To Blog or not to Blog - That is the Question
“Blogging is important - but to who?”
Blogging is a phenomenon that has exploded over the last few years. Currently it is estimated that 92,000 new blogs are created every day — that's about one every second. Blogging is used both socially and also increasingly in the business world but with very different effectiveness.
Social blogs remain popular with 11% of Internet users visiting blogs written by others and almost 92% of bloggers are under 30 years of age. However, as at end of 2008 as many as 2/3rd of all blogs have not been updated in two months, and over 5 million blogs are one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days. The average duration of the remaining abandoned blogs is approximately 4 months.
Elsewhere blogging remains strong with over 1,600,000 blog posts every day in the blogosphere, which averages out to about 18 posts per second.
Blogs have increasingly become part of the business world but there use and value has come under increasing scrutiny. A recent study by Forrester Research indicated that company blogs are one of the least-trusted sources of information online. According to their study, email from friends are highly trusted (77%), consumer reviews come in second (60%), search engines (50%) then a whole host of other sources, before a dismal 16% for company blogs.
So, does this mean your company blog is a waste of time? Forrester seems to think so. In their report, they suggest if you're thinking of starting a blog "about your company and its products", you probably shouldn't bother. They go on to state, "if your blog generates leads, links, positive reviews, buzz, or PR, it's probably worth keeping." If not, stop blogging.
Whether you have a blog or are considering adding a blog to your website you really need to think of what value it is going to add. Remember visitors to websites are impatient - they have an idea of what that want to find and need to fulfil that requirement. If they visit a site and cannot find the information they leave.
Blogs have to offer value and have to be managed properly and regularly. This takes time and unfortunately many sites have them because they THINK they should have them, NOT because they add value to the visitors’ experience. Blogs are so much more valuable to social sites and especially social networking or interest/ hobby sites. In business they often detract, use up valuable time and resources and add little value.
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