Buffer

11 Reasons Why People Blog

Written by - 38 Comments
Categories: Blog, Blogging

Overnight I had a comment left on my blog by Howard, which caught my attention more than normal as I thought that he was giving blogs a bagging, as he wrote that “Blogs are a VERY old idea” and with it a link to a post titled Why Do You Blog Poll Results

“40, 000 Year Old Blog Discovered In Australia“.

The article was about the ancient practice of  rock engraving also known as ‘Petroglyphs’ which are the ancient practice of scraping and chipping a pictogram on rocks to tell a story.

The essence of his blog is that the primal human drive to

  • Tell a story
  • State opinions
  • Sell wares

has not changed, as the platform to deliver the tale is not just a rock but some magical technology called the Internet which can spread a multimedia rich story around the world in milliseconds. This drive to share and sell will not be going away anytime soon, just the means to do so will continue to morph and evolve.

In February I wanted to find out from my readers on why ‘they’ blog and I must say I am surprised by the results. As part of the post I included a poll which asked people to vote. It included a list of 11 reasons, which I had developed after doing research about all the reasons that I could find for the blogging primal drive.

377 people voted so far with the results shown below.

Why Do You Blog Poll Results

The results are very close with “Sharing with others‘  coming out ahead of  ‘Write about your passion‘ with ‘Business‘ third and ‘Self expression‘ 4th and in 5th place ‘Put forward new ideas‘.

The surprising result is that only 2.9% blogged for money. So maybe we are not all greedy capitalists but just frustrated amatuer writers who now have a platform and soapbox to tell our story about our passion… which I think makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and a little more positive about the human race.

What do you think?

Note: If you still want to vote, visit the poll and place your vote.. here


Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
  • http://www.theorganicview.com OrganicGuru

    I think that is an interesting concept. People do like to socialize and express their opinions. Perhaps we are not an anti-social society but have simply evolved into a society that chooses to utilize technology in order to do so. Great post!

  • http://www.ondemandsales.com Amy Trapp

    Thanks for the post! I would agree and say that not only are we not anti-social, but perhaps uber-social. Technology has allowed everyone to stay in contact and re-connect with individuals in such a way that privacy has become an issue (whether everyone recognizes it as an issue or not).

  • Pingback: Storytelling Social Media Marketing PR Business & Technology Curated Stories June 8, 2010

  • Pingback: 11 Reasons Why People Blog (via Jeffbullas’s Blog) « Web.Marketer

  • Pingback: 11 Reasons Why People Blog (via Jeffbullas’s Blog) « Brian Currin

  • HO

    Thanks for the mention Jeff. Pleased to meet with folks in Toronto interested in cost effective social media marketing campaigns.

  • Pingback: Why Blog? | Just A Thought Or Two

  • Pingback: 10 Ways To Find Inspiration To Develop Content For Your Blog « Jeffbullas's Blog

  • Pingback: Blair Semenoff

  • Pingback: Candice

  • Pingback: D IsTheName

  • Pingback: Perri Gorman

  • Pingback: rob petersen

  • Pingback: sunil jain

  • Pingback: Isabelle Mathieu

  • Pingback: Diana

  • Pingback: castor

  • http://www.rockytravel.net Michela

    blogging is am amazing tool that help people not only socializing but also learning from others and improve their knowledge and skills. In my opinin a great contribution to personal growth !

  • Pingback: What is the Why Do We Blog Project? | Why Do We Blog?

  • http://www.marciaforbes.com Marcia A. Forbes

    Thanks Jeff. I’m finding your blogs quite infomative and am eager to see how bloggers in Jamaica stack up against your poll findings re why people blog. Plan to run a survey via my website.

    Last week @JamaicaPegasus Hotel hosted the Caribbean’s largest tweetup with almost 300 in attendance. About half of the attendees responding to a questionnaire I designed and gave out which included an open-ended item re why they tweet. After reading one of your blogs re blogging before tweeting, I figure I’m doing things backways.

    Keep up your very engaging blogs which I’m now not likely to miss since I’m following you on Twitter.

    Regards,
    @marciaforbes
    http://www.marciaforbes.com
    marcia@marciaforbes.com

  • http://gagapeople.blogspot.com/ Lee Harth

    Great to know people are not always thinkin of money.
    I just love blogging because i love info and putting my view forward.
    Great post!

  • @webmindset

    I blog to keep my journalism school chops fresh… and, I communicate far better in writing.

  • http://yourchildwillread.com Paula Lee Bright

    Your post made me very happy!

    I’m a teacher by trade, and love storytelling, both the telling and the listening. Kids will do almost anything for a story, and I’m including students up in high school as well.

