Blogs and movies are similar in that they both need a fan base to be profitable and successful. A fan base
is generated through marketing techniques and procedures that get the blog or movie known to the masses. Learning how to hone into a target audience and start to ignore the non-target audience is a skill that can make or break a blog.
I got the idea for this post because of a movie that I was forced to watch recently, Twilight, because the amount of success this movie received was not a result of the movies quality. The movie was terrible, but it was a movie built around marketing.
The movie is based of a book that is popular to girls between the ages of 10 and 17. Of course there are others that are older and younger, but they are not the majority. The book was written following a culture-friendly script that contained all of the interesting and provocative scenes, but ones that did not expose too much to lose audience.
Sexual-innuendo was a huge part of the movie. There was one point when a girl was bit by a vampire and her “transformation” was her on the floor having an intense DP-style orgasm. Weird shit.
But anyway, the point is, the book was written to include a little bit of everyone’s interests, within that age group of 10-17. The idea of being alone at a new school, having a boy reject you, getting your first boyfriend, and even the dysfunctional father-daughter relationship are all incorporated just to make sure everyone has something to relate to. And this is my point, the movie was sniper-style focused on a certain group and would advertise during similar shows, have commercials that piqued their interest, and kept the rating low to allow even the youngest viewers. Marketing Genius.
Blogs should be marketed Twilight style. Do a full-fledged attack on a specific group. For people writing niche blogs, the battle is already half done because you already know your audience. For blogs that are more widespread, like this one, the authors have twice the work because each topic covered should be promoted actively to maintain a audience.
Twilight showed me making a movie, or building a blog, and marketing specifically to an audience that is underrepresented as a whole, even if other audiences hate it, will allow a steady and exponential fan base. It also showed me the importance of teasers and submitting posts to blog carnival. Revealing commercials got all the girls wet to see Edward Cullen, the loner-quiet-cool-guy-vegetarian vampire, and his forbidden love with Bella, the new-girl-in-a-small-town-student vampire food. This focused and fierce promotion made sure that the movie was being seen and appreciated by its intended audience, and isn’t that the goal of any blog, to be seen by its entire target audience?
Comments on this entry are closed.