The revival of Blogs? Blogs have never gone away!
Social media come and go. Blogs stay for a long time. Why are blogs often invisible and why might there be a blog revival right now?
Once upon a time … when blogs were almost the centre of a brand and its employer branding communication, especially in the corporate communications sector. Today many of the blogs are still there, but are no longer visible at the centre of many companies' communications. The reason for this?
Blogs: The ups and downs of perception
This could now change - once again. Some time ago, newsletter platforms such as Substack took over the role of (personal) presence on the social web. They became central components of marketing communications, whether for companies or personal brands. The latter were the main beneficiaries of the hype surrounding newsletters, as they were finally able to benefit from their reach and earn money.
With Casey Newton's Platformer Newletter, one of the most prominent blogs has now broken away from Substsck. A bitter setback for Substack, a win for the open source platform Ghost.io, which has been around for 11 years and now also offers the prospect of marketing revenue. But now Casey can also monetise this content with his platformer, as he did before with Substack.
You could almost say that the caravan is moving on ...
Daniel Fiene, German content marketer and one of those net observers who have seen a lot, is currently speculating whether blogs are currently regaining their appeal. Julian Heck, personal branding and content consultant, also sees blogs on the rise for 2024.
Where does the invisibility of blogs come from?
Spontaneously, two three reasons come to my mind …
- the emergence of social media in the 2010s, at the end of which there was a retreat into the privacy of messaging apps and groups
- the emergence of monetisable newsletters around 2020 increased the desire to send short content quickly and regularly and to quickly build up a community that didn't have to react in a big way
- at the same time, podcasts also came into their own, which also put a sublayer over blogs, but they never went away, because
- behind most websites today are content management systems such as WordPress, Joomla, Typo3 etc. But you don't see this because in most cases the blog is not called a blog, but a magazine, news site, etc.
Social Media as satellites in the orbit of a blog
Originally, at the beginning of the 2010s, everything that is now known to us as Social Media was Facebook, X fka Twitter, YouTube and so on. All of these platforms ultimately served to further disseminate the content of a blog.
They were the satellites in the orbit of a blog, the hooks of a blog's fishing rod. They made people aware of new posts. At the same time, they were traffic suppliers, especially Facebook, which was so spoilt by many, made publishers rejoice, as they were not only able to increase their reach, but also to monetise it better and better.
As a result, however, the discussion often shifted to these peripheral and, in contrast to blogs, temporally only borrowed presences compared to a blog. Ultimately, it's the same today: liking or faving is easier than commenting on a new post.
My conclusion from 10 years ago remains today the same: Threads, X, TikTok and whatever they're all called don't belong to you. You are only a guest to the condoms that the respective platform offers. Your home is the website, whether it's look like a blog or not.
Social media is just a loan 😉, blogs are forever yours ❤️