A blogger, in fact any traffic hungry site, is faced with a basic problem that traffic is expensive to obtain and is often fleeting in its benefit. There are three 'free' ways to generate traffic and for most bloggers, they are central to success. The first is virality. Readers share the article or sometimes in blogs or discussion groups, discuss an article and provide a link. Second is to provide a signup box to a newsletter which will allow the blogger to announce future articles and thereby create free traffic. Third is Search Engine Opitimization or SEO, where the blogger encourages article characteristics which have beeen shown to create first page returns on searches of their 'tags'.
Virality is the most straightforward, where primary readers will share the article with readers who in turn will share it with other, readers, etc. Such sharing can, and most often will, decay. In other words, 1,000 initial readers may share, creating 500 total additional readers who create 250 readers, who create 125 readers, etc. This is a viral rate of .5 and the total number of readers will be ∑IX(1+R)^t where I is the number of primary readers, R is the number of readers created by a reader and t is the 'generation' of virality. If R<1.0, the number of readers will decay and eventually die out. In the case of R=.5, the total number of readers from an initial 1,000 reader is 2,000 and that is a relatively common result. However, if R>1.0, the article will 'go viral' and will eventually saturate the population of potential readers.
Pareto or the 80-20 rule applies to blog viratily. In other words, if 1,000 primary readers cause, say, 1,200 readers through sharing, 960 of those will be recreated by 200 of the primary readers. The other 800 readers will create just 240 readers. However, Pareto continues and of the 200, just 40 readers will create 768 of the next generation readers and just 8 readers will create 614 of the next generation readers. In other words, the virality of the article will be dependent upon just a handful, in this case 8, initial readers who create an average of 76.8 readers each. The only way that they really can create such a base of readers is if they have a blog themselves.
For example, you may google 'The Inappropriately Excluded' an article that went viral. You will see that the top entry is the original article and the whole first page is full of sites that have either reprinted or discussed and linked. Someone actually published a translation into Portuguese and one made a Youtube video of it. The propensity of just a handful of readers to undertake these actions is what caused the virality. The problem is that you can't really order people to do this. So, this is a hit or miss proposition that almost always misses.
Leonardo solves this problem. By joining the network, the blogger commits to publishing a weekly newsletter that will publish and abstract and link to thier four favorite articles of the week. They will subscribe to four other Leonardo newsletters that will provide them with 20 articles and if they choose well, they will have very good candidates. The newsletter, with a short editorial and abstracts and links to five high quality articles will be appealing to subscribers and, if well executed, will grow and suffer few unsubscribes. This 'forced virality' is limited in its exent but, with a good sized network, can multiply virality from 2X to perhaps 7X or more.
Newsletter subscribers are difficult to obtain. In our experience, good blogs may get a signup rate of 0.5% per read. So, a subscriber base of 1,000 that creates 1,000 total viral reads will create 5 new subscribers. This translates to a organic growth of 1.005^52=1.296 per year. That is encouraging if the original subscription base is large enough to be economically viable and if one is willing to be very patient. An initial subscriber base of 1,000 will grow to 3,657 in five years.
However, if the viral rate can be increased, the result improves dramatically.
Suppose, by using the Leonardo Network, a blog can increase its virality to 6X. Then an initial subscriber base of 1,000 will create 6X5=30 subscribers per week. This means that in a year an initial 1,000 subscribers will grow to 1,000X1.03^52=4,651. In two years, subscribers will grow to 21,631 and in five years subscribers will grow to 2,176,,098. That is 'in theory'. In practice, it is likely that the blogger's market will saturate before then. Still, the point is that the Leonardo Network will dramatically grow the blogger's subscriber base. But, just as important, because all Leonardo bloggers will be experiencing the same growth, readership will expand as well. The initial readership of 1,000X6=6,000 will grow to 4,651X6=27,906 at the end of year one and to 21,631X6=129,786 by the end of year two.
The members of the Leonardo Network commit to featuring their four favorite articles by other Leonardo bloggers each week. That means, of course, that the average Leonardo Blogger will have their article featured four times. That, however, is an average. A poor article may not get featured by any of their four Leonardo subscribers. A good one may end up getting featured by dozens. The size of the potential readership for a really good article is limited by the number of Leonardo bloggers are in the Network. So, growth in Leonardo is important for its participants. We know that about 0.5% of readers will subscribe and we are starting to get evidence that about 0.85% of those will become Leonardo bloggers themselves. This creates another feedback loop. The current experience suggests that it will take about two years for the Leonardo Blogger Network to reach maturity at about 350 bloggers. Our current analysis suggests that above 350 the bloggers start competing with themselves and the average blogger income would actually start to decrease.
For members of the Inappropriately Excluded, writing a blog that is targeted at intellectually sophisticated readers is a good route to remediation. However, unless lightening strikes and an article goes viral on its own, building a subscriber base is frustratingly slow. Assuming that a person wants to get a 24,000USD part time income and can generate 50USD per thousand per aricle, (another challenge that we address elsewhere) the blogger will need to achieve 5,000 subscribers and a virality of 2X. As we saw above, that will take over 5 years for the independent blogger. With the two feedback loops of higher subscription growth and greater virality, that won't even take one year with Leonardo. In fact, projected income at the end of year one is about 72,000 USD.