    We don’t lose that joy…sometimes we just forget about it, I think!

    Stories and talking and telling and writing are the best things in the world to hone a new reader’s skills, and probably always have been.

    As a child, my books and stories kept me happy, and as an adult my reading continues to do so. How sad I am for some who never learned to love it, for they’ve missed some fascinating times!

    I get great joy from helping a child with a reading problem to get past it and to move into their rightful place as a reader and a writer.

    And it looks like in the early days, they felt the same way.

    Great post, kiddo!

  • http://www.BeckyCortino.info Becky Cortino

    Interesting results to your survey, Jeff! Kind of supports the referenced notion of blogging being one of the first forms of social media, especially as evidenced by respondents’ resounding rationale. Great analogy to ancient communication — so true, developing a means of recording and sharing information and observations.

  • http://twitter.com/AndreVarga Andre Varga

    As Steve Levitt says: “It´s all about incentives!” :)

  • http://twitter.com/DawgBlogger jana rade

    Interesting, would have thought more people were blogging to make money :-)

    • http://www.phillipandrewdodd.com Phillip Dodd

      I would think the same thing, Jana! I would vote for that one myself… although I’d like to say that I could vote for “write about my passion”.  I get too caught up in the “optimization” though!

  • http://twitter.com/irajcohen Ira J Cohen

    I think making more money is more a result of blogging than the reason for blogging.  Perhaps another survey asking if blogging results in making more money?

  • http://twitter.com/777productions Deon Fialkov

    What’s the main difference between a blog and a website.  I have a website, but I’m looking to change from my current css, html-design to joomla or wordpress so that people can comment, however I’m worried that I will have randoms trolling or spamming as part of the comments option – can the options be moderated according to strict guidelines or do I have to wait for the possible insult/spam before deleting it?

    • http://www.phillipandrewdodd.com Phillip Dodd

      I’ve implemented the Disqus commenting system on my blog and have found that I get little to no spam. Then again, I haven’t been blogging that long, so it’s possible that I’m just not on the spam-radar ;)

  • Pingback: The Art of Newsmaking | NewsmakersGroup

  • Pingback: ¿Porqué administrar y redactar en un blog? « Innovation Thoughts

  • Pingback: Give Consumers a Behind-The-Scenes Look with a Blog | Building Good PR

  • Van

    We-log  isn’t as interesting I suppose as, we-blog.  The former has a meaning the latter doesn’t. We know what a log is. But a blog? That is where the trouble began. So of course people new to blogging use to say, “What is a blog?” They would be right to ask the question since the word blog does not exist in human language. It actually came into it’s own as a joke by a blogger years ago who used the word in a post instead of weblog. It stuck. A log, as in a captain’s log–no confusion. That’s why your poll results make a lot of sense.

    People want to share their thoughts from their own journeys in life with others. Share their passions. Imagine finding a log on a deserted island. You open it up and all the entries are about how it’s possible to make money. Unless it led to buried treasure and a way off the island,  it would be useless and uninteresting. But if the log revealed the thoughts and events of someone’s life. Wow!

    I’d almost forgotten what blogs (Weblogs) were designed to be. Now weblogs are just like Websites. You can barely tell them apart and we should be able to. Great post.

  • Van

    We-log  isn’t as interesting I suppose as, we-blog.  The former has a meaning the latter doesn’t. We know what a log is. But a blog? That is where the trouble began. So of course people new to blogging use to say, “What is a blog?” They would be right to ask the question since the word blog does not exist in human language. It actually came into it’s own as a joke by a blogger years ago who used the word in a post instead of weblog. It stuck. A log, as in a captain’s log–no confusion. That’s why your poll results make a lot of sense.

    People want to share their thoughts from their own journeys in life with others. Share their passions. Imagine finding a log on a deserted island. You open it up and all the entries are about how it’s possible to make money. Unless it led to buried treasure and a way off the island,  it would be useless and uninteresting. But if the log revealed the thoughts and events of someone’s life. Wow!

    I’d almost forgotten what blogs (Weblogs) were designed to be. Now weblogs are just like Websites. You can barely tell them apart and we should be able to. Great post.

  • Pingback: The Friday Five for October 19th | REALTY LAB

  • http://twitter.com/SmarterCafe Leo Daley

    Love writing and storytelling, so blogging and content creation comes easy. Not to say it isn’t time consuming, it’s just invigorating to me. I started with a personal blog in 2005, then business blogging for Kronos in 2010. Once I hit that magic 10,000 hour Gladwell milestone, maybe I’ll be good enough to write a book…

  • Jeremy Lindstrom

    Since this blog is two and a half years old, I’d be interested to see if the survey results would be different today.