There’s an obscure Chicago-based band called Poi Dog Pondering and a lyric to one of their songs, Collarbone, says the following:
“ … The only thing that speaks the truth is the eloquence of passing time”
This speaks volumes to me, particularly when you consider blogging as a marketing paradigm.
Our Co-Founder and CEO, Chris Baggott did a webinar this week with a partner company and we were made privy to some advance questions from the audience. One of the questions was:
“Is blogging a fad or a trend? Should I just sit on the sideline and catch the next ‘big thing’ earlier on in the process?”
Good question.
The difference between a fad and trend, as we all know, is a fad is sizzling hot and then fades away. Croc shoes come to mind, though I am so far abstaining from wearing molded plastic as footwear. If I had to make a prediction I would say Crocs will fall somewhere into a 2020 fad retrospective of the last 30 + years—probably somewhere between big hair from the 80’s and grunge music in the 90’s.
However, a trend is something that is enduring; something changes the landscape of how we function. Think Starbucks coffee. A scant 10 or 12 years ago nobody would have imagined paying $3 for a cup of coffee as a part of our daily routine. Now, you can’t imagine not having a Starbucks nearby.
Given that blogging started in earnest at around the same as Starbucks ascension (blogging history here), I think it’s pretty safe to say that this little thing called blogging is a trend.
Heck, there’s probably a Master’s Thesis project in drawing correlations between the notion of the Starbucks “third-place” and blogging as an engagement mechanism, but we’ll save that for another day.
I guess my overall point is that blogging is here to stay, and while blogging itself has been around for a decade, we’re just now heading into an era where there is widespread adoption for business. And, this adoption is all a part of a larger quilt of trends that suggests, no, demands that business optimize themselves on the web for search while cultivating their customer and prospect base using an “authentic” voice.
So, to our friend that was optimistically skeptical, my response to his benign question would be, “The only thing that speaks the truth is the eloquence of passing time.” The next big thing has yet to emerge, but if it’s a trend instead of a fad, you’ll want to engage in that AFTER blogging for business because our lives don’t get simpler, they get more complex and what comes next is likely to be iteration on top of our existing prevailing wisdom.
I hope you are or are planning on heeding the truth, as well.
