Blogging can help kids make real money - just look at Carl (The Kid Blogger) Ocab, and David Wilkinson, and dozens more. The adult world needs to take note, because kid bloggers are here to stay, and they will have an impact on the whole blogosphere.
There's been a storm of controversy over kid bloggers this year, with some of the worst diatribes being directed at Philippines youngster Carl Ocab. Now I have to say from the get-go that I'm all for kids starting blogs and trying to make money from them.
Blogging is easy to start, requires little technical know-how and is a great way for kids to get experience online, learning as they earn (or don't!). Blogs provide real, immediate feedback about what makes good content, and what drives traffic, and how to build relationships. The "real world" will judge them purely on their results - a consideration that's actually hard for kids to find elsewhere. The verdict of the blogosphere might be harsh, but it will be accurate feedback in exactly the way that school reports aren't.
Internet marketing is a vital promotional skill, even if your core business is selling pink meringue mice. We encourage the kids in our Cash-Smart Kids program to start some form of online activity in their very first month.
I was tickled pink when I Googled "Carl Ocab" the other day and found a gorgeous guerrilla marketing blog post from a 10-year-old blogger was in the first page of results (monkeylime3tc.wordpress.com/carl-ocab/). Way to generate traffic!
Leveraging off someone else's controversial blog is a technique that adults pay hundreds to learn in weekend seminars. Full marks to James Brennan. (Although he will probably have to improve the quality of his blog content to retain any of that traffic as loyal readers!)
I'm going to swing out and make a prediction (you heard it here first!).
More and more kids are going to start taking blogging seriously as a money-making activity.
This will impact every business in cyberspace.
How?
1. More traffic for everyone
As these kids cruise around looking for ideas to copy, affiliate links, and freebies, they will boost everyone's traffic numbers. But will they convert? Or will they distort the demographic of the visitors who currently click on your PPC and affiliate ads?
2. Growing centres of gravity in the kid blogosphere
Let's face it - kids have more surfing time than most adults. If Ashley Qualls (age 17, making $70,000+ per month from her site) can pull the traffic numbers she pulls for her WhateverLife site giving away My Space layouts, then there are many, many blogging niches which could pull much larger numbers of kid readers than yet another blog about "How To Make Money From Blogging". And putting advertising where kids will click on it has worked for Ashley. But who is best placed to be creating the compelling content for those niches?
3. What happens when you have four million kid bloggers all having flame wars in their posts .... and linking to one another? With enough time on their hands to post five or six times times a day?
Sure, none of us may be interested in who thinks what of whose personal page on MySpace, but the teen and tween demographics are utterly immersed in "who said what about whom" for their every waking moment - blogging is just another medium for that. And with all that traffic and all those links, the serious adult blogs are potentially going to drift downward in the "Top X" lists.
So, what can you do to protect your ranking and revenues?
Only slightly tongue-in-cheek here - get a kid.
Seriously, if a kid has a huge readership, and you're quoted in every third post as their mentor ... ka ching!
Or, use a popular kid as a guest blogger, or start a parallel blog in the kidosphere and have a panel of kids you consult about whether your posts are "lame" in their eyes ... or blog about how awful some of these kid bloggers are and then leap to the defence of others (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em).
No matter how you respond to the challenge, kids are here to stay. Instead of complaining about it, or criticising them, or suggesting that they aren't writing their own stuff, let's celebrate the great leveller that is the Internet, where a 12-year-old can write or speak and have their ideas taken seriously on their merits.
We have long underestimated our kids, but the likes of Ben Casnocha, Ashley Qualls, and the legions of less high-profile under-18 internet entrepreneurs like Carl Ocab and David Wilkinson are proving that teens can do anything an adult can do. Adult bloggers beware - the kid blogger wave is coming, and you either ride it, dodge it, or go under!
About the Author
Free book to download - "Finding The Right Niche For Your Cash-Smart Kid"
Jenny Ford is one of the founders of Cash-Smart Kids, and her blog can be seen at www.RaisingEntrepreneurs.org/blog
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