Is blogging just not that cool anymore?

It seems that blogging across the younger online generation is steadily decreasing, while for those aged 30+ it’s becoming a more popular activity, according to research from Pew. They found that in 2007 24% of internet users aged 18-29 maintained a blog, while in 2009 this had decreased to 15%. Conversely, blogging for those aged 30 and older increased from 7% in 2007 to 11% in 2009. If the ‘Net generation’ are those that are the first to embrace new technologies, we have to wonder if blogging just isn’t that cool anymore.

Now clearly blogging is not dead – 15% is still an impressive figure but it is a steady decrease nonetheless and suggests that blogging in itself may, in the not too distant future, become an archaic medium. The proliferation of microblogging and status updates has clearly set a new path for blogging – what we get now are small snippets of information, responding to people’s updates through Twitter or Facebook rather than by leaving a comment on a blog. The future of blogging has been a question that I’m hearing more and more – it’s certainly a trend that often when a blogger hits particularly high status, they’re snapped up by ‘traditional’ press and the job role becomes more of a journalist. Occasionally, some go the other way.

What is a blog?

If this declining trend in blogging is to continue, then marketers need to ask themselves the question  – does it really matter? What is a blogger anyway? With practically everyone connecting through social media, does it matter to you, at the end of the day, if the person you’re trying to reach even has a blog? Is it not the same thing if they’re extremely active through other channels and have a thriving community around them? What’s the difference, really, between someone embedding a brand’s youtube channel on their own site, or linking to it through Facebook, favouriting it on youtube and feeding this back through their Twitter account? I think it’s time to stop looking at blog coverage as the ultimate goal and looking at the person that you’re trying to reach. Whether or not they have a blog will soon be irrelevant and companies risk getting left behind if the extent of your online activity is restricted to ‘those that blog’.

Blogging is clearly forging a new path for itself. Like I said earlier, by no means dead, but we need to think about it differently. It’s understandable why someone’s blog is seen as the holy grail. It is a permanent mention of your brand online and there is clearly a higher level of engagement with a person/brand/product if the ‘blogger’ is taking the time to write a full, considered piece. The only problem is that you’re restricting itself and not pushing forward if you’re focusing on this. Blogging may not be where your audience is and if you’re aiming for the younger crowd, then evidently it’s almost certainly not where they’re hanging out online. The challenge for those that are hoping to reach people through social media is evidently harder. You need to spend more time in the space to find out where your audience is hanging out and how you can reach them.

The way in which people are accessing the internet now is clearly affecting the trend in blogging. The same research piece by Pew found that more people are going online through ebook readers, gaming devices or mobiles. Think about the medium – how likely is someone to maintain a blog through a mobile? They’re not, at least, not in the traditional sense of blogging. Herein lies the other challenge : the need to be fluid and adaptable to different technology, not just devising a campaign or product that suits a full computer screen. This is an area that is going to require more and more attention by brands, not just where their customers are going online, but how they’re getting there. The solution is simple – shape up, be adaptable or get left behind.

The need to constantly innovate is a challenge for any of us that work in the online industry. Keeping up with your consumers is tough and staying relevant is even tougher. That something as new as blogging is already on the decline (thinking ‘new’ in terms of the age of newspapers here) is a reminder that online, nothing is a constant. What I might have done 6 months ago for a client will rarely be applicable anymore. Social media is an entirely new kind of beast, it ignores all the rules that went before it and as much as this may be a challenge for brands, it’s an incredibly exciting one.