First, no. I’m not gonna take my shot at winning the Million Dollar Prize for the most read X article because I know my chances of winning are zero as I have virtually no presence on X, however…
This is an amazing, positive sign for us bloggers.
Musk and X are signaling that they are open for blogging business, that if you move your “blog” there, via X articles, you stand a chance for payouts that could lead to a full-time income.
And why not? Why not go to a platform that’s screaming: “WE WANT YOU TO BLOG HERE AND WE WILL PAY YOU!!!”
Obviously, we have to do more than just show up with an open hand, work will have to be done, articles will have to be written, the X game will have to be played. But isn’t that better than writing into the void on a platform that is indifferent to your existence?
I have an anonymous account on X that I previously used to test the waters, figuring out how the platform works, what gets engagement, what doesn’t, etc. But now since X is signaling so clearly that they want my blogging on their platform and will pay me, I will be creating an account there and will begin the work of building up my presence there through being a contributor and not somebody that relies on ragebait.
Should you join X?
Yes.
You need to bring your blogging and writing to the places that have the highest probability of success, and right now X is the place to bring your blogging abilities.
I will see you there.
Update: The Winning $1 Million Article Has Been Announced
The winning article is by a user with the handle name @beaverd with an article titled Deloitte, a $74 billion cancer metastasized across America.
It’s crazy you can win a million dollar writing contest under an anonymous handle, crazy and interesting. I’ve been going down internet rabbit holes about how we’re all gonna have avatar identities across the web and use it to do business with others anonymously and that it will actually work. I’m fascinated by it, but I don’t have the time to go way, way down the rabbit hole.
But super interesting about the possibility of creating anon accounts across the web and being able to make a very good full-time living that way, doing business anonymously. But I simply don’t got the time because I’m building up under my real name. Is that a mistake? Maybe it’s something to put on my to-do list once I achieve all of my blogging dreams via obsession.
Anyway, X has rolled out the red carpet for bloggers and I really wanna start posting some articles over there, but I know I must remain focused on building up my blogs that I already have planned out and that I cannot get distracted.
How Should Bloggers Proceed?
I’m a big fan of building on third party platforms. I just wrote an article about it, but I can’t link to it yet because it’s scheduled to be published in the future. I’ll link to it when I come back at a future date to update this post. (You are updating your old posts, aren’t you blogger?)
Here’s what I think bloggers should do:
- Build the “main blog.” Even though this blog is named after me it is not my main blog. This is a sideblog that is essentially my laboratory to experiment and learn and then to write everything down to help other bloggers win. The main blog I’m building focuses on my strengths instead of my interests. It hasn’t launched yet, I’m putting the pieces together and planning to make the blog look super professional.
- Get On 3rd Party Platforms To Build And Promote. After you got your blog(s) in place get on the third party platforms to promote them and build a following. It can either be blogging platforms or social media platforms. Whatever works. X and Substack are the most interesting third party platforms at the moment for bloggers. Pinterest can drive big traffic, so don’t ignore that platform.
- Keep Building Until You Achieve Massive Success. “Massive Success” means different things for different people. For me massive success is becoming financially independent of a 9 – 5 job and being able to write full time for the rest of my life and having the freedom to do the things I would like to do with my family without having a boss to tell me I can’t do that thing. I would like to live quietly, write, travel, be with family, and write. Maybe work on advances social work degrees just because. What does massive success look like for you?
Be Ready For The New Golden Age Of Blogging, It’s Coming
Elon Musk via X is signaling that blogging is returning as a fundamental cornerstone of the internet again, and that is very exciting. I believe the readership has been yearning for blogs again but the way the internet started to form, blogging got left behind in some ways.
But not blogging is being built into platforms like X and I think we are going to see more of this in the future. So, get yourself in position to win. The future looks fantastic!
If you haven’t yet, I recommend launching your blog. And truthfully, I see no problem with jumping straight to a platform like X and starting to build a platform there and a following exclusively there. I believe it is more than possible to make a full time living only on the X platform. People are doing it. I’m not gonna put all of my eggs in the X basket thought, because there is always a risk of building on borrowed land. But if you feel strongly about X or another platform, I say go for it, friend.
I’m very, very interested in launching an X profile and treating it like a blog, being disciplined and writing 3x articles a week and seeing what happens. Obviously, it’s not something I can sustain at the moment while I’m committed to writing 3x on this blog and I’m getting ready to launch my flagship blog (probably early 2027), but some point in the future it’s on my to-do list. That’s all for now.
In the meantime, friend. Blog on!