Social Media Is So Much Easier When.. (Tip #31)
Not Being In The "Make Money" Niche
I've been working on my Bootcamp site for a while, and it's been a challenge, but rewarding experience. Recently however, I bought a new site that is about homebrewing. This is a topic that I'm interested in and would do on my own anyway. I saw a pre made site on sale at Flippa for $97, and thought, hey, that's not a bad price for saving me the time of buying the domain name, installing Wordpress and all that goes along with setting up a new site.
I've been working on the site in my free time (when not busy with Bootcamp or other sites) just as a way to wind down after some stressful work, or as a ways to keep up on my homebrewing skills while not actually brewing.
After each post, I share it in various social media circles and groups, as you should do.
I was pleasantly surprised when every group I shared with got REAL responses from REAL people and they were always positive.
I've been working in the "home based business" or "make money online" niche so long that I've gotten used to all the negative attention surrounding the niche.
Don't know what I'm talking about?
- Have you ever seen those annoying posts on YouTube that say, "My sister makes $5,000 a month working online. Click here to see how she does it".
- Or have you had someone leave a spam comment on your blog that says, "Hey, I noticed you're not ranking well for your keyword. I have an awesome system that I want to share with you."
Well, most people can't tell the difference between those kinds of posts, and legitimate training, so in a nutshell, anything to do with "make money online" is banned from public places. The places where it's not banned is so spammed with scams that it's not even worth (or recommended) that you try to get a word in and convince people that they're all looking in the wrong directions.
And even if you work your way into semi-legitimate places most folks are also marketers, and are more interested in promoting their own content than actually reading yours. They may tweet you or +1 your stuff, but it's all in their plan to gain followers and shares for themselves.
But the same is not true with my homebrew site.
I was at a Twitter party the other night and shared my post and got 3 people to read it and respond to my tweet with comments.
I posted it to a Google+ community and started a conversation with another homebrewer throughout the day.
I also joined a Facebook community of homebrewers in my local area that also post links to their own beer recipes, and I might actually meet up with them in real life next time they have a brew session.
What's the point?
The 'online opportunity' or make money niche can be super profitable if you have a good strategy, experience, and are smart about how and where you get traffic from. If you are just starting out, picking something you are interested in and other people are interested in as well will make your life a lot easier.
Instead of being a marketer, you're just an enthusiast with a blog. And being a knowledgeable enthusiast might also be called an expert. This is a sure way to profit from your blog.
For anyone in Bootcamp, don't take this post as a reason to quit! I only mean to say that I was so relieved to find out that my social media campaign with my homebrew site is going to be a lot easier. BTW if you want to see the site you can see it here. http://thehomebrewsite.com. It's a work in progress, a bit of an experiment, and certainly not yet profitable, so it's my advice to NOT emulate too many of the things you see there :)
Recent Comments
31
Great blog. Beautiful website. When you write about making beer it reminds me of making bread. I love beer and really love wine :) I'd like to "whine about wines" in a website. Keep up the good work.
I've experienced this too. The make money niche is very hard and often not received well by others. It's fun to jump into a discussion on social media and have something everyone is interested in. It's almost like social media is a different world when you're in a niche like your home brew site or another hobby niche.
People are automatically suspicious, which is hard to deal with for me. And if you care about your audience, it's tough to constantly have to 'justify' 'explain' and 'prove' yourself. It's niche to just show people something and have them like it.
Great post and I have to agree with you there. It's much easier to be social when it comes to what I like to call "real life" markets. Markets where people have something that they can physically touch rather than knowledge to learn.
On a side note, great catch with that domain and best of luck with it!
Your site is very interesting. I am very fond of Beer. A couple of years ago I was in Georgia GE(Russian Federation), on Sundays I regularly bought local beers and enjoyed Home brewed vodka and wine while visiting local friends. Wish I could visit you one day to refresh my joys.
Wow. I didn't know Georgia would be a beer drinking country. I assume they drink it like water because they are used to all that vodka! Homebrewing is an awesome hobby, and it leads to interests in other types of home-made drinks like cider, wine, etc. Glad to have another beer enthusiast in WA :)
I totally agree. All the things we learn and take action will eventually see cash coming in. Don't set out to make cash first. It is all about giving first. And it is much easier when we are talking about something that we are passionate about. It is a whole new approach of building a business online. Dig deep and talk about what you love. Business is all about creating the connection with people.
And it's so much easier to create that connection when you don't have to 'sell'. Being yourself and just talking about the things you love is really fun, as if I had to tell you :)
This was great info, Nathaniell, thanks. I've been so caught up with my Boot Camp site, too that I never really gave any thought to how a different site genre would do on social media. Thanks and I'm excited to try it.
Yeah, I find that if I get hyper focused on something it can be easy to forget that there are alternatives.
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love the beer niche, I am trying to get into the smoked meat niche, Think I will look into Flippa
Smoked meat sounds like a great niche!