Last month a New York TV station WNBC-TV invited a group of 130 top bloggers to speak and asked how much money they made blogging. This is interesting stuff to know before Denise and I head out to the BlogHer Business conference Wednesday where we will head an Ask the Expert panel on monetizing your blog.
They asked the top 130 NYC bloggers how much money their blog makes:
17% - over $1,000/month
14% - $200-500/month
4% - $100/month
14% - less that $100/month
51% - NOTHING
According to Anne-Marie Nichols on her blog The Write Spot, BlogAd's Henry Copeland told the Wall St. Journal that "most self-employed bloggers take in between $2,000 and $10,000 a month from ad sales."
Of course it's hard to get to the truth when marketers over-hype their success and have something to sell.
What the survey should've done is asked people to identify whether they are trying to monetize their blogs or not. If half of the respondents don't include a single ad then it makes sense that they would report an income of $0. And of those trying to make money, those that are active and passive in their efforts should be identified. The sort of information would give us a better idea as to the monetization potential of blogs.
Posted by: Marios Alexandrou | Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 03:01 PM
You make an excellent point, Marios. Many bloggers we know aren't actively trying to generate ad or other income from their blogs, and many are blogging as a means of communication and expression. Their business results often show up when people hire them because they'be grown to like and trust them for their view points and knowledge.
Posted by: Patsi M. Krakoff | Monday, March 19, 2007 at 06:23 AM