Is Blogging Still Relevant?

For my last 'official' class blog I wanted to explore what we have been doing in the classroom, and that is blogging! Now, we have examined multiple educational avenues that steer us toward 21st Century Learning but for some reason when thinking about what to write for this topic my mind kept on racing back to blogging. The main reason why my mind has done that is because of the questions that I posed to myself throughout the course, EDUC 5P42. One of the questions (which is the theme for this blog) is, "Is Blogging Still Relevant?" I thought of this question when some of my classmates were presenting on new innovative 21st Century Learning practices. There have been so many new and interesting online avenues that allow you to express yourself other then blogging so I wanted to turn to some scholarly articles that speak to this issue. I will then give my personal opinion on the question!

Clayton Lainsbury (2012), the Founder and CEO at Crowd Content, a content marketplace for clients and high performance writers, says "Blogging has dominated content marketing in the past with most businesses looking to improve their SEO performance. Lately, however, it seems like the traditional blogging approach has been forgotten about". This seems kind of true to a certain extent. You never turn on the TV and see corporation/business commercials advertising "Hey, check us out on our blog". They always refer to Facebook, Twitter or even LinkedIn (shout to Marisa!!!). It almost seems that blogging is less appealing to the other 'quicker' online forms of expressing yourselves. When thinking about this, you would think that blogging is on the decline but in reality, it's really not.

Lainsbury (2012) crunches some numbers regarding blogging and it's quite staggering, "While generic social media gets all the attention, blogging still attracts massive amounts of traffic. For instance, Tumblr gets 355 million unique visitors every month and a good 400 million page views per day. At present, 81% of online users trust blogs when making buying decisions. Clearly, then, quality content is still a big draw if you know how to leverage it". Please continue to Tumblr's website if you are unfamiliar with it: https://www.tumblr.com/. So, Lainsbury brings up some pretty impressive numbers; Blogging must still be relevant and pretty trustworthy.

He also provided a new point that I really never thought about before. Lainsbury (2012) stated that, "It’s also important to note that 24% of the top 10,000 blogs online have Facebook integration, which means that the line between blogging and social media is blurring at an increasing rate". It's interesting to think that blogging and Facebook are now blurring the lines. (Side note, it shows you how popular Facebook is...I just typed in Facebook with an "f" and it said that it was wrong; it needed a capital! Is Facebook now in Webster's Dictionary?!). It's kind of old meeting the new, and working it out together.

Now I know everyone has been aching to hear what I have to say in terms of answering the question, "Is Blogging Still Relevant?" I would have to answer that question with a Yes! Although Facebook and many other avenues are still out there for expressing yourself I still believe that blogging is number 1 in terms of letting people know what you're all about and they actually don't get annoyed (hopefully not). For example, if I were to post this blog and my other ones onto my Facebook status bar I am sure that it would not be well received and this long (important) blurb would be taking up everyone's News Feeds. For that reason, I am sure I would get a lot of 'unlikes". Neil Patel (2012), the co-founder of KISSmetrics, an analytics provider that helps companies make better business decisions, says it perfectly, "A blog allows you to build a fuller picture of who you are. Most people will meet you through other places…but if they like what they read on Twitter, then they’ll follow you back to your blog and find out more about who you are. You better have a lot of content to give them". As I mentioned before that quote, you really do get to be creative and let people know who you are through your blog writing!

I now pose the same question to my readers, "Is Blogging Still Relevant?" Let me hear it!

Finally, if you've never blogged before and this question is stuck in your mind:

 TO BLOG, WOULD BE THE ANSWER!

Cheers,

James Stewart

References

Picture 1: 

http://thetravelhack.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/blogging.jpg

Picture 2:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZrcvaSd3avb3dE9oNlfZQS7PZxGSbdCpF6KuG4OP5aI4ocCx9narOL0fHL9bd5MwEAid2-IRyfRyIZ5DHSa-CfRUIQkd2aKV3aorSfasN_4_y_aWS_qmFwsGnAzky3XbAaMm2GmSLLoM/s1600/bloggin.jpg

Lainsbury:
http://www.crowdcontent.com/blog/2013/02/12/the-ongoing-evolution-of-content-marketing-is-blogging-still-relevant/
Patel:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/7-reasons-why-blogging-is-still-important-in-2012/39225/

Come On, Get Up And Dance!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

Times are changing, leaders are wanted, followers are needed...

What an interesting video, eh? As mentioned in some of my other peers' blogs (shout out to Tien, Brett and Marisa - ps. follow them), there has been a common theme of change. Whether it's receiving an iPad for Christmas, going from LinkedIn to Twitter, or revising lesson plans to incorporate 21st Century Learning, we have all experienced change. It truly is inevitable. It is what you do with that change that makes the difference. I need to pump the brakes a bit though. Change; where does it come from? Why is carried it out? Who are the main players? 

Personal Answers: (please feel free to answer them differently)

-Changes comes from anywhere; it's mostly unpredictable.

-Change is carried out for many different reasons; change needs to happen, new directions, forced/unforced...so many different variables of why change happens.

-I first thought that the main player of change is the leader..I mean, it makes sense, right? Take politics for example; a new leader comes into power, their ideals are then filtered out into the society. Take education for example; every public school in Ontario follows the same curriculum but does that mean it is run the same way? No, it doesn't because the leaders of that school or school board leaves their imprint and changes things that they see fit.

As you can see, I always thought change came from the top and rarely ever thought about the people who actually are effected by the change; THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE! This is why I posted the video that I did. To show that although leaders are important, it is the initial follower that gets the movement going; starts turning the wheels. If it isn't for that initial follower, the leader wouldn't have any support; they'd be left on their own. 

As I mentioned in Tien's post, I took an Effecting Change in Education course this past Fall and it was truly amazing as I've experienced change my entire life yet could hardly explain it to someone if they asked me what change is. If you are looking to brush up your skills on 'change' especially in education then I highly recommend this book: The Human Side of School Change. Take a second to look at this website:

http://www.robevans.org/Pages/pubBook_SchoolChange.htm

I mean come on, Michael Fullan praised this book in a review! It has to be good!

So let me bring this back to you, the reader. I want to hear your thoughts about the video I posted and whether or not you agree with it. Who is more important? The leader of that change, the first follower or the followers who reinforce the 'first' follower?

Until next blog,

James Stewart