Monday, September 1, 2014

A cup of Tea and thoughts on blogging

image from here 
Yesterday I had the pleasure of enjoying a lovely afternoon tea with my girlfriend Karen, from awonderinglife, and her gorgeous Sweet Pea. What a joy it is to watch a 2 year old eat a pink macaroon!

While watching little Sweet Pea bouncing on her trampoline, Karen and I chatted about the world of blogging, social media and what it means for us and our persuits. Do you think about this stuff? Have you thought about the possibility that blogging is 'old school'? what about the question of facebook, twitter, printrest, tumbler  google+??

I wonder about blogging, more so perhaps about my own blogging..... what do I want to be achieving with blogging? is blogging about 'achieving' something? Do I want it to be different from what it is? If so, how?

 image from here

I have a sense that if my blogging was more about 'selling' or 'recruiting' or 'posing a position', that I should be more engaged in a social media strategy - linking my posts to facebook so people can 'like' or 'share', and relating my posts to images that can be 'pinned'. If my blogging was to be about selling, recruiting or posing positions, then I'd be more active at pursuing 'followers', and I'd be more interested in 'outcomes'.

But I'm not sure I am interested in selling, recruiting or positions... I think I am interested exploring my own positions on issues, and perhaps linking with others who are exploring similar ideas. I think thats what blogging is for me - connecting with like minded thinkers. But how does that 'connecting' occur in the blogging world? I've learned that its about visiting other blogs, commenting, leaving 'signs' that we are on a similar wave length. This takes a commitment beyond just following facebook links.

I find that blogging is not really a 'smart phone' friendly sport - where as facebook, pintrest and twitter, all have smart phone apps which make those platforms much more mobile. Blogging requires access to a bigger screen.

I find myself wondering about the future of blogging? what do you think? what are your thoughts about blogging, social media and mobile apps?


9 comments:

Mel u said...

I hope so much one day there will be fifty year old book blogs. Imagine how great that will be for the bloggers.

Tamara said...

What a wonderful vision!

skiourophile said...

My personal approach is to mostly treat the different platforms differently: Facebook is for people who (with a few exceptions who are connected through others I know well) I know in Real Life. Twitter is a quick fairly impersonal sharing of non-personal information tool, and a bit of blog PR. The timezone difference tends to make me interact less in that one too. (And re Mel U's comment - let's hope all these blogs are archived somewhere!)

Jeanie said...

I've seen a few discussions about this lately. For me, blogging is community. You can share things in a way that one can't do in 140 characters or in a brief facebook post. I don't tweet but I do facebook and it's a fine way to connect (and I do sometimes post my blog link there). But those are such quick bits. With blogging I get to really know what people care about and find many who care about or enjoy the same things. They become online friends and quite often, real friends I've just never met. And then, some I have -- and I've never been disappointed or thought someone's blog was false as to how they presented themselves. You can't do that with twitter.

I find twitter pretty weird and pinterest -- well, I don't know WHAT I think about that one. I have an account but I don't think I've pinned anything for six months or looked at anyone else's.

I do worry about the blog and what I've put into mine as well as what others have with theirs someday disappearing. I keep thinking I need to copy it somewhere but how do you copy more than five years worth of writing. And really, does anyone care?!

Tamara said...

Hi Ladies, Thanks for those thoughts.I tend to think that keeping the mediums seperate, with different functions and different reasons, is a safe and logical approach. However, I am challenged to think that, for different outcomes and reasons, blending the mediums has potential benefits. But making the leap into that space is more than challenging for me... I have a preference to keep things simple. I appreciate the conversation.

Karen said...

Hi T - it was so lovely to chat with you about some of these things - and hoping we can do it some more really soon. I think I am only just beginning to scratch the surface of what blogging can entail - and I kind of like not knowing exactly where it is heading for me at the moment. But at the same time I do have some ideas about how blogging can help me enter a new career/passion path way so I want to be open to other avenues as well...

Heidi’sbooks said...

Good thoughts. I've been debating my facebook connection to my blog. It seems like I'm bragging about all the books I read, instead of actually bringing people to the blog. And I don't want my facebook page to become that. Somehow it doesn't seem like bragging when you are blogging with other people who love books and love reading. They don't think you are bragging; they know you want to chat about the book.I developed my Pinterest site over the summer a bit, and that seems to have the potential to bring more people to the blog. I have yet to see.

Bellezza said...

I miss the days of blogging when Twitter and Facebook and Google + and Instagram and Pinterest were not swallowing up the blogging world. Or, taking it over. I like the place that blogging has for talking about books in depth. None of the other social media will replace it for me.

Brona said...

I wish I'd spotted this post last month, but of course, that's how long it's been for me in this weird reading & blogging slump I've been going through.

I've been wondering what's it all for? All these words - where? what? why? who?

Is enjoyment and connecting to like-minded bloggers enough? Should I monetise? Should I specialise? Do more followers mean more community? more diversity? or is just a mindless click of a button that means nothing?

On top of that I had a run of books that failed to move me or mesmerise me or magic me.
I was unwell for a couple of weeks and stopped walking as much; it rained a lot and I couldn't garden or get my new spring seedlings in or weed.

I will take some time to mull over your thoughtful post and use it to help me work out what's important again - thank you :-)