Long Live Blogs!

Blogs are awesome! When I was in elementary school, my siblings and I had a couple blogs, newspapers, and businesses. We had a “Spath Family Blog” and a “Spath Family Newspaper”. I ran these operations, and I loved it. Eventually, the newspaper and blog fizzled away. Since then, I have assumed blogs were not popular; I assumed they died with paper newspapers and home phones. However, this is NOT the case. 77% of internet users read blogs. Blogs are an amazing way for anyone to write about their lives, without having to post it on a platform like Facebook or Instagram. Long posts and random thoughts are much more accepted in blogs. 

Unfortunately, blogs are a much larger time commitment than running a social media account. In a matter of seconds, an individual can post a single picture with a short caption. Blogs are lengthy and require frequent updates to keep subscribers intrigued. A blog is usually 400 words in length, while an Instagram post is rarely more than twenty words. Snapchat and Instagram are the most popular social media for teens and young adults, which is likely why I assumed blogs disappeared. I wonder about the average age of blog creators and readers. Please comment if you know that statistic! 

On the other hand, an individual can Google any topic under the sun and likely find a blog about that topic. Food, fitness, mysteries, fashion, stories, interviews, and life updates are a few common topics for blogs. Bloggers can customize their blogs to have their blogs show up on search engines. This can be done by adding labels to blog posts. Until this week, I was never aware of this feature. Surprisingly, the most searched-for and popular blogs are fashion blogs. 

When I was in middle school, my family adopted my youngest brother. This process was lengthy and required many fundraisers. My parents created a blog to post adoption updates and raise money for the adoption process. Seriously, a blog can serve many purposes and it can be about anything. Through this course, I hope to gain a stronger knowledge in engaging my target audience, while also writing about the things I love. I also hope to gain a larger following and continue this blog after this course ends. Long live blogs!