It wasn’t over. It’s still not over.
I recently read an article from an established blogger who suggested that blogging was dying. Firstly, over dramatic much? Secondly it made me start thinking as to why I don’t personally believe that the act of blogging has to die.
One point that she made was that Instagram and Snapchat are more accessible and that audiences don’t have the attention spans for blogs. I had to disagree, I don’t believe that we have less of an attention span but instead with more wealth of information out there we are now more choosey over what we give our attention to.
Let’s be honest, if I loved something, if I was invested you can have my whole life, if not, too bad. The same is said for blogs; blogging isn’t over its just got an awful lot of lazy, bad content.
Classic content v.s shopping blogs
I see it a lot with vloggers. These relatively popular vloggers often have content, which is predictable, over used and pretty damn boring.
On the other side however, you have vloggers like Estee Lalonde who are continually bringing new ideas and content to the table and who because of this is continually interesting and engaging! If you only share a haul, monthly favourites and the boyfriend tag, then snooze! Your content is outdated and I’m not going to lend my attention to that.
The same is applicable to bloggers. Its now easy to start a blog with ‘basic’ content, add affiliate links and make a shopping blog! You can easily make decent money from the get go, there are even tricks to that success however, does it make a good blog? No, it makes a good online shop.
The same for mommy bloggers, if you shill enough baby products then you’re good to go, but it won’t make your story interesting, I won’t fall in love with your kids, I’ll go to GOMI though and say how over your shoes I am.
Leandra Medine is an interesting case for instance. Her once daily style blog is now an incredible online magazine, which for lack of a better word creates, one of a kind, diverse content that most often you want to read. It’s what Vogue online should be but isn’t and is a great example of successful blog content.
She once said in an interview how she struggled with Instagram at first because in her eyes it seemed foolish to share her content (her, at the time daily outfit photos) on that platform when she actually wanted her readers on her blog*. Therefore, she ended up making completely different content for her Instagram which was fun and a precursor to the real stuff on the blog – the perfect way to keep your blog and Instagram alive at the same time.
What’s happening now is bloggers you once used to love reading (because of their content) are now more focused on the shilling product aspect, even my favourite bloggers who I fawned over at the start are now so busy wearing the latest piece of sponsored gear that I too have lost interest.
The worst part is we should feel cheated. Perspective drew us in and individual voices, affordability, true personal style and now they’ve effectively sold out. Instead we just don’t bother to read, we stick to Instagram instead for their outfits and hold out for Snapchat to remember whom we fell in love with all those years ago. The only problem being that the blog aspect dies.
Blogs won’t die for those who wish to use them but maybe the audiences will, just like consumers wants change so will blogs themselves. The audiences we once would have commanded will alter and new blogs will surface. On the up and up I think this new wave will be better, more insightful and more original. If competition has one upside it’s that it weeds out the rubbish and maybe with blogs its time for that change.
What do you think about traditional blog content and the future of blogging? Is it something ready for change or has it already changed? Also leave your links to your best piece of original content and the blogs you read! I’m sure we would all like to read some good blogs!!
*Did you catch readers v.s. viewers? A good distinction between a blogger and an instagrammer, they should be different things.
therealjlow 