Blogging is an extremely competitive industry, to say the least.
In order to become remotely successful with getting paid to blog, you’ll need to discover one of the few hidden niches with low competition and proceed in building an audience of loyal followers who will regularly support your content.
This process can be long and burdensome, causing you to invest many hours of your time only to be rewarded with meager results over the course of months.
Fortunately, for you, there’s a practically untouched market that’s just now beginning to jump in growth and that is getting paid to blog about events in your community.
As it seems with many newly introduced advancements, once embraced by large corporations, it will normally be quickly accepted by small businesses.
This is also the case with blogging. You’d find it a hard task to locate a major corporation that doesn’t have a well-managed blog with regular, if not daily, posts.
And currently, we’re beginning to see more and more medium to small sized businesses incorporating blogging as a primary component of their marketing strategies.
Can you guess where we’re going with this? Do you know what the next step is for blogging?
If you said local community events, you’re right!
But here’s the kicker… (And a HUGE PLUS for you) many local community events are organized by independent planners, private companies, or nonprofit organizations that commonly don’t have or maintain a website.
If they do have a site, it’s normally a simple one that barely gets any action. At best, it may be run by a local website agency that has already made money from the design and couldn’t care less about attending events to add crazy good content.
Not to say that down the road marketing or website agencies won’t eventually discover the value in local events, but for right now it’s an “open door” for you to start getting paid to blog.
Why Events In Your Community Are Ideal For Getting Paid To Blog
1) An Instant Low Competition Niche –
Depending on how technologically advanced your community is, there’s a good chance there are very few if any local bloggers making an impact on local community events.
Most bloggers are too attracted to appealing to a global audience in hopes of making thousands of dollars monthly once their blog hits the big time.
Focusing on local events doesn’t at first seem so lucrative since there aren’t hundreds of bloggers giving monthly income reports revealing how much money they’re making.
This oversight on their part is your key to getting paid instantly for delivering a much-needed service. Community blogging is one of the best niches with low competition.
Start by setting up a hyperlocal blog where you can post content about entertaining news and events relative to the community.
Adding an event calendar to your site will be an immediate value builder that will bring loads of new traffic from local residents searching for things to do.
Don’t wait for organizers to post events to your site, hit up Facebook and popular event sites and manually post new events to your calendar. As the event listings get indexed in search engines you’ll start receiving plenty of fresh traffic as the events draw closer.
Try making at least 10 good posts to your new blog before you begin approaching organizers. They’ll realize you’re just starting out, but having a handful of quality posts, will increase the likelihood of them taking you up on what you have to offer.
You can get your first 10 posts by doing free interviews with local business owners or officials, covering a couple school events, making list posts about the favorite hotspots in the area, etc.
After you’ve written 10 posts with great images, your site will be in shape to make a great presentation to event organizers.
Your posts should be loaded with multiple photos and videos that highlight the most entertaining activities of the event.
Making an investment in a nice vlogging camera will most definitely pay off.
2) Get Paid Upfront –
No need to sit around waiting for search engines to rank your posts before you can monetize your site and get paid.
With community events, you can approach organizers directly and offer them a small fee for blogging about their event.
Try targeting yearly events that would not only benefit from the article in the current year but can use it for the promotion of next year’s event as well.
Every organizer will be enthused about a service that can help them increase event attendance.
Explain to the organizer about how your blog post about the event will help to increase their profits.
Your blog post will be an extension of the event itself. If the event was to raise money for a cause, sell a particular product/service, or promote a business, share with them on how you’ll continue this effort through your post.
You can easily add a “donate” button or website link to your post that will drive new visitors to the organizer’s website. And unlike the event, your post will be available indefinitely allowing visitors to contribute or buy at their own convenience.
Remind the organizers of how your services will thoroughly document the memories and growth of their event for many years to come. It’s more than a blog post, it’s life experiences that you’re converting to digital form.
Have a descriptive list of services with associated rates that you can propose.
Are you offering articles only, will you include images or videos of the event, how about interviews with attendees? These are all services that you can include in your proposal.
If you’re serious about getting paid to blog about events, you’ll want to include all of these services and more.
Even if you have to partner with a local photographer/videographer to help with shooting and editing, making your posts wildly entertaining for residents to consume is critical for building a following.
3) Local Community Entertainment –
Becoming a local source of entertainment is the BEST part of getting paid to blog about events!
Let’s say you’ve attended multiple events and your local niche blog has now built an impressive portfolio of awesomely engaging posts of community events.
Congratulations, because now you’re well on your way to becoming a local media mogul!
OK… That may be a little much, but you get the point.
Local residents will follow your site for the scoop on what took place at local events and who showed up. Some residents will check your site just to see if they know any of the people who attended.
Your blog posts will stimulate as many senses as possible with great articles to read, videos to watch and listen to along with fascinating social interaction.
Residents will pass your blog posts around like FREE CANDY on social media networks, which will accordingly make your services even more desirable.
As your event blogging business grows, you’ll do more than just write about events, you’ll become a part of the event itself.
You can build an email list of local residents who’d like updates on the events right before they are to be held and drive more attendees for the organizers.
You can set up your own “tent & table” and conduct small games, give out prizes, plan to do meet & greets, do Facebook LIVE interviews, and prospect for new clients.
NOW THAT’S A FUN BLOGGING BUSINESS!
Oh, almost forgot… You’ll probably get a FREE PASS to a lot of great local events!
Additional Ways For Getting Paid To Blog About Events
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Writing Paid Posts
– In addition to events, you can write general posts for other small businesses to assist them with exposure for their products.
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Advertising
– Charge local businesses to place banner or in-line ads on your site.
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Email Marketing
– Build an email list and charge organizers for sending blast emails about their upcoming events.
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Social Media Marketing Services
– Your ability to transform boring events into amazing experiences will prove to business owners that you know how to bring life to promotions. You can get paid to do the same for their brand through social media marketing services.
To tell you the truth, once you’ve got your local community event blog rolling, you’ll have limitless opportunities to capitalize on it.
Like this idea of getting paid to blog about events? Learn how to expand on it by downloading our eBook The Event Entrepreneur and even create local events of your own for profit.
