At the end of last year, a local icon in our community closed its doors. While it’s the end of an era, it’s not the end of West Point Market. The legendary gourmet specialty food store is reinventing itself to thrive against increased competition by reopening a smaller flagship store and eventually opening satellite stores in suburbs surrounding Akron.
What’s that have to do with blogging you ask?
The future of blogging is starting to take shape, and we’re questioning whether it will revolve around centralized blogs at all.
First, LinkedIn opened its publishing platform to everyone. Earlier this year, Facebook expanded its Instant Articles program to all publishers. If Twitter ever decides to abolish its 140-character limit, its own publishing platform will be quick to follow. Of course, we also have SlideShare, Periscope, SnapChat and so on.
What do all of the previously mentioned platforms have in common? You publish content directly on them instead of sharing articles or links from other locations, like your company blog.
Of course, the company blog has become popular due to several factors, including:
- drawing regular traffic to your company’s website
- improving your site’s SEO with fresh, organic content
- hosting your thoughts on owned real estate, not rented
- positioning members of your company as thought leaders in your industry
We’re not pushing for the end of the company blog; it just seems inevitable at some point. Or will companies keep blogs on their websites but reduce the number of posts or switch to more of a micro-blogging format (i.e. short videos, pictures, fewer words)?
As we move further into an era of satellite publishing, how will you adapt? Hire more content writers? Kill the company blog and divvy up platforms between contributors? Ask your employees to shoulder more of the load?
The future of blogging is closer than it appears. Will centralized company blogs still exist?
Looking forward to your thoughts,
Jaime
Let’s chat (about blogging, your writing needs or otherwise):
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