Do You Have Blog Motivation

According to Technorati, there are over 70 million weblogs, with the number growing by 120,000 created worldwide each day. This equates to about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day. Of the 120,000 weblogs created each day, between 3,000 and 7,000 are splogs.

As you can see from the above graph, the curve is still significantly on the up. Obviously, something is motivating all these people to blog and more specifically, where do you fit in all this.

Do you have blog motivation?

You blog, therefore you must have right?

Can you name your motivation, or do you have more than one?

Does it really matter if you have a specific motivation or not?

What these questions are really asking, is, what is your purpose for blogging. There are numerous reasons why people blog, but some that come readily to mind are listed below. I have separated the list into two groups, personal and professional. The professional list does not mean that it is necessarily motivated by financial gain, but rather the focus is a little more committed.

Personal Motivation

• To keep an online diary of personal experiences
• To share news with family and friends
• For personal expression and the joy of writing
• To reach out and socialise with their readers

Professional Motivation

• To educate or provide information
• For promoting a specific cause
• To promote a business or product
• Reputation building and ego
• To make money

There are obviously many more reasons, but this list will suffice. When asked, only 18% or people claim money as a motivating factor for blogging. I would suggest that the figure is actually much higher, as some of the responses I have read said things like:

“I blog purely for the fun of it. If I can earn some money out of it as well, that is a bonus.”

These sentiments may well be perfectly legitimate, but it also suggests to me that many of the people saying it really would like to earn more than ’some money’ from their effort. The problem is, they do not want to commit themselves to the psychology of really trying to make a go of it. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, it is quite common, most people lack the confidence to actually state that they really intend to make money from an endeavor, when in reality they can quite probably achieve both goals, blogging with a passion, and earning a good income at the same time. It may not necessarily be easy, but it is possible.

If you have the motivation to blog for any of the professional reasons, why not take measures to ensure that you also make a living from it. Instead of looking at some income as a bonus, include it as part of your motivation. Even blogging for a cause requires some form of income to ensure that all the costs are covered.