Is the business of blogging worth it?

Is blogging alive and well in 2014 or should we pay attention to stories such as Blogging is dead… long live the blog?

Today Stephen Waddington, @wadds, Digital & Social Media Director @KetchumPR Europe and President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), has published The Business of Blogging: A Collection of Short Essays By Business Bloggers Exploring The Future of Blogging for Business.

It’s a series of essays from some well-known bloggers:

Richard Bailey @behindthespin, Heather Baker @toplinefounder, Stuart Bruce @stuartbruce, Judy Gombita @jgombita, Andrew Grill @andrewgrill, Neville Hobson @jangles, Chris Lake @lakey, Rich Leigh @richleighPR, Mat Morrison @mediaczar, Lee Odden @leeodden, Dan Slee @Danslee, Heather Yaxley @greenbanana, Philip Young @mediations and myself.

You can follow them all on Twitter here via this list I’ve created and can see who we all are via the image I’ve created on this page.

Writing on his blog about the publication, Stephen says: “Blogging is 20 years old. It took off in the late-90s with the development of consumer broadband in Europe and the US. By now it was predicted to be a dominant form of media, and in Europe at least, it isn’t. Why is that?

“I sought out the opinion of respected bloggers in my network and asked them about the future of blogging. I also asked them to share the benefits they’d experienced from blogging.

The responses were varied. The business of blogging involves learning, professional and personal development, networking and profile. It is evolving but for those individuals and organisations that are prepared to invest the effort it has a strong future.

I originally envisaged sharing the responses in a blog post. But as you’ll see that wouldn’t have done the topic, or the responses, justice.

Instead I’ve compiled them into a series of essays and published them in this ebook and published it on Slideshare. You can download it using the save button.”

Why do I blog?
I thoroughly enjoyed reading through the other essays and you can read my thoughts on blogging, building a business and growing a network via the publication below.

To answer my own question in the headline, is the business of blogging worth it? For me, yes, absolutely, it’s worth every minute I spend researching, writing, editing and sourcing content. But most importantly, feedback from you, my lovely readers, shows it’s working for you too.

I’m always looking for ways to improve my blog, so if you have an idea of a guest article to contribute or something you think I’d be interested in reading, do please get in touch.

Thank you again to everyone who voted for All Things IC, as my blog has been shortlisted in the National UK Blog Awards 2014. I’ll find out in April what the judges’ final decision is, and am proud to represent our industry in the awards.

If you would like to read more blogs about internal communication, see my blogroll for ideas of others to read.

My thanks to Stephen for asking me to contribute to The Business of Blogging, I hope you enjoy reading through it.

What’s your view on blogging? Have you just started writing one? Are they part of your internal comms channel mix? I’d love to know your thoughts – do comment below or tweet me @AllthingsIC.

Thank you as ever for stopping by,

Rachel

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