I'm baaack! I'm blowing the dust off this old blog because it has sat dormant for way too long! The past few years (has it really been that long?!?) have gone by in a blur. There was a job change, learning lots of new things along the way and deep-diving into some projects around the house that took much of my creative energy away from this space.
Truthfully, I thought about shutting this blog down altogether. Is blogging even still relevant these days with all of the social media channels, podcasts and streaming videos out there? I've found that a lot of the blogs I followed before have gone by the wayside in favor of shorter Instagram and Facebook posts.
However, I did some research recently that led me back to blogging. It seems that people (myself included) are getting burned out on social media. This article from Dayle Hall explains more about it. It's difficult to cut through all of the noise from political controversy, fake news and abundance of memes taking over our news feeds. While social media is an important channel for brand and product promotion (and is a handy tool for driving traffic to websites and blogs), people are seeking genuine connections and comprehensive, thoughtfully-produced content, which can be found in blogs. A podcast by Darren Rowse at Problogger.podcast explains that written content will continue to be relevant. Another podcast from Jonathan Milligan at Bloggingyourpassion.com provides several statistics confirming that blogging is not on its way out, but can instead be used hand-in-hand with video and podcasts in the form of content stacking to reiterate a message and be more prolific. Here's a blog article from Webhostingmedia.net that further details the future of blogging.
So, I'm giving it another shot, folks, and I'm excited for what will come next!