The Canary In The Mine For Blogging

Ken's Blog

I read Helen Leggatt's BizReport article on how teens no longer consider blogging to be "cool" and that social networking sites are now the "in" place to hang out. The article misses the point and makes a point.

Let's OVERsimplify to set the stage...

If you asked me 15-20 years ago what the Net was for, I would have told you "e-mail and a bunch of obscure bulletin boards." If you asked me just 5-10 years ago what the Web was "for," I would have told you it was to "find information." If you asked me today what this entire interwoven network of smart phones, laptops, notebooks, and various other gizmos is "for," I'd tell you to "find information and to socialize."

The first aspect provides us all with the same huge business opportunity that it always has. The fact that there is a second aspect does not draw back from the first (which is bigger than ever). It's simply something new. The pie grows; it's not being divided up.

While e-mail (15-20 year history) is 1-to-1 socializing, the current socializing is many-to-many. It's discovery, networking, and a million other things. It can be used as an adjunct to building your business, just like offline socializing (golf, anyone?). But it's not your business, so don't get misled when you see the GetRichQuick crowd promising you miracles with social strategies.

Where does blogging fit in?...

It's 95% information and 5% socializing. The information comes to you through RSS feeds, which is the technology that helped blogging to flourish. And it's a site format that is especially useful for news-oriented and commentary/punditry type businesses.

The "social" part is where folks get to comment on your posts. The problem is that most posts don't need a comment...

You read. You leave. And if you do comment, you merely talk with the blogger. A telling strategy is the number of articles teaching bloggers how to write "link bait content"... information designed to be controversial and get comments. I would think that the goal of an infopreneur is to build a business by providing information that is of value to one's market. If we narrow it to "controversial information," we have a problem.

Blogging is not like the SBI! forums, where we all talk with each other, creating our own information network. It's not like an active SBI! site using Content 2.0, where you basically recruit your visitors to create content for you and allow others to comment, if they want to -- many-to-many-to-many.

Now let's look go back to Helen's article. The point that the article makes is not surprising. It's merely the canary in the mine that makes people think, hopefully a bit further than the article went...

Young people move to social media because it's a better fit for what they want to do. It's nothing against blogging. Blogging is excellent for what it does. But now a better concept has come along that meets the socializing needs of teens and young adults.

Next watch for an article that tells us that people starting small e-businesses online are moving back to using regular Web sites because they're a better fit with what they need. Many bloggers misunderstood this page when I first wrote it...

http://blogorbuild.sitesell.com/

It's not anti-blogging. It is "pro" picking the right medium for your needs. The fact is that folks still search for information and will for a long, long time...

They'll do it by voice soon. And search will be more and more personalized, and smarter and smarter. And all of this is good news for SBIers because you "keep it real" and do all the right things to be "picked" by Google for searches by the right people for the right topics.

For the most part, people don't search for news and punditry. Blogs have a high percent of repeat visitors who subscribe, read the daily post, and leave. That's a tough business model, but it can work if it matches your goals.

If/when people do search for news (from earthquakes to tsunamis to local events), it has little to do with you and your business. Your business, in general, has nothing to do with delivering the news.

For example, my daughter Nori worries when she sees a new blog about Anguilla delivering the news. Different business model. If they work long and hard, they may develop some traffic. But tourists want a site like Nori's, not the news. Your goal is not to capture everyone's attention about Anguilla, just your target market's.

Nori, like you, can add a blog. But be very aware that blogs are time-sucking obligations. To stay on people's RSS list and keep their interest, you need to publish good material frequently. If you have the time, ability and interest to do that, it can be a nice adjunct.

Adding a WordPress blog to Nori's site would be a 20-80 idea, not an 80-20. But it might make sense for you. Actually, it must make big sense to undertake it.

And that's where those teens moving to social media have relevance to you. They're simply doing what makes sense for them. Small e-businesses will, in the coming years, come to realize that blogging is not the right format for most of them.

Or blogging will evolve into becoming a regular sitebuilder. In which case, they become another sitebuilder, out of 1000s, and risk losing what makes them different.

The fact is that most people do rush into blogging or fall for the same "quick and cheap and easy" sitebuilder/hosting combination that they did 15 years ago. Just one problem... It's all for nothing if they only get 3 visitors per month!

All the best,