The Pakistani online community are a curious bunch. The IRC / forum / gaming vets stay underground, leading true double lives on and off line. The lone entrepreneurs plough on relentlessly, wondering when they will meet a fellow Pakistani entrepreneur while at the same time choosing to work instead of reaching out to other souls.
The idealists – every society has those but in Pakistan they take center stage – are vociferously vocal, active and prominent but not technical nor money making experts. And there are those who spend hours and hours on social media apps but balk at the thought of spending 30 minutes a day writing a blog.
The Lahore Bloggers Meetup (what, you didn’t know?) was an interesting experience – and now that I’m back home (don’t worry Lahore, I’ll be back soon), here are some takeaways:
- There are a few ‘elite’ who know plenty about SEO, blogging, webmastering, monetization, etc, while almost everyone else is a total noob. No disrespect intended here – but I think there’s a lot of education and training that can be done to help the local blogging community.
- We’re very disorganised – and perhaps part of the reason is, as someone at the meetup suggested, that we’re afraid of failing, afraid of taking risks, afraid of making mistakes. Having said that, we’re also very eager to learn and apply what we’ve learned if someone shows us the way, and that can work to our advantage.
- People have a burning desire to learn more about the basics of blogging and making money online – but there are few quality resources available and fewer still available online. The one book I would recommend to everyone here is the ProBlogger book by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett – and maybe we can set something up and give away a few copies at a future meetup.
- The next meetup / seminar / conference MUST be focused on teaching and training people, with separate beginner / expert tracks to accomodate everyone’s needs and interests.
I fully intend to link up with everyone I talked to at the Meetup in the coming week (before Eid hopefully), and with a few more trips to Lahore planned for December there’s a good chance that I’ll meet some of those people again. As always, if anyone has any questions on blogging / SEO / monetization / marketing / wordpress / etc, drop me a line or catch me on twitter.
Salam Ahmed,
Thanks a lot for the review. We’ll be needing ur help soon, insha-Allah.
If there is interest in having a couple of copies of our book to give away as prizes let me know and I will hook you up 🙂
Thanks badar.
Chris, definitely an interest, it is THE book for people who want to learn more about blogging.
Hey Bilal,
Great Post! Never knew there was a meetup in Lahore otherwise surely would have been there.
I am researching Internet Marketing opportunities in Pakistan and find a lot of interest in people here. I would be ready to be part of education session if my services are needed at all 🙂
Your Friend,
Bobby
“There are a few ‘elite’ who know plenty about SEO, blogging, webmastering, monetization, etc, while almost everyone else is a total noob”
Well as far as this issue is concern, it is not hard to grab these SEO, blogging, webmastering, monetization, etc techniques,
Bloggers meet ups on regular basis should be conducted where experts should share and newbies could learn.