Unpopular opinion: Blogging today is just as essential as it was in the mid-2000s. Here's why:
MySpace was the first social platform I ever used back in the mid-2000s.
Nearing the end of the 2000s Facebook was the next big thing, and eventually, MySpace was no longer "cool".
Fast forward a few years later and it's now the mid-2010s and Instagram is the hot new social media platform that has surpassed Facebook in popularity in just a few years. (Yes, both of those platforms are still heavily used today but they're no longer at their "peak" like they once were.)
During this time there was also YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, and many others.
Then near the end of the 2010s, TikTok becomes all the rage and it's now the most popular platform we have today. And with that, we've started to notice a decline in Instagram's popularity.
All of this is to say that, social media platforms are constantly coming and going.
In some rare cases, your social media profile on any platform can be deleted at any time without warning. This is why having a blog and establishing it as your "home base" is crucial. Not to mention, you can control so much more on your blog than you can on any social media platform.
For me personally, my blog is where I host all of my content, from all of my social media platforms.
The videos I share on my YouTube channel, I share here. The images that I share on Instagram, LTK, and Pinterest, I share here. The shoppable links from my LTK, Amazon Storefront, Poshmark Closet, etc., I share here. And I even get to share exclusive content on my blog that I don't share anywhere else.
From a business standpoint, a blog's hosting site tracks analytics and insights, similar to Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. so monetizing a blog is possible. In fact, this was being done on blogs long before the popular social media platforms we know and love today.
In conclusion, if all social media were to mysteriously disappear overnight, I'll have comfort knowing that my blog is still up and running and that I can continue to share things that bring me joy, even if no one reads it.
This blog is my own place, my home on the internet, and I don't have that same comfort on any other social media platform on the world wide web.
And that is my hot take on blogging in 2022.
xo, Your Girl Jess