I’ve seen a few comments and blog posts recently, from people claiming (yet again) that blogging is dead. This subject seems to come around every few months; usually after a blogger realises that his or her blog is failing to work for them, the way they intended. So, rather than adopt a different, more effective strategy, they decide the problem rests with blogging as a platform and that it’s not their fault.
Blogging is very much alive and in excellent health! Visitor numbers to Jims Marketing Blog blog are up by around 85% over the past 6 months and enquiries for my services as a marketing coach via this blog, are up by closer to 300%. All of my clients are seeing growth with their blogs, both in terms of visitors and business / business enquiries. In fact, as a business development or marketing tool, I would say that blogging has never been as powerful as it is today, with the future looking even brighter!
Blogging and marketing
Here’s the thing though: Successful blogging requires a lot more than simply setting up a blog and writing posts! Like every form of marketing, you will need to plan ahead and work to an effective strategy, if you want to enjoy commercial blogging success. For example, I spent 6 weeks researching and planing, before I started this blog. By the time it launched, almost 2 years ago, I already knew what my plans for the first year were.
Within a few months, Jim’s Marketing Blog was generating daily enquiries for my business and was ranked on page one of Google, for the search term “marketing blog“, where it still is today. None of this happened by accident, or simply because I wrote interesting posts. As we all know, some of the most gifted writers remain undiscovered. Others manage to attract readers, but struggle to transfer their readers, into paying clients or customers.
Their experience doesn’t mean that blogging is dead; simply that they need a more effective marketing strategy for their blog.
The next time you hear that blogging is dead, see if you can get a pulse from; Mashable, Chris Brogan, Techcrunch, Seth Godin, Robert Scoble or myself!
Hear hear! I never quite understand why this hue & cry keeps happening, to be honest. It seems clear to me that blogging is one channel or weapon in the arsenal. People keep saying FB or Twitter are killing blogging–but there will always be a venue for more structured and in-depth content than those 2 venues can support.
Ed Han´s last blog ..Staying Focused- Stand Out with Social Media
The challenge with moving your blogging to a platform like FB or Twitter, is that the platform is not under our control.
At any time Ed, all that work someone puts into FB can be deleted, by FB.
Build your own online hub – and for me, there’s no better hub than a blog.
Also, after the fate of those 70,000 blogs that got shut down because of the movie pirating issue at their host, it is a wise idea to have a backup of your blog that isn’t stored on your web host.
It is fairly simply to create an off-line backup and then create a daily backup of the databases that can be stored offline, just in case something happens to your host.
Jim, I wonder if there is any difference between blogging about marketing (and social media) and blogging about any other subject (as data quality in my case)?
Not really Henrik. For example, I have a client who has a very successful new(ish) blog, who blogs about laboratory testing services http://blogmidwestlabs.com/ – His blog allowed him to attract state-wide media coverage, for a project they were doing.
Social media and marketing blogs tend to be better marketed than other blogs, which is why we think of them, however, there are bloggers in almost every area of business, who achieve great results.
Thanks for asking such a great question.
Love this quote right here, Jim:
This subject seems to come around every few months; usually after a blogger realises that his or her blog is failing to work for them, the way they intended.
So, rather than adopt a different, more effective strategy, they decide the problem rests with blogging as a platform and that it’s not their fault.
I think you nailed it bang on, there.
What’s it they say about a good worker and his/her tools?
Danny Brown´s last blog ..How NOT to Win Friends and Influence People
Totally.
Every time I have seen a “blogging is dead” post, it’s always been because the blogger wasn’t getting results, or their numbers were slipping. I’ve never heard a successful blogger make that statement.
Thanks for the comment mate!
Anyone who thinks blogging is dead, is near dead, or will die out needs to think long and hard about a thing called Internet Explorer 6. Christ… We WANT that to die and it wont sodding go away so how can anyone expect something as powerful as blogging to disappear and die… oh yes, I know, people wish it would because it requires effort.
Justin Parks´s last blog ..Another go at explaining Social Media to a Newbie
Justin – The only good thing about IE6, is that it acts as a way to measure how many unprotected PC’s are out there
Thanks for the comment mate!
I had blogs at many, many different blogging sites from my high school years all up until just a month ago. That’s when I decided I would purchase my own domain so that I could ‘market’ me. (Instead of thousands of people on that same blog site with just a different name. Like Blogspot or Posterous.)
I have gotten compliments that this site is the best I’ve had yet. Many more folks are reading because it’s cleaner-cut.
Blogging isn’t dead by far. Blogging will always be here as the staple when people tire of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter.
Marketing yourself and your blog is hard work, it takes time and planning, like you said. I don’t have as many readers as I like, but with so much going on, I haven’t had the chance to properly channel myself. I know it’s all on me at that point.
This whole topic makes me laugh. In November 2009, I went to a chamber of commerce luncheon featuring a local “with-it” marketing firm who was there with the express purpose of teaching the 60 some people all about social media.
He too proclaimed that blogging was dead. He said Twitter had replaced it. Between that and knowing that I had already learned everything he was sharing with the group from my contacts online, I just inwardly groaned and smiled. Later I checked out his “blog” and found, sure, he wrote four posts in 2009 and the last one in August 2009. For him, blogging was dead, he wasn’t doing anything to bring his blog to life.
Julie Walraven | Resume Services´s last blog ..When Life Gets Hard- Dig Deep