10 reasons why expats should blog

Posted by Ben on January 30, 2009 | Permalink | Hits: 604 
Tags: expats, monetisation

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Image by Edgar Barany.

This is a guest post from Bas, a communication consultancy student from The Netherlands. His blog is at BasBasBas.com. You can also follow Bas on Twitter.

Over the last 2 years I've lived in Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Istanbul, and now I'm back in Sofia, Bulgaria. I've enjoyed blogging as an expat a lot, so here are 10 reasons why fellow expats should blog!

1. Getting Connected

Having moved around a lot in the last few years, the most interesting part is always meeting new people. Moving abroad offers a chance to set up a completely new circle of friends and acquaintances, which is fun, but also hard. Having a blog makes it a lot easier as it is a great tool to network with foreigners and locals from your new home country.

2. Easy Content

When moving abroad you have so much to write about. The new culture, local customs, food, difficulties with the new language - these are just four huge topics which come to mind immediately. No matter how many times I move from one country to another, it's always intense, even if I'm moving back to a country I've lived before. Instead of taking things for granted, you see the world through the eyes of a child, or an explorer. This can help you find lots to write about.

3. Easy Monetization

How about having some extra pocket money to further explore your new home? Forget Google Ads, expat blogs are perfect for affiliate deals. Whether it's by putting up links for cheap flights to the country you're writing about, selling tourist information guides via Amazon.com, or promoting typical items or antiques from your new country - your blog has the perfect target group to inform about it. Make sure not to be too spammy about it; simply inform your readers about what they want to know and offer them the opportunity to acquire it. Do not engage in PayPerPost programs - it's tacky, spammy and scares away relevant readers.

4. Many Target Groups

Expat blogs draw in a lot of different readers who are very interested in what you have to say. I like to travel a lot, and instead of visiting travel websites, I prefer to visit expat blogs for information about a particular region. They offer a deeper insight in what there is to see and experience. Locals will also be very interested to read what you have to say about their country; keep this target group in mind, you can make it a very humorous reading experience for them. Other target groups can be: expats from your country living in the same country now, expats from your country living in another country, expats from your new destination living in your country (very interesting) or elsewhere, but also just people from around the world who are interested in the adventurous mentality that many expats have.

5. Processing

One of the reasons why writing about life as an expat is so easy, is the intensity. But writing also helps one mentally process all the factors which make moving and living abroad so intense. One of your blog's functions can be the same as a diary's function; to put in perspective all the things happening to you in daily life.

6. Not Taking Life For Granted

Every now and then you'll notice that you're really taking life for granted. This is often reflected on your blog through a lack of (interesting) articles. Taking a look at your expat blog can be the wake up call you need to make the commitment to get out and see and do more in your marvelous new home country. To go out and explore the world through the eyes of a child, as I said before.

7. Not Having To Tell The Same Story 5372 Times!

This one's not just a tip, but also a warning, or a threat if you will ;-). If you don't start a blog where all your friends, family and acquaintances can read your stories, all of them will have exactly the same questions for you and you will be doomed to tell the same stories over and over and over and over again. You can even set your Facebook account to automatically import your blog posts to make it more convenient for your contacts to stay informed about your new life. "If the Mountain doesn't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the Mountain" - make sure it's convenient for your friends to follow you. Advertise your RSS Feed and set up email delivery via Google Feedburner.

8. Store And Collect Your Memories

My main expat blog has been online for about 1.5 years now. It's really great to dive back into the archives every now and then to see what I was doing and thinking one year ago. I make a lot of pictures and some videos for my blog, so taking a trip down memory lane has become quite the multimedia experience.

9. Let Others Learn

Nobody's perfect and we all make mistakes. I've made quite a bunch of mistakes in living abroad, including a mistake which resulted in me being held at knifepoint during a robbery. There's a lot to learn from our mistakes and by writing about them publicly, we also help others to learn from them. Especially fellow expats.

10. Do It Well and Create Opportunities

If you manage to become a reputable blogger in your new country, which should not be very hard because of all the easy & fascinating content mentioned earlier, then many doors can open up for you. You can feature your articles on other websites, or even start writing columns for the local English-language newspaper. When you write about your travels in your new country, you could get your articles or photography published in international travel magazines. Respected travel writers, even freelancers, get many invitations to come on press trips which are often intended to promote a certain destination. Of course, they'll pamper you a little bit, to make sure you feel good during the trip and hopefully write about it positively. One place where you can get these hook-ups is at Travelwriters.com.

Finally, and most importantly, do it because it's fun!

Are you an expat? Do you read any expat blogs? Are there any other benefits of expat blogging that you can think of?

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