Jam Tomorrow? Thematic Blogging for the Future

There are really two definitions for thematic blogging. 

The first is more commonly described as 'niche blogging'.  Basically you write about one subject, rather than taking the scatter-gun approach of writing about everything.

We are looking more at the second meaning. This is akin to thematic investors. John Authers, a writer for the Financial Times, defined this type of investing as: 'identifying broad ideas about the direction of the world and building a portfolio around them'. (July 16th 2012, real world edition of said newspaper.)

Thematic bloggers do precisely the same thing.  Instead of buying stock and shares in related companies, we produce web content ready for when everyone starts searching for it.

According to the same Financial Times article - Investors Size Up Long-Term Benefits of the Obesity Battle - thematic investors are currently putting their cash into anti-obesity products.

Anything to do with exercise, dieting, sportswear, nutrition and healthy eating is the way forward. If a pharmaceutical company looks set to create a safe and effective diet pill, then they can expect their shares to soar on the stock market.

Should bloggers be doing the same?  Probably not in this instance. The prediction is that it's going to take between 25 and 50 years for this particular social scare to take hold. 

You would be writing on a subject which isn't guaranteed huge hits until about 2037.

By then, eating anything sugary in public will elicit loud tuts and censure. Your flab will make you a social pariah. Giving lollipops to small children will be viewed as abuse. Anyone erroneously learning that Marie Antoinette said, 'Let them eat cake', will equally erroneously interpret it as, 'Let them eat cyanide.'

On the bright side, we'll probably all be dead or too old to worry about it by then.  It's a problem for the next two generations.  In fact, it's probably our duty to eat a few more eclairs right now, so we can provide all of the cautionary tales for them to recite.

Writing about anti-obesity measures now would certainly be a case of aiming for jam tomorrow. Except that 'jam' will be a swearword.

However this is looking a little too far into the future!  Especially when we can't even predict what writing platforms and media will be around then.  It would be the equivalent of writing an anti-smoking article in a paper-based magazine in 1987, then expecting it to be making you rich now.

How do the thematic investors know what's coming up so far ahead?  They are paying attention to the news, taking notes from the little things.

Sugar taxes are currently being proposed in New York City.  The same legislation, if passed, will place limits on the sale of sugary drinks. Reports are flooding in about the long-term health problems of an obese population. It all adds up.

They then look to precedents in the past.  In 1967, laws were passed in Europe restricting the advertizement of tobacco. It's taken four decades for prejudice against smokers to really take hold. 

In 1994, newspapers first started the drip-drip of Islamophobia (lots of oil in Islamic countries...). It took barely a decade for that to become a widely embraced social scare, but 9/11 helped matters along.

Things like that New York sugar tax are like initial volleys being fired over the parapets.  Social scares take time to be manufactured and mature.  Then they pay dividends to the canny investors who knew where to build their portfolios.

Future fads, fashions and concerns do not have to be negative.  Themes might be discerned in the fact that populations are living longer - invest in products about aging and/or anti-aging - or the economic growth of China - invest in Chinese firms, products and cultural imports.

We could write about the same, but really it's still all too far ahead.  We should be focusing instead on subjects that will come to the fore within the next couple of years.  But the methodology behind identifying them remains the same.

The most obvious bit of forward planning comes with entertainment.  Movies, games, books and albums don't just appear out of thin air.  They have release dates.

Television shows appear in the future schedules.  They might also be gossiped about in the tabloids and celebrity magazines, before they're even filmed. 

By paying attention to what's coming up, you can evaluate how well they might be received. You could then be the first person writing a meaningful article about it.  Once you have the URL and the content sorted, then the monetization can come later. 

Advertizements can be slotted into existing articles, once there is actually something to sell! 

The second way of doing this is to read the news and chat with your peers.  If something appears to be gathering momentum, then take a punt on it. 

You are writing to be pro-active, not reactive.  It may be way too late, once an item or topic has already become big news.

Naturally, focusing on what you know has never been more important. If you are already interested in a subject, then you are best placed to spot the little changes.  You can evaluate an up and coming story with much more education behind the guesses.

Moreover, you can write with the kind of authority that will take your article to the front page of the SERPs.

Anyone who's been reading my articles for any length of time will know I'm passionate about human rights.  This often translates into several anti-death penalty features. 

Monetizing them isn't my primary concern.  It's more about raising awareness.  Success there lies more in world-wide abolition than in the bank balance.  I live for the day when I can just delete the lot!

Hence the surprise when I noticed something peculiar happening around a certain theme. 

I've written about George Junius Stinney Jr on both Wizzley and Suite101.  Neither were about money - that would be sick - but about wanting to get his story out there.  George was a fourteen year old boy, who was executed in 1944. He was possibly innocent.

There's been some steady interest over the months.  The Suite101 article has been there longer, but the hits were higher on Wizzley.  Nothing much happening behind the scenes to comment about.

Until both sites suddenly showed a spike on those articles.  It happened on the same day.  Both have been attracting many more readers than usual. 

I naturally investigated.  It turned out that a movie about George Stinney Jr's life is in development. The announcement must have prompted a lot of people to begin researching him.  They found my articles, because the SERPs aren't yet flooded with them.

It was a complete accident, but I was in on the ground floor.  This is an example of how writing within your own field can place you ahead of the crowd. It prompted another article from me and I'm following further announcements very carefully.

Not that it is going to help that poor boy, but I'm glad that I was there to help raise awareness.

Watching your own internet traffic for spikes could help you do the same.