Is blog social media or not?
Queries like this usually pop up most of the time on forums, where users are misquoting blogging for social media.
While others believe it is a way of blogging, the battles still continue and it is hard to decide which and why are they not the same, in most cases different.
First of all, what do we call Social media in a term we all understand it to be?
Social media is a network that allows a means of communication, the interaction between people through written texts, audio, graphics, videos, gifs, etc through the internet.
On another way round,
While Blogs are classified as a website where users share their thoughts, and opinions, and interact with people about subjects or anything that can be discussed on the planet.
In other words, they are meant to facilitate conversations and it usually ends up being social.
What do we all have in common from these definitions? as a means of “sharing information & interactions”
With that, we can classify both terms “blogs and social media” as one but on a different medium.
To be precise,
Not all blogs actually permit interactions between one another.
Either way, their focus is only just producing information rather than enabling interactions.
And we all know this, the comments sections on a blog are meant to facilitate conversations between people with the author behind the posts.
Seth Godin’s blog is an example of this
While social media are usually designed for that purpose (allow audience interactions aka comments).
Due to this scenario, should we now say they are both different from one another? maybe not.
Now,
Blogs and social media seem similar in terms of goals (build/interacts with an audience) but they are usually not the same due to the following reasons.
(1) Social media tends to build deeper relationships than traditional blogs could do.
E.g you can keep in touch with someone on a particular thing depending on the relationship between both parties.
And yes social media gives you the option go to deeper than in terms of casual relationships.
With a blog, conversations are based on the community it nurtures & the conversations it entices.
(2) Blogs are designed mostly for business purposes (no way you use your money to buy a domain and hosting without the intent of achieving a particular aim or making money)
Most often people on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc aren’t there for business purposes.
(2) Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are owned by people, and therefore content distribution on these platforms lies in the favor of their algorithm.
But with a blog, you have full control over everything.
Blog Vs Social Media: The One Big Thing
Even if this post agrees with those facts that “both are not the same”, their difference should be based on the users leveraging those platforms.
Why do you own or start a blog?
Your purpose for being on Social media?
Earlier on Blogs were termed social media before social media was that one big thing we all know it entices today.
With the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram dominating that space.
Due to that, most people would end up saying “Blogging is dead”
And of course, both has a method of communication but with a different approach.
At a time when most of all these social platforms are being though with their users, they end up sharing links more often.
They quote a series of texts and end it all with a link back to sites and the algorithm doesn’t usually put more weight on promoting such content on their platforms, most times they ban their URL.
And then they end up quitting and focusing on producing content on their blog.
even though you have full control over your blog, what honestly are you quitting it for?
With that People often say when they blog on social media, they usually classify that approach as a form of micro-blogging because contents on social platforms are mostly short, due to the short attention span of people on the internet.
In conclusion
Blogs and social media have the same purpose (build, grow and interact) but how you leverage them is what makes them different from each other.
But would like to hear from you?
Do you think they are both the same and should be categorized as one,
Or
Are not to be termed as one.
Either way,
let’s keep the conversation going in the comments section below and I will see you there.
