The blogs. Will they be here tomorrow, in the age of Second Wave of Social Media? How will they look like?

I have read recently in several articles and blogs that the golden era of blogs is gone, and they shall clear the space for more modern tools of social media. What do you think fellow networkers?

I personally strongly disagree with what I have read. In this article, I will try to defend blogs and describe why I believe that they will be the strong part of The Second Wave of Social Media.

The reason, why blogs were so popular, and for people who are not using Social Media just for wasting their time still are popular is very simple: Only The blogs and Youtube, from all of the First Wave of Social Media tools, provide worthful content from an educational point of view, and at the same time provide some important
and clear info about the author of the blog. (will describe later on examples)

In fact, most of the other SM tools do not provide any worthful content, and the info their provide about the author/publisher/member is.. how to say it… simply not the important one.

Let me describe this on two basic examples.

Think about Twitter, the tool most of you probably use on daily basis.

Twitter is the linker. Twitter, is just the linker and nothing more.

In fact, the content located at any place starting twitter.com/… has no value, or a very little one. Without existence of articles, blogs and Youtube, where twitter can link, Twitter would be for nothing, and would not exist. Or maybe it would, but the success would be dismissible compared to what it is now. So, congrats Twitter, and lets continue!

We must be honest to ourselves. What a value (from educational point of view) can be contained in 140 character long message??? I let everyone of you to answer this question.

If you belong to those people who follow 200 plus Twitterers, and rarely click on anything, than you are just wasting time there. Reading lots of 140 character messages is totally for nothing. Reading such a message without clicking on the link and exploring the content makes neither any value for you, nor tell you something about its publisher.

Lets have the look at professional social networking now.

What about value of content there? What can a profile of you and your activity on a professional networking site tell its visitor about you?

Best how we can find an answer is to look at the example, and think about it. Lets have a look at my LinkedIn profile.

What such a profile says in fact about the person hidden behind?

What will you think about me after reading my profile?

Probably, something like this: “Another young guy, not very experienced one, who thinks that his company can bring something revolutionary to the world of recruiting.HAH! Simply just another of those 21^st century recruiters who read few books and articles, made few good deals, connect with some other dreamers and jumped into the billion dollar business called recruiting.

Well, maybe you are right, and maybe you are not. But that doesn’t matter.

The point I want to stress is this one: If you were looking for a recruiter, will you be able to take a decision, if I am the right person for your project (or at least someone
worth to meet), based just on my profile?

Does experience, education, connections (and other classical parts of SN profile), say anything about that?

Well, in fact just a very bad manager/business owner would take a decision based on these… because they just do not tell anything about the way the person thinks, works, if he has the right character and abilities for work in the particular region and area, etc. Why? There are
few reasons:

1. Basically, you can write there anything. Who knows, maybe my real name is not Matej
   Valuch. How can you know that? Have you seen my ID card?
2. The fact, that someone has 20 years experience, or work for a good company, doesn’t matter he’s personally is a good recruiter for YOUR project (or good anything else), especially in these times, when the pace how world is changing is incredible.
3. The recommendations and such staff included in few networking sites… it’s just the merchandise. I personally receive weekly at least 3 emails, where people I’ve never met before are asking me for recommendation on LinkedIn. Ridiculous? No, it is real! Secondly, there are just positive recommendations on Linkedin and other First Wave of Social Media professional networking sites. How it would look like, if there were also
   complaints/negative recommendations? I know very good how it would, because in our little Slovak market, it works that way – that there are also complaints… And believe me, here recommendations really are not the deciding factor. Recommendations are not bad, so please do not think that it is my opinion. Just be a bit careful, to not give them more value when you are taking decision as they really have.

Of course, there is a content, which uncovers more about the publisher on social networking sites, and which has some real value for reader. Sections like Q/A, forums, discussion groups, etc..

But, as you can see in one of my previous tests: LINK,(in the bottom of article) people do not in fact use this content at all… do not participate on such activities, and so stay hidden behind their fuzzy profiles…

And here we are. The question: Is that Matej a suitable recruiter for our project? Is he not? How can we know?

I believe, that when you spend 30 minutes reading his blog, you will know the answer much better, than if you visited many of his profiles on social networks. That’s it. The blogs are the winner!

In the second wave of social media, blogs will not loose their power. They will just change a little bit, be more interactive, and will be not “lonely” like they were before, but located on the same place with other tools.

In fact, in this everyday growing tangle of unworthy content neither saying anything useful to reader, nor about the publisher, blogs will stay to be the place where you can learn something, can understand someone, can take some decisions, and not just waste your time. Blogs are the ground of social media, and must be here always.
Period.

But this is not about me or my blog. It is about you and your success. Do you have your own blog? Do you take part in discussions, answer questions and present yourself? Or do you
rather stay hidden behind your safe fuzzy professional profiles?

More about Second Wave of social media you can read in the next articles of this series.

All articles are published at my blog on our website, and also at my blog on recruitingblogs.com.

I will be glad to hear your opinion on discussed topics and I believe we together can think over The Second Wave of social media.