» How not to treat your network bloggers. ~ The WURK Job & Career News Network.

How not to treat your network bloggers.

By Barry Bell on December 7 2005

I’m not into b5media bashing and I’m not about to start. In fact, I don’t even need to start when it’s one of the network owners who’s doing the bashing themselves. And that’s why this post by Duncan at the Blog Herald irks me. Yes, ‘irks’.

For a start, the post is titled “b5media comes under fire”. Which isn’t a great start, as Duncan is discussing how his network are already taking flak for server downtime. Not a huge issue, really – yeah, maybe they did grow a little too fast and struggled ever so slightly to keep up, but that’s hardly a bad thing, is it?

Anyway… what really gets me is when Duncan goes on to bash his own network (yes, really) by saying this about some of the b5media blogs…

Im reading most of the sites daily, and to me some of them are are totally boring, whilst others are brilliant. But I’m not everyone. For example some of the blogs written by Arieanna (in particular Mischa News and Hilary News) are very sucessful, and yet as much as I appreciate working with Arieanna, and I recognise she’s got a great writing stile [sic], I’m not the least bit interested in the topic.

Hang on a sec. Did I read that right? “Some of them are totally boring”, and “I’m not in the least bit interested in the topic”.

Now I’m assuming that part of b5media’s business plan is to earn some cash for its owners. But do you have to be so blatant about the fact that that’s exactly what you’re using your writers to do?

How do you think your writers feel about their ‘boss’ publically labelling their blogs as “totally boring”, and “not in the least bit interested”. Not the kind of feedback you want to hear as an employee, or a contractor, is it? And I know that no matter how vehemently your writers will tell us that they’re not pissed off by this – either in their own blog, in the comments of this one, or anywhere else – the truth is that reading something like that about your work isn’t gonna make anyone’s day.

I know we can’t like every subject, and I know there are things that we will find boring, but as a network owner, you’ve got to maintain a positive spin on things *all* of the time. You’ve got to be right behind each and every one of your bloggers, and each and every one of the properties in your network.

Because if you don’t believe in something, you’re gonna have a hard time persuading other people to believe in it.

So network owners, listen up. Here’s a tip for you. You’re just not gonna win readers by telling people that your network blogs are boring,and that you’re not in the least bit interested in them. And worse still, you might just lose some writers along the way if you’re not careful.

And there endeth another quick lesson in the “How NOT to…” series of posts on blogs, blog networks, bloggers and blogging. More soon, kids…

Contributor: Barry Bell

I'm a freelance writer and designer with over 10 years’ experience of creating award-winning recruitment and consumer marketing communications, together with a wide range of other creative marketing colateral. ... more »

WURK profile: http://WURK/profile/admin
Contributor website: http://barrybell.com

COMMENTS

By Matt
December 7, 2005 10:48 am

I totally agree. I’ve always felt blogging, no matter what the topic, is at least a semi-personal thing. By labelling the bloggers as “boring” and “uninteresting,” they’re no longer people, just numbers.

He’s practically saying that he couldn’t give a crap about their ideas, beliefs, interests or opinions, but as long as they’re bringing in revenue, let the money machine do what it’s doing.
By Barry Bell
December 7, 2005 11:42 am

Yep… I thought it was quite a careless thing to write in such a prominent blog – especially coming from the owner of b5media, and especially in a post that’s already trying to counter other criticism. When you’re playing with people’s working lives like that, you’ve just got to be careful what you write – particularly in public.

Hardly professional. And hardly businesslike, which I assume goes against what b5media is: a business.

You wouldn’t get someone like Calacanis saying “personally, I think engadget is a bit crap”, or “actually, I’m not in the least bit interested in those new blogs we’ve just launched.” Why? Because like I said, you’ve got to be 110% behind any business if you want it to be a success. Calacanis, for all his faults, is at least 110% behind WIN – which, I guess, is half the reason why it popped for $25m, and b5media erm… probably wont.

Especially if this kind of thing happens any more.
By Hsien Lei
December 7, 2005 5:51 pm

You know, Barry, not everyone can be as genuine and supportive as you. And I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass because I work with you.
By Marcel
December 8, 2005 4:01 am

Can a network blogger out there tell me how much they get paid to Blog, per entry or per month ?

Just wondering what it takes to get a few GOOD bloggers. see my sig for a similar question
By Barry Bell
December 8, 2005 8:40 am

Marcel – I currently use a revenue share system where anyone with a wurk.net blog gets 100% of the contextual/Adsense revenue, plus 50% of direct sponsorship/co-branding revenue. Or at least they will when we do get some direct sponsorship/co-branding revenue.

That was definitely a ‘when’, by the way, not an ‘if’.

;o)
By Marcel
December 15, 2005 2:19 am

100% !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who own the content, the network or it’s bloggers ?
By Barry
December 15, 2005 1:17 pm

Marcel – yep, 100% of Google Adsense revenue. I actually code in our writers’ Adsense Publisher ID’s so they get paid directly by Google.

As for the content – the copyright is held by the writers: they grant me a licence to display/archive it ‘in perpetuity’ on this site.
By Duncan
January 14, 2006 8:20 am

I’ve stumbled across this post nearly by accident some 1 month later I still feel it necessary to clarify what I was saying, and certainly to make the point that you’ve totally missed the point, which you have.

What I was trying to say at the time is that every topic on every blog b5media has doesn’t interest me, and to this day this is still the truth. We are literally a broad church of interests, and also have 4 owners with vastly different interests as well. This is actually a strength. What I was saying at the time is that the celebrity/ entertainment blogs were boring to me personally because I wasn’t interested in the topic/ subject of them, not because I dislike the writing style or their value to others. Oddly enough I’ve actually started writing one of these blogs at b5 and I’m now hooked on all of them!!!

The post was also in response to others stating that some blogs are boring and therefore their worth was zero. This was subjective and the ppl saying this were not looking at the bigger picture of diverse and niche interests.

But again, there are still blogs at b5 that still don’t interest me personally, but reach their target audience extremelly well. It’s ashame that you didn’t get this very point in relation to diversity (or literally long tail theory) because if you cant get it you aren’t going to get the diverse variety and numbers of readers here at Wurk.net as we’ve managed to get a b5media.