WHY I STILL READ BLOGS DAILY (AND BELIEVE HAVING YOUR OWN BLOG PLATFORM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER)

A BLOGGER THROUGH & THROUGH

Why I still blog, read blogs daily & believe the future lies in owning your own platform

It’s a funny thing blogging, at least blogging in 2018. It seems for many instagram has truly become the main focus of attention and certainly the main focus of revenue and commercial opportunities. I can see it for my clients as much as my own observations as a blogger too. This itself was inevitable and an obvious evolution, one many of us saw coming and capitalised on in turn. I say ‘us’ but the reality for me is that I knew instagram was going to be big, but I didn’t capitalise on it, I was too slow, too loyal to long form, and too focussed on my blog for that. In turn whilst many bloggers who started around the same time as me had similar size blogs back then, they now have hundreds of thousands of instagram followers while I struggle in the early thousands and don’t ever seem to be able to grow.

Anyway, the point is, instagram is certainly where the money is right now, and in turn where people’s attention, content and energy is focussed. Daily blogging has slowed to almost a holt, even the previously daily bloggers like myself now trickle a post once a week, and others it seems, are so sporadic you wonder whether they’ll ever post again. But despite this slowing of blog content, it is still absolutely where my heart lies. Not just because I love the volume of photography and story telling, I still love a long form articles, whether it’s simple OOTD diary posts, advise articles or just inspirational travel guides. I’m there everyday browsing bloglovin’, gagging for more of my favourite bloggers to push publish so I have something new to read. And it’s not just that, I love a beautifully designed website too, so even the motion of browsing through my favourite blog brings me the satisfaction of flicking through your favourite glossy mag. A little bit of me time, inspiration & entertainment when I have a moment spare in my day. I open bloglovin alongside my email every day, it’s a ritual, a habit and reading blogs to me is much like our dads having their newspaper delivered religious, everyday for 30 years … you won’t stop reading even though print (or perhaps now blogging) is ‘dead’.

But it’s not just my personal love for reading blogs, it’s also my love for creating content for my own blog. Of course it’s not as regular as it once was. I decided not to go full time many moons ago because I loved my career too much (and it’s a decision I truly feel was the right one – despite how sad I can feel when I see other bloggers businesses booming and mine sitting static – I just have to remember how far I’ve travelled in my career with a blog alongside it too), and the reality of this is that blogging daily to the quality I want just isn’t feasible. But regardless of frequency, my blog is still my true love, I still feel super passionate about it and absolutely adore creating content for it. I do of course post to instagram regularly too, but my blog still takes most of my energy because it’s the thing I care most about, and moreover is the thing that I truly believe will stand the test of time …

READ MORE OF MY BLOG TIPS HERE

I wrote about the importance of your blog in 2016, and the points I made then are still as valid today as they were then, if not more so.

Yes instagram is proving to be fantastic for influencers businesses now, but ultimately it’s not a platform any of us own, and we’ve all seen the impact and detrimental affect changes instagram and other social platforms make can have on our own pages. From algorithm updates impacting content exposure, to shifting the focus from creativity to followers and likes encouraging a whole generation of fake engagement, every change instagram makes impacts the platform, your account and in turn your livelihood if thats what it’s based on.

Unlike instagram, your blog is your own, no one can change the design, the algorithm, the content or how users discover your work, it’s entirely yours, and that in itself is a hugely important thing. More so now than two years ago I think. I also think brands will soon re-realise the importance of evergreen links, SEO, brand equity as much as immediate sales and the power of true engagement beyond a simple ‘like’. If I had 500k instagram followers, I know where i’d be sending them.

And so on that basis, my love for reading blogs, creating my own long form content, sharing my own stories on this website I designed and have built over 7 years, and the fact our blogs are our own platforms, I am still deeply, truly, an unwaveringly  committed blogger. Through and through.