Blogging Or Social Media Website Which One To Choose?

[TylerDurden49]

I would like to know your ideas & suggestions about which business will be more suitable in the near future & at present.

I've read a lot about passionate blogging that if its' successful it can give you loads of benefits each month.

Whereas a website with Social Media News like Tagza.com also attract more traffic.

So what will be your suggestions which one to select?

[Reg Addking]

With any business, it's a case of supply and demand. What's the supply like of what you're offering and what's the demand?

You need to find the overlap between:

• What you love doing;
• What people will eagerly pay good money for.

[melissacatwalk]

I think it depends on where you live and the needs of the market you are planning to work with.

[torka]

Which one to select for what?

By that I mean, are you looking for something to promote a business, or are you considering one of these sites to BE your business?

In either case, there is no one right answer. Which one would be "better" (or whether you should do both -- there's nothing that says it has to be an either/or decision) depends on many factors.

For instance, is the audience you want to read reading blogs, looking for social news, neither, or both? No point in investing time/energy building up a site that nobody will read.

What are others in your target industry doing? If a bunch of others are already in the space all doing something similar, you may need to do something different to stand out. Conversely, maybe the reason they're not doing something different themselves is because they already tried it and it didn't work. You need to know your competition, what they're doing now and what they attempted (and abandoned) in the past.

--Torka

[philwebster95]

I agree with Torka - assuming you are interested in building you online brand, and the increased traffic that comes from that, the answer to your question depends upon your target audience/customer.

It's a sweeping generality, but if you are targeting the younger 'cool' market, then social is probably favourite.

If seasoned businessmen are your focus, blogging would probably be best.

Most larger companies actually do both, with a different 'flavour' for each option.

[TylerDurden49]

Originally Posted by torka

What are others in your target industry doing? If a bunch of others are already in the space all doing something similar, you may need to do something different to stand out. Conversely, maybe the reason they're not doing something different themselves is because they already tried it and it didn't work. You need to know your competition, what they're doing now and what they attempted (and abandoned) in the past.

--Torka

Now that's what I've thought before asking this question. That's right I wanted to do something unique. What are your thoughts on making a forum?

I'm a passionate gamer too but there are already a lot of gaming forums out there with a lot of traffic.

Do you thing it will be a right decision to start a forum for a game which is about to release?

And thanks for all the useful information you guys provided & I wanted this thread to keep going like this!

[Reg Addking]

Not the worst idea but it's a lot of man hours keeping out the spammers and hackers if it gets popular.

[torka]

Reg is right, a forum is a LOT of work to maintain. Every forum I'm active with has a team of moderators who must literally work around the clock to keep the spammers at bay. Not to mention that it takes a great deal of effort to get a forum off the ground. There are few things online sadder than an empty forum filled with a bunch of 1-post "threads" going unanswered.

As to doing something unique: just because something's been done before doesn't mean it won't be effective. (In fact, that's often why it's been done -- because it IS effective.)

Again, it depends on what you're trying to achieve, who your target audience is and how much you have to invest in terms of time and other resources.

Here's my modest suggestion: start a blog, then use social media to help people become aware of it. Try to entice them over to read and post comments.

I would go with that rather than focusing entirely on a social media platform, because the blog is yours. You can promote it on whichever social media platform happens to be the flavor du jour. Platforms come and go, popularity of different social media channels waxes and wanes, but if you have something that's YOURS, you can link to it and promote it everywhere.

Think about what a hassle it would be if a few years ago you threw yourself 100% into MySpace and had to start all over again when everyone migrated to Facebook. The same thing will happen to Facebook some day. And to Twitter, and Pinterist and to every other SocMed platform. It's never a good idea to base your business entirely on a platform you neither own nor control.

My , adjusted for inflation.

--Torka

[HCChris]

Others have gotten at this but I just want to reiterate for emphasis.

DO SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO!!

No matter what you choose to do, a blog, a forum, or whatever, it is going to take a lot of work. Don't start a website because you think it will make you money or because its a popular idea right now, start it because its something you want to do. That's not to say you shouldn't try to make money off of it or that you should stray away because others have made blogs before. Just make sure you're going to enjoy it enough to put up with all the hard work.

That said, once you know what you want to do, definitely look at the competition and try to figure out what you can do differently to attract an audience.

Just out of interest, if you were to start a gaming forum, would it be general interest or specific to one game? If its specific, what game are you thinking of doing? I like gaming too so I'm interested. Also, with more specifics, I may be able to offer some better advice.

[blunderbuss]

Originally Posted by HCChris

Others have gotten at this but I just want to reiterate for emphasis.

DO SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO!!

No matter what you choose to do, a blog, a forum, or whatever, it is going to take a lot of work. Don't start a website because you think it will make you money or because its a popular idea right now, start it because its something you want to do. That's not to say you shouldn't try to make money off of it or that you should stray away because others have made blogs before. Just make sure you're going to enjoy it enough to put up with all the hard work.

That said, once you know what you want to do, definitely look at the competition and try to figure out what you can do differently to attract an audience.

Just out of interest, if you were to start a gaming forum, would it be general interest or specific to one game? If its specific, what game are you thinking of doing? I like gaming too so I'm interested. Also, with more specifics, I may be able to offer some better advice.

HCChris is right. Whatever you decide to start, only do it if it is INTERESTING to you. I see so many blogs that are started with great expectations and then go stagnant after a few months because the blogger becomes bored or disallusioned with it.
PS. Blogs. are. a. lot. of. work!