Why Do We Write and Publish The Kikabink News Internet Marketing Blog?
By Anna Johnson on November 25th, 2009Over the last couple of years some people have asked me why we began publishing our Internet marketing blog and newsletter, Kikabink News. After all, it’s a big task to write, publish and send out so many Internet marketing news stories from Monday to Friday, with a weekly summary on Saturday.
So why do we do it? Hint: it’s NOT because of ‘the money’.
Sure, we certainly seek to monetize the Kikabink News Internet marketing blog and newsletter via advertising, product and affiliate offers. But ‘the money’, or at least, direct income from ads, products and affiliate offers, is not the primary motivation.
Nor were – or are – we primarily motivated by ‘relationship building’ i.e. the desire to provide you, our reader, with interesting, useful news and information in order to develop a relationship with you that can monetize in the future.
Nope, that’s not it either.
Read the feature article we published yesterday about Demand Media and you might get a clue about why we started and continue publishing Kikabink News. You might also get an inkling about why we envisage Kikabink News continuing to evolve and improve as the must-read Internet marketing blog and newsletter for Internet marketers and entrepreneurs.
So what IS behind our drive to publish Kikabink News?
Well, it all started from my own feeling of overwhelm at how much was changing in Internet marketing, and my urge to somehow keep track, and keep a record, of all those Internet marketing developments.
I wasn’t satisfied with the existing Internet marketing blogs and Internet marketing newsletters. They seemed either too inwardly focused on the Internet marketing niche – i.e. where ‘news’ was defined as someone releasing a new ebook on how to succeed as an affiliate marketer (!) – or were too corporate and oriented towards those in large digital ad agencies or corporate marketing departments.
The online resources that came closest to what I wanted to see were the technology business blogs, such as TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb (which I often use as reference material for articles in Kikabink News). These, however, tended to be overly focused on the Silicon Valley / venture capital funded Internet startup scene… somewhat to the exclusion of bootstrapping Internet marketing entrepreneurs who either have no desire or hope of raising venture capital.
I also didn’t just want to read news. I wanted commentary about the news, along with some helpful Internet marketing research, tips, ideas and insights.
It quickly dawned on me that there wasn’t anything around that fully met my needs. What’s more, I increasingly felt like our company needed to start building a repository of ‘intelligence’ – not just ‘competitive intelligence’, but customer, industry and general business intelligence. Something we could use for our internal business purposes i.e. for gathering information and insights we could use in our Internet marketing and other activities.
Again, yesterday’s article about Demand Media pretty much captures the main driving force behind Kikabink News. By identifying, writing about, publishing and storing an article about a company we can model and learn from, we now have a record we can draw on now and in the future. The same goes for all the research studies, tools, resources and other news we publish.
Okay, so you can probably see why we were motivated to start a repository of Internet marketing news, tools, etc… but why publish it as an Internet marketing blog and newsletter?
Simple: if WE felt like we needed something like this, perhaps there were OTHER Internet marketers who shared this need. And, YES, we could probably monetize an Internet marketing blog and newsletter by running ads, product offers and affiliate offers.
Consequently, since we saw the potential in building Kikabink News into an Internet marketing blog and newsletter in its own right, it seemed obvious to share Kikabink News with everyone, rather than maintain it as an internal resource.
So that’s where we are coming from… but what about YOU?
If you’re reading this, you obviously get it. You’re someone who wants to keep track of – and be able to source – Internet marketing news to help you in your business, just like us. And you know the difference between real news and the announcement of someone’s new ebook!
That’s not to say Kikabink News is perfect or cannot substantially improve (perhaps our own team of investigative journalists pumping out more breaking stories would be good?) but you can rest assured that we have your best interests at heart. Simply because we SHARE those interests – being hungry, ambitious Internet marketing entrepreneurs just like you.
So… let me invite you to make extensive use of Kikabink News as your own Internet marketing news and information resource:
- You can use the search box at the top of the Kikabink News Internet marketing blog to search among our 1,700+ archived articles. Alternatively, you can browse for articles by clicking on one of the categories listed mid-way down the right hand side of the page.
- If you don’t find what you’re looking for, use the Kikabink Internet Marketing Search Engine. Powered by Google, this generates results based on the most authoritative Internet marketing websites on the Internet. Just go here: Kikabink Internet Marketing Search Engine.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Internet marketing is an ever-changing industry. There are always so many wonderful changes with how we can earn online through Internet marketing. And you are right, making use of this blog to document your learnings and successes is a great way to continue growing in the industry.