With the recent Twitter growth, I’ve noticed a trend between the frequency, quality and purpose of blogging versus Tweeting. Guilty as charged, I’ve been blogging much less than I have before, but not because I haven’t had opinions and commitment for community, but because of my infatuation with Twitter. I’ll compare and contrast some observations between Twitter and Blogging.
For me, blogging means a lot to me. Outside the scope of fighting the man and even getting noticed by headquarters staff at AOL, it’s been very theraputic and relaxing to blog. Many bloggers will agree that blogging, even snarky and offensive content, it relaxes them no matter the topic. The way that we’re individually able to share what’s on our mind, include pictures and video and effectively communicate, is primarily the success of blogs as a whole.
Then came Twitter.
Like the thousands of social media professionals and celebrities, I flocked over to Twitter. We became addicted to it because the ability to get short thoughts out (140 characters or less), the various memes and community efforts and the ability to rapidly influence others with our thoughts. We inherently managed our community experience, one Tweet and one follow at a time.
As I learned the nuances and dynamics of Twitter a year ago, I decreased my focus on my blog. Beyond not picking a great design, I just couldn’t find myself being able to focus my energy into blogging and Tweeting. It just wasn’t there. On Twitter, I can instantly be heard by followers who probably want to hear me. It was instant gratification, unlike with blogs.
So in the period of a year, Twitter killed my inner blogger. This was bad, even drastic, because I cared so much for blogging. Little did I know, I effectively built up the social media equity of Twitter with my peers and didn’t pay enough credit to blogs.
Arguably, Twitter has changed the discourse in community and social media. This isn’t a bad thing; in fact, it might lend to improving the usefulness and value a blog post provides to their audience and help them redefine their blog’s audience. Blog indexing services like Technorati should adapt accordingly and classify micro-blogging services such as Twitter, otherwise they might lose steam.
Twitter is great for…
- Conversation
- Live-pulse monitoring of conversation.
- Accessibility
- Accountability
- Instant gratification
- Quantifiable audiences
Those are just a few of the quick benefits of Twitter. (If you aren’t on there, check it out now.)
Blogging is great for…
- Detailed, verbose conversation
- Rich-multimedia
- Search engine visibility
- Conversation between blog authors and commenters
- Longer, but more fulfilling gratification
Again, these are just a few of the top benefits that I get from blogging. And no, money isn’t one of them, no matter what the fraudsters sell you.
Messages posted on Twitter are only as good as the relevance, receptiveness and engagement of your audience. It also helps to have a larger audience, but really, it comes down to the number of people who genuinely care about what you care about.
I hope to be blogging (and Tweeting) more. But I’d love to hear what you think. Is Twitter the beginning of the end of blogs? Or will blogs take on a new type of conversation?
{ 4 comments }
I hear ya, Joe. This is what’s happening to me as well.. I got addicted to Twitter and basically stopped blogging. Then I decided to alter the content of my blog to focus only on the process being a first-time novel writer, which I think is better conveyed via a blog. Still, that period of no activity really took a beating on my blog community. My Twitter community continues to grow..
Hi Joe, I discovered your blog through Twitter. Great stuff. I like very much this post on blog vs twitter. Very well analysed! I am looking forward what the next big thing is. It’s going so fast, that most of us can’t adapt quick enough. From bloggs, to networks (Linkedin, Facebook, aSW…) over to Twitter! I love it! Best, Ivan
@Erin — Thanks, Erin for your thoughts. We’ve become so platform independent, our communities follow us wherever we go, and we follow them wherever they go. I love it!
@simeon — Thanks for your feedback on this. I hope whoever reads this will be able to make educated decisions as to how they plan to build and execute their social media strategy. What’s interesting is that despite the destinations changing (MySp, FB, AOL, Twitter, etc), we typically continue our same discourse online and interact with each other.
You pose a great question Joe about which part of the social media mobius strip Twitter and blogs are currently in. I can say I (sadly) agree with you on this part: “Twitter killed my inner blogger” but think in some cases i've been able to see clearer what's micro content and what's discussion worthy. Like what you'd chat about at the bar, and what's dinner conversation.
If you're still interested in the contrast between the two, wanted to let you know that Sun Microsystems is hosting a chat with a VP of Six Apart Wed (6/24) @ 1030am PT on the topic. A link's here if you're interested: http://bit.ly/ZvXCY (Full disclosure – Sun's a client)
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