My 10 Year Old Son Has a Blog
Last week my 10 year old son announced that he wanted to learn how to earn his own money and asked me if I could help him do it. We sat down and brainstormed on ways that he could earn money including selling fruit from our back yard, walking neighbors dogs, and teaching other kids how to fly radio controlled airplanes.
My son has a true passion for all things airplane so we decided on the last option. He has a great natural ability to fly remote controlled planes and a well cultivated understanding of how they work. In fact, he probably knows more about airplanes and fighter jets than most adults. But of course, he’s got to convince people besides his doting mom that money spent with him on flying lessons is a good investment. I started thinking about how I would advise a client in this situation and decided that he needed a blog to establish his credibility.
So in the space of about 2 hours we
- reserved a domain name for a future account to sell airplane merchandise
- created a WordPress blog
- took pictures to use in the blog design and uploaded them
- created an About page and two blog posts
- burned his feed using Google Feedburner
- requested a Google Add Sense account
- strategized on blog topics and weekly feature posts
- publicized his blog to a small set of family and friends using a list on my Facebook account (we’re keeping him semi-anonymous until he’s a bit older)
- got our first comment (from his awesome 2nd grade teacher, God bless her!)
- got 26 hits on the first post.
Yes, I’m proud of my son, but that is not the main point of this post. Several times when I’ve given social media presentations in the past, attendees have objected that they don’t think they are very good writers or they really don’t have time to maintain a blog. Yet in the space of about 2 hours, my son and I sailed through the bullets listed above. Yes, it really is that easy to get started. Why? Because my son has a passion for what he is writing about so despite his age, the words flow easily and are engaging to people with like interests. If you have a passion for your business, then you just might be surprised how easily you can write about it. Once you’ve gotten into a rhythm and established some interest, I recommend hiring a great interactive consultant or firm to help optimize and brand your blog. But in the mean time, as the Nike folks say “just do it!”
what kind of fruit?
Its nice to know my family members actually visit my blog now and then ;-D Oranges, Lori – I’ll make sure you get some this Fall when they are ready for harvest!
This is a very cool idea. Not only does he get to talk about what he loves but also increase his vocabulary and learn how to present him self to the public.
Thanks, Chad – actually I think his vocabulary has indeed improved since starting the blog and great point about the public presentation skills! Misty