The average Leonardo blogger will be at about 99.9% in intellectual sophistication. So, it shouldn't be surprising that we analyzed the situation, saw the problems and created effective ways to solve those problems. Traffic acquisition is one of two major strategic impediments and we have solved them for people who will to become part of the Leonardo Blogger Network.
Virality is the most straightforward, where primary readers will share the article with readers who in turn will share it with other, readers, etc. Such sharing can, and most often will, decay. In other words, 1,000 initial readers may share, creating 500 total additional readers who create 250 readers, who create 125 readers, etc. This is a viral rate of .5 and the total number of readers will be ∑IX(1+R)^t where I is the number of primary readers, R is the number of readers created by a reader and t is the 'generation' of virality. If R<1.0, the number of readers will decay and eventually die out. In the case of R=.5, the total number of readers from an initial 1,000 reader is 2,000 and that is a relatively common result. However, if R>1.0, the article will 'go viral' and will eventually saturate the population of potential readers.
Pareto or the 80-20 rule applies to blog viratily. In other words, if 1,000 primary readers cause, say, 1,200 readers through sharing, 960 of those will be recreated by 200 of the primary readers. The other 800 readers will create just 240 readers. However, Pareto continues and of the 200, just 40 readers will create 768 of the next generation readers and just 8 readers will create 614 of the next generation readers. In other words, the virality of the article will be dependent upon just a handful, in this case 8, initial readers who create an average of 76.8 readers each. The only way that they really can create such a base of readers is if they have a blog themselves.
For example, you may google 'The Inappropriately Excluded' an article that went viral. You will see that the top entry is the original article and the whole first page is full of sites that have either reprinted or discussed and linked. Someone actually published a translation into Portuguese and one made a Youtube video of it. The propensity of just a handful of readers to undertake these actions is what caused the virality. The problem is that you can't really order people to do this. So, this is a hit or miss proposition that almost always misses.
Leonardo solves this problem. By joining the network, the blogger commits to publishing a weekly newsletter that will publish and abstract and link to thier four favorite articles of the week. They will subscribe to four other Leonardo newsletters that will provide them with 20 articles and if they choose well, they will have very good candidates. The newsletter, with a short editorial and abstracts and links to five high quality articles will be appealing to subscribers and, if well executed, will grow and suffer few unsubscribes. This 'forced virality' is limited in its exent but, with a good sized network, can multiply virality from 2X to perhaps 7X or more.
Newsletter subscribers are difficult to obtain. In our experience, good blogs may get a signup rate of 0.5% per read. So, a subscriber base of 1,000 that creates 1,000 total viral reads will create 5 new subscribers. This translates to a organic growth of 1.005^52=1.296 per year. That is encouraging if the original subscription base is large enough to be economically viable and if one is willing to be very patient. An initial subscriber base of 1,000 will grow to 3,657 in five years.
However, if the viral rate can be increased, the result improves dramatically.
Suppose, by using the Leonardo Network, a blog can increase its virality to 6X. Then an initial subscriber base of 1,000 will create 6X5=30 subscribers per week. This means that in a year an initial 1,000 subscribers will grow to 1,000X1.03^52=4,651. In two years, subscribers will grow to 21,631 and in five years subscribers will grow to 2,176,,098. That is 'in theory'. In practice, it is likely that the blogger's market will saturate before then. Still, the point is that the Leonardo Network will dramatically grow the blogger's subscriber base. But, just as important, because all Leonardo bloggers will be experiencing the same growth, readership will expand as well. The initial readership of 1,000X6=6,000 will grow to 4,651X6=27,906 at the end of year one and to 21,631X6=129,786 by the end of year two.
The members of the Leonardo Network commit to featuring their four favorite articles by other Leonardo bloggers each week. That means, of course, that the average Leonardo Blogger will have their article featured four times. That, however, is an average. A poor article may not get featured by any of their four Leonardo subscribers. A good one may end up getting featured by dozens. The size of the potential readership for a really good article is limited by the number of Leonardo bloggers are in the Network. So, growth in Leonardo is important for its participants. We know that about 0.5% of readers will subscribe and we are starting to get evidence that about 0.85% of those will become Leonardo bloggers themselves. This creates another feedback loop. The current experience suggests that it will take about two years for the Leonardo Blogger Network to reach maturity at about 350 bloggers. Our current analysis suggests that above 350 the bloggers start competing with themselves and the average blogger income would actually start to decrease.
For members of the Inappropriately Excluded, writing a blog that is targeted at intellectually sophisticated readers is a good route to remediation. However, unless lightening strikes and an article goes viral on its own, building a subscriber base is frustratingly slow. Assuming that a person wants to get a 24,000USD part time income and can generate 50USD per thousand per aricle, (another challenge that we address elsewhere) the blogger will need to achieve 5,000 subscribers and a virality of 2X. As we saw above, that will take over 5 years for the independent blogger. With the two feedback loops of higher subscription growth and greater virality, that won't even take one year with Leonardo. In fact, projected income at the end of year one is about 72,000 USD.
The average Leonardo blogger will be at about 99.9% in intellectual sophistication. So, it shouldn't be surprising that we analyzed the situation, saw the problems and created effective ways to solve those problems. Traffic acquisition is one of two major strategic impediments and we have solved them for people who will to become part of the Leonardo Blogger Network.
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