Are Blog Networks the Rage?

I recently wrote an article called The Top 5 Reasons to Join a Blog Network. In that article I closely spell out 5 benefiting reasons as to why joining a blog network is really worth your while as opposed to going it alone. There are benefits to doing things on your own in all cases but I strongly believe a Network can provide you with much better benefits in the long term as long as the Network is not too controlling, and can guide their bloggers down the right road. But blogging is about freedom and so Networks can’t hinder their blogger’s performance and freedom.

Blog Networks “were” all the rage a year ago. Blog Networks since that time have failed, and others have really flourished, just like any industry that takes off. The rage might be over from the perspective of starting a Network but not much is different when it comes to how blogs can benefit greatly from them.

And like any industry, we need to learn what works and what doesn’t. By trial and error we have success and we have failure. Skinny Moose Media might have lucked out by starting up its Network a year after others have, and by watching and learning what makes a successful Network and what causes a Network to crumble and die, and then implementing what is necessary to allow steady growth. I believe Networks can survive even if they start up 10 years from now. It isn’t the industry that will be a failure or necessarily a success, but much rather the management styles, good business practices, and the drive to do what needs to be done.

As blog Network vary from one to the next, so will strategy. So will the bloggers. So will Management. It is a matter of taking the tools necessary and implementing them to execute a vision.

So ultimately it can come down to Networks with damn good CEO’s that make all the right contacts or Networks with poor CEO’s who just sit there and stare out the window hoping their own bloggers will do something for them.

But it comes right down to the blogger no matter how large a Network you are. If the blogger is benefiting then so is the Network. If the Network is benefiting then it is the duty of the Network to benefit the blogger. Besides base pay and bonuses what is the blogger getting? Free hosting, free tools to succeed, community, a Network who relies on you to succeed thefore will provide everything they can so they can do just that, internal linking, and almost instantaneous recognition from day one.

So, joining blog Networks are still benefiting the blogger in every way. Networks promote themselves better than individual bloggers unless you are already “somebody”.

Next I will talk about finding the right Network that will benefit you as a blogger.