<![CDATA[The Power of Blogging]]>The post 6 Reasons Why You Should Quit Blogging is really targeted toward businesses. And yes, it is from an Internet marketing agency, that is trying to sell you its services.     But, its message is valid, and applies to libraries as well as other types of business.

“It’s difficult to produce valuable posts, and it’s even tougher to do it on a consistent basis. Especially in the beginning, it’s frustrating to create content that no one sees. It’s hard to put your time, money and effort into an endeavor you only hope will lead to new business.” Since I just started blogging a few weeks ago, this quote certainly rings true to me!

It may be a lot easier to simply post library events and news to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but consider what happens when you do, and the following “reasons” to quit blogging:  facebook like

  1. You want an uncertain future.  There is no guarantee that the social networks you use will continue to exist, whereas YOU own the content of your blog. 
  2. You want to sell to the wrong audience.  It’s very easy for individuals to become your fans on Facebook, Twitter, etc.  You may have a lot of “fans” you may never really be able to “sell” to or be relevant to. 
  3. You don’t want to get the most out of social media.  “Social audiences should be seen as the starting point.”  You should use social media to drive followers to your more substantial content.  
  4. You don’t want improved rankings.  “Creating content for your blog is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve the way your website ranks in search engines. . . By abandoning blogging, or by only engaging on social websites, you’re giving up on the power content has to generate the links that drive organic ranking improvements.”
  5. You want to be limited by someone else’s rules.  For example, Twitter limits you to 140 characters.  If you need social networks only to get out your messages, this can severely limit your content. 
  6. You want to do more busywork and less real work.  You are better off creating unique content via your blog or website and promoting that via social networks, than by spending all of your time simply posting ephemeral content to social media.

This is NOT to say you shouldn’t start posting library news and events to social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but it is best to post links there that lead back to your original content on your blog.  So even though it may be hard, don’t quit!

Photo © 2011 paz.ca, Flickr.   http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/


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