Thursday, February 24, 2011 Are blogs dying?
Has blogging become a thing of the past? With Facebook and Twitter’s ever-rising popularity do people prefer short snippets of information over “long-form” blog entries? According to a new Pew Research Center study published in The New York Times, the answer depends on who you’re trying to reach.
Know your audience
It’s one of the first lessons in social media, well, in marketing really. So if you’re trying to reach kids, teens and young adults, keep reading.
The Times article cites The Internet and American Life Project of the Pew Research Center as finding that from 2006 to 2009, blogging with kids ages 12 to 17 fell by half to 14 percent. Additionally, the author cites a report from last year that shows blogging dropped two percentage points among 18-to-33-year-olds from two years prior.
That’s a pretty significant statistic and the article points to some sobering information on the state of blogging with that generation.
However, it really does depend on who your audience is.
Blogging for business
At Bader Rutter we often recommend blogs to our clients. We understand their audiences and the significance a blog can play in the communication of a company’s message.
If you made it to the end of that Times article you’d find these interesting stats:
“While the younger generation is losing interest in blogging, people approaching middle age and older are sticking with it. Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent.”
What’s more, a 2010 study suggests 43 percent of companies will be blogging by next year.
Blogs fill a need that other forms of social media cannot. Blogs offer a broader spectrum of thought leadership where as other social sites provide a more useful outlet for dissemination. Just think of how much you can say in 300 to 500 words versus 140 charters.
To put it in perspective this blog is 382 words. Here’s the tweet I plan to send out to promote it.
@Bader_Rutter: Are blogs dying? Research shows it depends on who you’re trying to reach. http://bit.ly/gEx8da #blog
Which do you prefer?
blogs, digital, marketing, social media in Social Media & Digital 
Reader Comments (1)
Great point about audience preference, and thanks for sharing the stats. I'd also like to suggest that blogs can facilitate understanding -- of a brand, a topic, a product's viability, etc. Sometimes more detail is good and actually strengthens credibilty and value!
And if a company's approach to blogging is more oriented toward building community, blogs can enable a diverse group of thought leaders (from inside and outside a company) to discuss the matter at hand. This has been very successful for some our clients -- the ability to push information out via a blog, but also to allow the blog to become a hub of activity and discussion for an industry or around a topic.