Blogs were first set up on the 1990s as a type of online journal for people to post on their thoughts and interests. It’s all about expressing yourself and your opinions and ideas.
The way blogging is today has changed dramatically. It’s become an online interaction. People blog to express themselves and to start an online conversation with people across the globe. The impact of this has been phenomenal. Businesses now follow consumers to discover market trends and consumers in turn follow businesses blogs to keep up to date with products and brands. It’s all about the “co-created convergence” that we hear Dr.Matt Frew commenting on in our video blog. Blogging in itself has become a business for some dedicated individuals. Some sources of income include; private advertising, sponsorship, amazon affiliate programs, e-books and many more. Some blog sites have become major publishing businesses such as “The Huffington Post” with sold in 2012 for over $300 million. The possibilities for bloggers is growing rapidly.
Where social media was first thought of as a threat to blogging, it has now become an integral part of the system. In the beginning, blogs were promoted through e-mail subscribers that the blogger had to build relationships with over time. When people began expressing themselves over social media sites such as Facebook, it was believed that the demand for blogging would dissipate completely. When the micro-blogging site “Twitter” emerged, it was also contemplated that all blogging would be reduced to a mere 140 character update.
As social media grew, these worries were proven futile. The sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. become “’hubs” for bloggers. As a blogger himself, Dr. Alessandro Inversini spoke to us about this. He, like other bloggers, uses social media sites to distribute content, grow followers and engage with people to bring them to the blog. This has become a great marketing tool.
There are so many choices and platforms for bloggers nowadays. There are many sites such as WordPress, Blogger.com, Posterous and Typepad to name a few. Some of these such as Blogger.com allow the ever growing trend of video blogs now. If you are short on time and want to create a quick update, write a post on Twitter, create a Vine or post an photo. It’s your chance to share what you feel with the world at the click of a button and it’s truly incredible.
Click here to watch #BUblogosphere video
Create, Contribute and Connect with the School of Tourism.
Our School of Tourism blog is a platform for all of the students and staff to share and engage. We want to hear what you have to say and this will create traffic from people and industries all over the world. As Caroline Jackson said, blogs that final year students have written before have gained interest from as far away as America and Australia.
The key is to write about what you’re passionate about and keep updated as much as you can to build followers and create conversation flow. Look at other blogs for inspiration on styles and method inspiration. Mostly though, look around you and what your current interests and activities as these are what you will write best about.
Join our competition for the best content and most creative blog. There’s no need to feel you have to have written a blog before, you are all talented people with a lot of knowledge and thoughts to share. Get creative and send entries in whichever medium you wish to enas@bournemouth.ac.uk by February 28th and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates on the campaign.
By: Kirsty Simms