Who blogs and why?

1. Big Businesses, Personal Branding, Nonprofits: Blogs can be used by people in these three genres as a social media tool for reaching their audience. According to Chris Brogan’s blog, using a blog for personal branding could be done by an individual purchasing their own domain name and having it hosted by an inexpensive server. Corporations can use blogs to their advantage by not making the blog a tool to be used for selling the product, but rather using it as a communication channel to reach and help their audience. Nonprofits can use blogs to post pictures and storytelling of the services that they have done.
2. Reporting about the reports: Many people blog to update others on the “whats happening’s”. Brian Stelter is a perfect example. He provided an additional source of updates in the news world by consistently blogging with TVNewser.
3. Independent Journalists: Whilst in life threatening territory, Christopher Allbritton used blogging to relay vital information to his audience over the web, so that they could receive coverage of the stories in Iraq that they may not receive on in other mediums. Doing this helped him to raise money to support his idependent journalism, and eliminated the pressures of outside media outlets for him covering his story that may often lead to bias and sensationalism in news stories.
4. Alternative News: Blogs can be used to discover truth behind the sensationalism of media, or to advance the sensationalism. My two favorite examples are theybf.com, which is a blog maintained to give updates on the latest celebrity gossip, and silentwordz.wordpress.com. The people who write these blogs open a communication high way for internet users who want to express their concerns about existing issues.
   And last but CERTAINLY not least...
5. Students! Ordinary people make up the majority of bloggers, including college aged students searching to find an identity, according to Paul Andrews’ column. Blogs are used to communicate with other people and find likeness or discuss difference between one another; they are used to open debate about political, personal, or journalistic issues. Facebook is a common example of a social medium used by students.