it has to do with the fact that the topics I blog simply don’t relate. I could make them relate - I’ve done it before, it’s not hard; but again, I think it looks kind of lame.
I expect that if you cover certain kid topics, celebrity topics, or scandal topics that I’d see the whole Miley issue on your blog yesterday. Perhaps several times yesterday, but come on, if you blog about cars or house building, how weird is it going to look to write about this topic? Even if you find a killer slant, it’s going to look completely obvious.
To me, clients pushing hot topics daily is a reasonable request, I get the whole page view issue. If it really relates, sure I’ll post about it, but overall, to me, this is one of the major downsides of problogging. It’s also likely what makes me a less decent employee than some other bloggers, but I guess I’d rather post about the topic I was hired to blog about.
What do you think? Or rather what do you do? Do you jump on each and every media circus that comes to town, or skip it if it doesn’t relate?
Oh, btw, if you’re interested in jumping on events and would like to attempt to make it somewhat less obvious read this post at Performacing - it’s a decent take on this issue.
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2 Responses to “Should You Take Advantage of A Media Circus?”
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I tend to not even notice events happening until months later.
I’m not a trend setter and not much of a trend follower either because I usually have my head way up into those pretty clouds rather than in the latest glossy.
Having said that, I’d LIKE to get on a wave or two just to see what an impact it would have on my blog. I’ve also covered an event or two in the past because it was related to my niche. Either way I would find a way to make it relevant rather than name-dropping.
I did a whole series of Writing Lessons I Learnt From Stargate a few months ago but strangely enough it doesn’t really bring in many hits from Stargate searchers. It does however bring LOTS of hits for the ACTUAL topic.
I think the real issue to consider is the QUALITY of your hits. Yes, name dropping and jumping on the bandwagon with every major even as it happens can bring a tide of incoming hits but does it create repeat visitors? Not unless those readers are interested in the blogs true niche and even many that come from the wave mightn’t hang around long enough to decide if they are.
I realized later that I should have called this post “Every media circus” not “A media circus” one or two media hypes looks normal. Each and every one looks spammy, not spammy exactly, more opportunistic even when it doesn’t apply well to a blog topic.
I wonder too about repeats. I don’t think I get many repeat visitors from hot media issues. You get a flow, but not steady traffic.