About Social Media Today
The Economist has an article on blogging entering the mainstream. Key quote:
"Blogging has entered the mainstream, which—as with every new medium in history—looks to its pioneers suspiciously like death."
Blogging started as a simple, online way to share text updates, photos and later videos with friends and family. The practice of sharing life information online continues and is much more widespread. But most people no longer use blogs for these tasks. Instead they use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or other social networking tools.
And as the article points out, traditional blogs have grown up and behave much more like the mainstream media. Blogs like The Huffington Post and Engadget look like online news sites and most mainstream media companies blog. These professional blogs attract the vast majority of blog traffic.
Corporations have also picked up on blogging. They use blogs externally to create conversations with their customers and internally to communicate more effectively and informally with staff.
The maturing of the blogosphere has created a range of new opportunities for small businesses:
1. Small media companies are exploiting new niche publishing opportunities created by low cost online publishing tools and the Internet's broad distribution. Many of these small media companies are quite successful and valuable.
2. A broad range of small service firms are helping corporations build better and stronger relationships with their customers and employees through the use of blogs and social media.
3. Small software firms are creating tools, widgets and other products to extend and enhance the functionality of blogging and social media platforms.
4. Small businesses are increasingly using blogs and social networking tools to communicate with their customers and employees.
We've long commented on the shifts happening in the blogosphere and the small business opportunities that are being created. Our media category has a number of posts on this topic.
