There are some conversations around the Internet hallways that blogging as a social media strategy is dead (or antiquated or passe). Wired.com ran controversial article in October 2008 that said “blogging is dead.” Yesterday Steve Rubel, one of the digital media thinkers out there, suggested that microblogging and other hybrid tools are making “blogging slow and antiquated.” The discussion is lively and ongoing. As a nonprofit or nonprofit fundraiser, that probably creates a range of reactions: from “Yikes, I haven’t even started a blog yet.” to “Hmmm, that makes sense to me.”
To only slightly oversimplify the issue, the bottomline for most of the “is-dead-camp” is that technologies such as Twitter which allow for real-time conversations are the way to go rather than blogging which is much slower and much less of a dialog. The champions of the “is-dead camp” are promoting quick conversations in real time.
Twitter is closer to a conversation at a church fellowship or a big family gathering–lots of talking all over each other and occasional direct one-on-one conversations. Great for dialogs and chatting/listening to a large group. 140 characters (the Twitter message limit) keeps the conversation moving, cryptic with twitter-abbreviations and shallow.
Blogging is for deeper conversations with a longer shelf life for a broader audience. You’ll never be able to tell a story on Twitter or explain your philosophy. The Twitter conversation is gone very quickly. People stumble onto old posts on our blog via search engines all the time (tracking how people find a page is a fascinating Google analytics’ sport).
Don’t give up on blogging. Just remember to use it as a specific marketing tool integrated with everything else you do. Don’t fall for the one-size-fits-all strategy. You almost certainly need more than one social media tool to get the job done. We find that the quick conversation tools (Twitter and others) build traffic for our blog. But you need a blog for the deeper conversation. And it’s not too late to start a blog if you haven’t already.
Chris Brogan, a true social media guru, says “he still likes blogging.” And we do too. How about you, where do you stack up on the “blogging is dead” idea?
And don’t forget, it’s “Good Job Monday.” Tell someone they did a good job last week and make their day.
Steve Thomas
Partner, Oneicity
(unedited photo credit: jhoc)
