Why It’s Good to Read Blogs Outside Your Niche

If you want to be a trendsetter in your niche, you might first need to know what’s trendy now. More importantly, you’ll want to know what’s coming next. You’ve heard the wise advice that it’s good to stop and smell the roses once in a while. Well, that applies to promotion as well. Occasionally it’s a good idea to get your head out of your niche long enough to look around and see what else is going on in the world.

I performed on stage as a musician for a decade or so when I realized that what I truly enjoyed about the music business was composing. Soon afterward I attended a workshop on writing jingles and background music for film. The host was the guy who wrote the original theme music for HBO’s Feature Presentation that is played just before their primetime movie of the evening. He signed a needle-drop deal so he gets paid every time it’s played. What you hear now is still the same song he wrote so many years ago. Needless to say, he’s made a nice income from that one deal.

As a background music writer, he was called upon to compose in a variety of genres. Most of the workshop attendees were singer/songwriters who were focused on making it big in their chosen genre. One of the golden nuggets he gave to the attendees was that to be “fresh” in your genre, listen to what’s going on in other genres.

How much money do you think the first Christian music artists made who brought a pop music sound to that genre? They made a fortune and established a new genre in the process that is still going strong today. In fact, because of it, there are now twelve or so Christian music genres instead of only two or three. But, at the time, doing such a thing was pretty controversial with some folks. Not anymore.

So, read popular blogs that are outside of your niche once in a while to see what appeals to their audience. You may want to bring the essence of those elements into your own site. Doing so may help you become attractive to an even wider audience.