The future of blogging in a video-obsessed world
With the rise of TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts, it feels like people want nothing but videos. Specifically short videos. So where does that leave blogging? Is it still relevant, or has video taken over the world?
Will blogs still exist?
It’s impossible to predict the future, but it’s safe to say that blogging isn’t going anywhere. You’ve probably heard that blogs are dead for years now. When YouTube first became a thing, blogging was supposedly done. But it’s not. It’s still here and probably will be for a while.
But blogs have changed. Ten years ago, blogs were like journals. Obviously, they’re not anymore. If you read a business blog, you won’t find what the CEO ate for dinner last night. Nowadays, blogs are more like digital newsletters. They are polished, focused, and viewed as pieces of content in a marketing strategy. And that’s exactly what will happen this time around. Blogs will change. Again.
How will blogging change?
The short answer: in multiple ways. Generative AI will become more popular, which means storytelling will become more important. Blogs will become a tool for someone’s personal brand, so it’ll be harder to make a name for yourself. And finally, blogs will probably transform into digital publishing businesses.
Let’s go over these in more detail.
Generative AI: Why write it yourself?
Everyone’s talking about it. Or everyone’s asked ChatGPT to talk about it. It’s becoming increasingly harder to tell whether AI or a human wrote content. Of course, there are still tells, but that’s because the technology is still in its early stages. Who knows how quickly it will evolve?
Sure, Google wants to crack down on AI content. But the algorithm they want to build is also still in its infancy, meaning it’ll take awhile before Google can prioritize human-made content. But who’s to say that a post written by AI and modified by people isn’t human-made? It’s a gray area. But one thing’s for sure: it’ll make it easier for people to start blogs.
AI can’t fake human experience
As a response to more generated content, storytelling will become more important. But wait, you might think. People don’t want to read stories. They want to watch videos. Yes, but part of why people prefer video content is because it feels more genuine and authentic. And that’s exactly what you should focus on in your blogs.
By sharing personal stories, experiences, and insights, you can create that sense of authenticity readers crave. It’ll also allow you to build trust and eventually a relationship with your readers. The result? A loyal audience and a successful blog.
Bonus: You’ll appeal to Google
Sharing personal experiences isn’t just great for your readers. Google likes it too. That’s why they added an extra E to their previously E-A-T system. They stand for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
These raters determine whether you provide helpful and relevant content. If the answer is yes, then congrats. Your rankings might increase, so people can more easily find you in the search results. And since we established that people want to watch videos, why not add a few to your posts? If they make your site more relevant and helpful, that’s a win-win.
It will be harder to make a name for yourself
Creating a blog is easy, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to grow popular. Just look at the numbers. According to Web Tribunal, “there are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites in the world. Their authors account for over 6 million blog posts daily, or over 2.5 billion annually.” This means that around one-third of all current websites are blogs, which is huge!
Years ago, you could write a series of 10 to 15 decent blog posts and rank for their target keywords in many niches. Now, you need to find your specific niche, then publish more and better content. And you can’t forget the visuals (photos, images, infographics, videos). That’s why becoming a successful blogger is increasingly harder when it’s just you.
Blogs as digital businesses
Most successful blogs (that generate decent income) are actually run by a small team of people. Even if it’s just one person writing the content, they probably work directly and indirectly with web hosts, email marketing platforms, photographers, ad management companies, social media managers, graphic designers, etc. Because doing all the work by yourself and generating a lot of great quality content is nearly impossible.
Furthermore, you must go where the people are to market your blog. And the people are mostly watching videos. That’s why most blogs also have YouTube channels, post reels on Instagram, launch podcasts, or even produce online courses. Even if your passion is writing, you can’t escape video content.
Is the rise of video such a bad thing?
Not necessarily. It even makes sense, if you ask me. If you’re a reader, consider how to choose your next read. Chances are, you look at the cover (visual), you read the blurb (short and enticing content intended to lure you in), and you might ask the bookseller if it’s any good (authentic content). Or perhaps you look for the little cards that say, “Alex recommends this book!” Again, authenticity. Is that really so different from watching a short reel from a blogger before reading their blog? You tell me.
Read more: Should your content be globally relatable? »
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This piece is really time. I’m a movie blogger, though I have social media, I find it stressful to push people from socials to my blog.
I’ve been toying the idea of ditching the blog but sentiments won’t let me. I’ve had it for over 5 years and it really helped my career journey.
Do you think I should maintain the blog or just stick to socials. I’ll appreciate a response.
Many thanks
Thanks for your comment, Janelle! I understand your concern. I don’t think you need to be stressed about pushing people to your blog. Nowadays, it’s normal for people to have a side business. As long as you’re not pushing people everyday, I think you’re good. Keep in mind that algorithms don’t show everything you post, so people might not even see all your content (You probably already know this, but I figured it’s worth repeating).
You can always try to change up the way you blog. You could create an optimized SEO post once a month (or every two months), so you gain more organic traffic. You also could collab with your social media followers! Ask them what movie they want you to review, then share the link to your blog post. That way, you’re not pushing your content but simply giving people what they already want to see.
In conclusion, my answer is that I don’t think you should give up either. Social media and your blog can work beautifully together. Hope that helps!
Thank you for providing this valuable insight! I recently started including more video content into my blog posts, since I post reels on instagram and short videos on Pinterest. I like that it is so much easier and engaging when you add visual content to written blog posts. I am embracing all these changes.
Good to hear, Zola! Good luck with your social media and video content :)
I’ve been blogging steady for 10 years, primarily about my business. There has been a decline in the viewership, most of which is first time readers finding my content through organic search results. Three years ago, I started posting YouTube videos on the same topics. The video viewership has increased and more of the people who contact me are from the videos.
When everything works, I post a link to the YouTube video at the bottom of the blog post. Although, most video views are from searches, not referrals.
It is extra work to create the video and sometimes I need to invest more time in creating graphics….even the YouTube audience wants written words, charts, and graphs.
I don’t have time to analyze why blog views are down and video views are up. There are more blogs competing for page 1 search results, but there are also more videos. All I do know is that if internet searches are your primary source of marketing, you need to change with the information consumption habits of potential clients.
Yoast blogs like this help me think about the future ever so slightly. For the written blogs, I will incorporate more experience material along with the foundation content. Perhaps that is why the videos are performing better, the viewer sees a real person talking about issues they care about. I’m not a chatbot or AI generated paragraph.
Thank you for your valuable insights, Kevin! Wholly agree with you that it’s good to be flexible with your strategy; the world keeps changing, people’s needs keep changing, so it makes sense for our strategies to change too. Even though you’re right that creating videos is quite a lot of extra work.