I’m suffering from blogger survey fatigue here so maybe other bloggers can answer these questions for the IIA’s Social Media Working Group that Joy from the group sent on:
Why do people engage with it? (Both readers and bloggers)
What motivates them? (Both readers and bloggers)
Why do you think it is a success?
Photo owned by KaiChanVong (cc)
a. A need to vent my opinions, thoughts and philosophy.
b. I have no friends to meet with at the pub to vent my opinions, thoughts and philosophy.
c. How do you measure the ‘success’ of a trip to the bathroom?
[…] do the IIA Blogger Survey, if you […]
A. Um, it’s a fun experience and it’s nice getting people’s opinions. It’s also nice for me to be able look back in in a few years time and find out what I was doing in April 08
B. Them being who, exactly? I blog so people can have something to read, the people who I can’t talk to due to them being in Vancouver are now aware of my daily…er..routine.
C. Presuming you’re talking about blogs, I don’t know. You’d need to ask people who read it
a) “How can I know what I think, until I hear what I say?” Reading prompts writing and commenting. And these acts open the mind in a way that passive reading never can.
b) You discover so much more stuff in the act of conversation than you can with by search or reading.
c) People love to communicate and engage in conversation. Its the most natural and holistic way to learn, discover and grow.
A. Because I enjoy scribbling about various topics. Because I love the blogging community, and I love being a part of it. And because it helps pass the time I should be working!
B. Hmmmm. Interesting stories, organisations worth highlighting and sharing information I suppose….
C. I have no idea what would be considered a success in this context. I supopose getting comments is the most satisfying aspect of blogging.
a) I do it pretty much as a journal or notebook of cool / interesting / important stuff I come across, primarily for my own benefit. I have no idea why others engage with it. It befuddles me tbh.
b) See above.
c) It’s not “a success”. It just is.
hi all
thanks for all your comments, i’ll be writing up this section over the w’end so really appreciate it. We’ll have a draft available for you all to commend/tear to pieces soon… Many thanks
joy
A) Interest in the world, in politics and all other things that matter. Also the hope and wish to make other people think and perhaps even make them see things in the same way I see them. (But I am as happy with a disagreeing comment as I am with an agreeing one. What counts is engagement.)
B) The knowledge that there are meanwhile people in Ireland and all over the world who read my blog daily. I have been told that they like to read what I write, learn things from my entries and also enjoy the regularity of it, almost like a daily newspaper. (When I was sick earlier this year, and during a trip abroad I was unable to blog for some days. I received e-mails from friends and from complete strangers, wondering how I was and telling me that they missed my writing.) So, like every artist on this planet, I like to keep my audience happy. But that does not mean I write what people want to hear or read. I am always outspoken and write what I deem important and necessary.
C) I don’t know if my blog is a “success”. I only started it on January 1st of this year, so I think it is too early to make a judgement. But I notice that the number of visitors/readers is rising steadily, and that a certain amount of them are visiting the blog every day. And on days when there is a particularly interesting subject or when I write a political piece with a strong opinion I notice that the number of visitors is clearly higher than on “normal” days.
Speaking in general, I think that blogging is a success (more than 120 million blogs exist meanwhile world-wide) and the reason is quite obvious: People like information and curiosity is the strongest engine for progress. Until the internet was invented, communication was quite limited and often rather cumbersome. But now everyone can be in touch with everyone, at the touch of a few buttons or the click of a mouse. And since blogs are not owned by large companies (like TV, newspapers, magazines and book publishing houses) they are nor censured by the interests of big business. Every blogger is free to write whatever s/he wants to write, with no worry about an editor, publisher or director. Blogging is information democracy world-wide, and it educates and informs more people every day. Personally I love and enjoy it, and I only wish I had started it earlier. But, as the saying goes, it’s never too late to do something good.