Why Do You Blog?

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Michael Martine • 16 Comments

Take My Poll

Choose the most important reason why you blog.

Create polls and vote for free. dPolls.com

I’m trying to get a sense of the numbers and proportions of bloggers who blog for different reasons, and how those groups break down among my own readers and elsewhere. If you can’t see the poll in your reader, click here to respond to it. Feel free to spread the poll by embedding it into a post on your own blog — the more, the merrier, when it comes to polls.

To place the poll on your own blog, click here. On the next page, copy the html and paste it into the code view of a post.

~~Also, if there are any choices that should be on the poll I haven’t thought of, please tell me and I might add them.~~ I can’t change the answers once it’s been created.

Filed Under: Blogging

http://photokayaker.fit2paddle.com Marek

It is a difficult question since there is no single answer at least for me.

It would be better to ask which reason is not important for your blogging or, even better, to ask to sort the reason from blogging from the most to the least important.

I would check 3 reasons from the above list with “just for fun” as a primary one, followed by “making money” and “cause” (maybe not in that order).
Michael Martine

Marek, thanks so much for your insightful thoughts on this. As far as I know, the polls don’t let you rate them in order of importance. I will look for a service that does for future polls. I will change the question so that it says pick the most important one.
http://www.selfmadechick.com Christine O’Kelly

What an excellent survey Michael! I was surprised at the number of “just for fun” bloggers – that is awesome! My reason for blogging was ultimately to meet like-minded people but there is also a business element.
http://photokayaker.fit2paddle.com Marek

re: order of importance

Perhaps, it would be possible to find a poll which allows you to rate each category, e.g., from 0 to 5. You would still get the answer which category is the most important, but including multiple choices.
Michael Martine

@Marek: that would be great, wouldn’t it? I have the democracy poll plugin, but I wanted to use a 3rd party polling service that allowed the poll to spread beyond just my blog via external links and embedding. Toluna (the poll service) does have a new kind of opinion poll, where respondents can type short text answers. If I don’t find anything better, I might be able to use that.
http://www.freedomideas.com Tomaz

Trust me, no one blogs for fun of it.

They might blog because it’s fun to read comments, or it’s fun getting more traffic or it’s fun to get more clicks on your ads or it’s fun to get other people email you but no one spends an hour or more per day writing articles for the pure fun of it.

There has to be a better reward behind it than fun.
Michael Martine

Tomaz, interesting perspective and a bold statement. Do you think that people who say they blog for fun are misrepresenting themselves or fooling themselves?
http://www.freedomideas.com Tomaz

Michael, I think it’s 2 things:

1. We need to define “blogging for fun” more precisely.

If fun includes getting comments from other visitors, seeing traffic grow and being mentioned somewhere else in the blogosphere, then yes, people blog for fun.

At least that’s their definition.

2. They may be not be aware of their true desires which on the surface seem to be “fun”.

In reality, they blog to be appreciated, to get attention, to be loved.

It’s what’s missing in their lives now or it was missing in their childhood.

And most of them really hope to get get some money out of it but this can be of course secondary. Your poll is only about “the most important” reason why people blog.

And in fact, most people want to be loved more than they want money. They are just not aware of this.
http://expertrealestatetalk.com Albuquerque NM

I have to agree I am surprised at the number of just for fun bloggers. I enjoy the results of my blogging but that is because the results bolster my business. Maybe I am doing it wrong but just for fun? Maybe if I wasn’t blogging in support of my business but for me a lack of results can be felt in my bank account and that isn’t fun. – Ashley
http://chenpn.com pelf

I blog for fun on my personal blog, that’s where I blog about whatever catches my fancy (and that explains why I can never categorize my personal blog because one day I blog about blogging, the next day I blog about breast cancer, and the following day I blog about my DREADED unfinished thesis).

But I do have 2 other blogs that I blog for a cause. And the cause is to create and spread awareness on issues that we should all be concerned with.
Michael Martine

Great comments, everyone!

@Tomaz: I don’t think most people would define fun like in your comment (#8). Nearly every blogger wants comments and links. But your point about people wanting to be loved and being unaware of their own motivations is spot on. Sharp observation, man.

@Ashely and Christine: We must remember just how many blogs there are! The numbers are dizzying. It’s really a minority that are doing it for money or business.

@Pelf: I realize the poll can’t take into account if you have multiple blogs and write them for differing reasons. Here’s a thought for you: if a cause is truly the reason, then you want to be doing the same things as many business bloggers. Instead of conversion being about buying something, it’s about acknowledging a change in thinking or attitude, or about doing something for the cause.
http://www.morphodesigns.com Mitchell Allen

Hi Michael,

Money lured me into the blogosphere, community keeps me there.

So I blog for fun.

Cheers,

Mitch
http://www.jacksblog.co.uk Jack

I must admit, I blog to release my frustrations of where I work, but my blog is monetized, and I have a plan behind what I am doing to make money (so far, on track!)

I don’t blog for fun, love, for a cause, but I blog to make a little money. And also I like the challange of how far I can push this. But more than anything – I blog to release my frustration.
http://chenpn.com pelf

“Instead of conversion being about buying something, itâ€™s about acknowledging a change in thinking or attitude, or about doing something for the cause.”

I had brain diarrhea the other day, so I don’t really understand what you were trying to tell me, LOL.
Michael Martine

@Pelf: Brain diarrhea? Eeww…! Sorry to be so unclear. Let me see if this makes any better sense:

Conversion is the word for when a website visitor does what we most want them to do, so if you’re selling something, that would mean that conversion is a purchase. If you’re an activist, conversion might mean getting someone to sign up for a newsletter, sign a petition, or donate money to a cause. For an activist blogger, conversion could also mean that you’ve helped someone change the way they think about an issue. If you get comments that say things like “I will never throw trash into the sea again, now that I know what happens to sea life” or something like that, then you know your activist blog is converting people.

Using ecommerce and marketing terms to describe an activist blog is somewhat helpful in understanding how they really work on and affect the people who read them. I would think that what you’re really after with an activist blog is to change people’s lives.
http://www.fabnetrevenue.com Fab

Hi Michael. I personally blog for trying creative things, trying to have fun in the process and make money. Blogging is hard… and I think for a lot of people the main motivation ends up to be money.

On my blog, people can get a free link if they comment giving the url of an article about blogging motivation. I also ask people what is their number 1 motivation for blogging.

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