Blog Avatars: What Can Your Blog Possibly Be?

Posted on 23. May, 2009 by Ashwin in Blogs

Who says a blog should be just a blog? It could be anything, don’t you think? I was thinking about he seemingly endless possibilities blogs can have, but mostly stemming from the fact that a blog first and foremost a publishing platform. Why do we we stick to “I-have-a-niche-I-will-now-blog” stereotype? Here are some more ideas to take it to the next level:

1. A membership site: One of the most obvious, highly profitable ways to turn your blog around is to turn it into a membership site. There are plenty of plugins available to help you do this. You may also use amember.com if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. The point is that when you have enough readership and your niche is well-targeted, your blog has all the makings for a full-blown memberhsip site. It also brings about a recurring stream of income. But let no one fol you, it takes a lot of effort to keep a membership site up and profitable.

2. Blog + forum: While a membership site might cost money and effort to keep it going, there is another way to get your blog to be more interactive and sticky: install a forum script on your blog. When you go for a self-hosting wordpress blog, you wil have an option of installing a free, open source script onto your blog in a moment. The key is to have a niche that calls for community involvement, has a burning need an your blog should have enough readership to keep your forum humming.

3. A magazine: I am of the belief that any blog — no matter how big or small – is much like a magazine, except that we don’t run it that way. Now, when I say that your blog can become a magazine in itself, it calls for various things here. You got to have an editor, a writer or a team of writers, a way to market your magazine and needless to say, incredible, sticky, hell-I-want-to-read-this-again kind of content.

Have you any more ideas? What else can a blog be? Can a blog be made it a book? Can a book be made into a blog? Shoot your ideas people.

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