Give the People What They Want Not What You Want “[If] you go to GM and say, ‘What kind of car are you building?’ they’ll say, ‘We’re building a car that people want.’ But somehow you come to media and they say, ‘Oh, we’re not giving people what they want; the people are a bunch of idiots. How dare they ask for what they want?’ How could you possibly run an industry that’s motto is ‘We’re not giving the people what they want’? You have to look at [blogging] like any other business in which you want to be successful and profitable,†says Mwangaguhunga. “That means I’m going to look at my customers, find out what they want, find out what they like about this company and give them more of that. I’m also going to find out what they don’t like about this company and I’m going to give them less of that.â€
Say what you will about Fred Mwangaguhunga but the man is successful. The former corporate lawyer gave up the 9-to-5 hustle of law for the 24/7 grind of online with the launch of his hugely popular (and controversial) website, MediaTakeOut.com. In a matter of six years, the enterprising 37-year-old has built a digital empire that garners over 300 million page views a month. While some may disagree with the site’s editorial direction, there’s clearly an audience for the content. BlackEnterprise.com caught up with Mwangaguhunga, who shared his five gossip blog commandments for successful entrepreneurship online. —Timmhotep Akumore
Be Consistent “You have to really treat it like a business. I know a lot of people just look at [blogging] as a side hustle but every single day I’m there. I get up two o’clock in the morning, seven days a week to do this,†says Mwangaguhunga. “I took one day off in the last five years and that was the day I got married. My kids were born and MTO was [still] running. That’s what I mean when I say consistency and it shows because there are days when people log on and every other blog’s got the same stuff from the day before but MTO’s got something new. Also, try to get the posts up at a certain time so that people know when they can expect it. I think that goes a long way in helping you build [your brand].†more
Have a Unique Voice “Blogging has almost turned into just take a photograph and try and say something witty,†says Mwangaguhunga. “There are a lot of people who do that, so try and figure out something that really is you. How would you say it? What’re you interested in? Try and find a different angle on what’s out there because there really are hundreds of thousands of different blogs and most of them are pulling in the same information and the same pictures and the same everything. How’re you going to distinguish yourself? That’s something you’ve got to think about.†more
Break With Tradition “There’s always been this formula for what a written publication was like and a lot of sites you look at just try to mimic that and I think that’s a terrible idea,†says Mwangaguhunga. “Think about what a magazine is—it’s, ‘I’m going to put something really nice on the cover to make you buy it, I’m going to give you a really great article to make you read it, but then you just paid three dollars for this thing so we can’t just give you three pages so now we’ve gotta give you 100 other pages of filler.’ That’s the magazine thought process, a couple of good things and a bunch of filler. The Web doesn’t work like that. The worst thing you can have is a website with a bunch of filler because people look at it and don’t see anything interesting and they leave. What you want to do is only have the things that people want on there, so my advice would be to forget about the way things have traditionally been done.†more
Variety is Good “When you’re [on MTO] we’re going to entertain you in a bunch of different ways,†Mwangaguhunga explains. “We might give you a little bit of gossip, a little comedy, some regular news… We’ll try and capture your attention for more than just that one story so when you do stumble on to MediaTakeOut you say, “Wow, look at all of this interesting stuff on here, let me stay here and click around and see what they’re talking about.’ So you want to capture the person and give them the best possible experience while they’re there.†more
Give the People What They Want Not What You Want “[If] you go to GM and say, ‘What kind of car are you building?’ they’ll say, ‘We’re building a car that people want.’ But somehow you come to media and they say, ‘Oh, we’re not giving people what they want; the people are a bunch of idiots. How dare they ask for what they want?’ How could you possibly run an industry that’s motto is ‘We’re not giving the people what they want’? You have to look at [blogging] like any other business in which you want to be successful and profitable,†says Mwangaguhunga. “That means I’m going to look at my customers, find out what they want, find out what they like about this company and give them more of that. I’m also going to find out what they don’t like about this company and I’m going to give them less of that.†more