It wasn’t that long ago when having a website for a business or church was still very unusual. Fast forward to today and your web presence has become the first thing that many people see and will set the impression that people have of you. But what about personal websites and blog? Before Facebook and Twitter, a personal blog was the main social network. But with the ubiquity of Facebook, the growth of group blogging sites and now platforms like Medium, is the personal blog dead? (And perhaps more specifically, should you have a personal blog)
Group Blogs
Group blogs have risen as a way that everyone benefits from. Sites gain a more consistent flow of content allowing them a daily publishing schedule, individual writers gain the benefit of having more exposure and publicity, they can also work on longer form content as they don’t have the pressure of publishing everyday and readers get better content from a wider range of writers.
It’s no surprising that these group blogs now occupy almost all of the top blog spots. These were all things that attracted me to joining in with ChurchMag. The fact that I can help more people, be inspired by the other writers, and have a chance to work on long form writing (like the email and task management reviews).
Medium
Medium has taken a similar approach to a group blog, but it’s open to anyone. In some ways, WordPress.com has tried to do something similar but it looks like medium has managed to edge it somehow. The appeal of medium is that writing is (in theory) judge based on its own merits and (with the help of well selected tags and followers) will be shared with people who might be interested in that topic. The more popular your writing is, the more people read it.
In theory its very egalitarian but in the same way that any social network matures, it begins to favor those who have a following and so receive more attention to their writing instantly. Still, if you want to help spread your writing far and wide, medium might also be a good choice.
Personal Blogs Aren’t Dead
There certainly are reason to still keep a personal blog, especial to “show your work” if you are a freelancer. Furthermore, you have completely control of the design, appearance and content that appears exclusively on your site if you write and keep a personal blog. I still have my own personal blog at ChristopherJwilson.com and I use it to share my photography and walk of faith. I don’t get many views, but I both enjoy the opportunity to write about topics (and in a style) that wouldn’t fit on ChurchMag and I still find it helpful to clarify my thoughts and thinking.
Do you keep a personal blog?
Why/why not?
Chris Wilson
I'm a Copywriter and content marketer based in Krakow, Poland. I enjoy sketchnoting in my free time and have some free sketchnote courses if you want to start.
I think personal blogs as a this is life blog is dying. But with exception. There are this is lofe bligs of freelancers, special interests heart warming blogs, and ultimately resume personal blogs. But diary like life blogs have litttle following
I think you’re probably right there. I’m sure there are exceptions but for the most part, why bother sharing a daily life blog when you can just do that on Facebook where everyone is? The thing that I find interesting related to that, is how social media seem to be moving more towards following interests and not other people even. Where people are sharing less about their personal experiences and more links and articles…
I still keep my personal blog (http://blessing.im). One of the greatest arguments for this is that I have complete control over it. Medium, as great as it is, could change their policy or, like other great platforms in history, shut down. What happens then.
I sometimes cross-publish (publish the same or similar posts on both medium and blog) but my personal blog is going nowhere any time soon.
I know some other folk are doing the syndication and cross publishing with medium. I haven’t looked at that yet but I think I might. Personally, I have embraced Apple News, Facebook Instant Articles and Google AMP as a way of trying to spread writing on whatever platform might work. It does seem rarer that people just run a blog, but then again bloggers were always a minority so perhaps it is just that there are more people online which has diluted the number of bloggers to non bloggers online?
Oh, I LOVE Medium! I have a personal blog there (or publication, I guess: http://medium.com/ana-también-lee) where I write about anything I want to share that doesn’t fit in the other sites I write for. I also contribute to other publications on Medium.
I feel like it is a platform which is not about you but about your writing, and I love that.
Medium is an interesting publication but I feel like there is an element of favouring those who get established still. After all, if you get there early, you have less noise and competition on your topic. You build up a following and then they will automatically see all your writing as they follow you. Now you have enough to start a snowball. Sure there can be exceptions which go viral but that seems true about any platform.
I haven’t investigated medium that much though so I could be wrong.
I’m intrigued by the publications on medium and how you can be part of groups there. I think it’s probably a very good choice for people who want to share their writing online somewhere as it does focus on the writing and not on fiddling with themes and widgets.
I agree that personal blogs aren’t dead, they’ve only evolved. The day of “going viral” with your personal blog (i.e. mom blogs) has gone away with the Golden Age of Blogging.
Blogging is here to stay. 🙂