I just found this video on Tim Ferris' blog from "4 Hour Work Week". It's an hour long video (about) from a conference where he was a keynote speaker, check out the description: How to Build a High-Traffic Blog Without Killing Yourself 161 Comments Written by Tim Ferriss Topics: Marketing The above video is one of my favorite presentations I’ve given in 2009, an opening keynote at the last San Francisco WordCamp, titled “How to Blog without Killing Yourselfâ€. More than 700 people from 32 countries were in attendance, which made for a wonderful experience. The original title was “Scalable Blogging Behaviors: How to Grow from 1 to 1,000,000 Readers†and the content did not change. In the above presentation, including detailed screenshots, I cover… - Why I blog - How I blog and select best practices - Frequency and tools — best times and days to post - Blogging myths and how to harness data for better results - Testing design and surprising findings that can be copied - How I address comments and community building - How I write and research for good social media response - 20 minutes of audience Q&A on Twitter, branding, outsourcing, and much more I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed giving it. Code (markup): Video link below: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blo...a-high-traffic-blog-without-killing-yourself/
Anyone interested in creating a proactive audience should check this out. I have absolutely no doubt that this will get passed over by a ton of forum members because it doesn't contain much about monetizing, affiliate programs etc. Far too many people here focus on instant income instead of building an active audience first. The "content is king" bit and the Tucker Max example is perfect -- that guy has sold almost 1 million books in the last few years through word of mouth alone, just by treating his fans well.
Tim Ferriss is definitely one of my influences in blogging, as he does make money from his blog/book but doesn't really make that a big deal.