Ten years ago when I first got my start in social media, the blog was seeing as this magical tool to build an audience. You’d post, and see comments from strangers and friends alike. People would share it just because they could.
But as social media has consolidated, the blog has fallen a bit out of favor. To be fair, there are probably more blogs than ever, but the focus and effort has undeniably shifted towards strategies on social sites, advertising, and other channels.
The practice of maintaining a personal blog has dwindled in the same way. More and more of our time is spent consuming social media feeds rather than reading an RSS feed. What’s the point maintaining a blog like this one if no one is likely to read it?
That’s all missing the point though. The primary motivation for maintaining a blog like this must be for the writer, not some imagined reader. If an audience shows up, great, but that’s secondary. When we lose sight of that, we start focusing on clicks, conversions, and likes. These can be benchmarks, but they’re not the point. A guy like Seth Godin have built his business and fame around his blog, but he’s probably a rarity. And I’d be willing to bet even if there were no external value to his blog, he’d probably still keep writing there.
A good test of your motivations is to ask yourself the question “If I was the last person on earth, would I keep doing this work anyway?”