Us Bloggers Did It First

 

Instagram verses Facebook verses YouTube verses blogging.  

I guess it's all a sign of the times.

 I know my youngest grandson wouldn't touch Facebook with a bargepole and to my knowledge he doesn't have an Instagram account.  He is a gamer and used to be on YouTube, but I don't know if he still is or whether he is now on some other platform.  My older grandson shares the occasional thing on Facebook and chats with me via Messenger, and my eldest grandson advertises his removals business with a Facebook business account, free advertising is never to be sniffed at when you are running what started off as a small company.

Quite a few bloggers have made the leap to YouTube and are being pretty successful in their new 'careers'.  I only ever used YouTube as a vehicle to be able to download little films off my phone or camera onto blog posts.  I have never felt the urge to be a YouTuber and can't see myself ever doing it.

I have quite enjoyed my dalliance with Instagram, and have been astounded at the viewing figures on my little reels, posts and stories ... I still get confused about which is which. 😕 

But looking at my professional Instagram dashboard, I have had over 13,000 views in a little over a month ... that is crazy!!  It is also a little bit alarming to think that all those people have been looking at my posts, and the question is of course do I even want so many strangers looking at my films, pictures and ideas?  

As you can imagine I am having a really big think about this one.

I think my forte and my heart will always be in blogging.  

I love the written word, it's tangible, it stays where you put it, and bar a little mis-translation occasionally is exactly what it says it is.  Us Bloggers were also at the forefront of the whole 'Influencer' and online advertising thing.  I remember myself and a few blogging buddies being asked to choose three tea towels each from a lovely small company and do a review of them.  These were actually brilliant by the way and lasted me for years.  Most of what I agreed to review turned out to be really good.  I was very picky and choosy and rarely said yes to an out of the blue offer ... although we did once jump at the chance to get an anniversary meal completely free of charge by agreeing to review a pub chains new menu.

One of the stranger offers was for me to make something with British Onions, and to be able to do that I was sent a goody box of various condiments along with a couple of pounds of onions.  I can't remember what I made but I know that the jar of Marmite sat in my cupboard for years afterwards as neither of us are Marmite lovers.

One of my favourite gifts was rather strangely from Argos.

 They asked me to choose something from their new gardening range to review.  I didn't know what to pick so I settled on giving them a list of three things, and asking for any one of them.  They obviously were expecting bloggers to choose much more expensive items because they sent me all three.

You can read all about it HERE.

These days YouTubers and Influencers, as vloggers are now usually called, get all the freebies and manage to advertise millions of pounds worth of goods for the manufacturers, some of which are downright ridiculous and a waste of a 'normal persons' money.  This has no doubt turned into such big business as less young people watch television and therefore the advertisements, and the advertisers have all had to find new platforms for their wares.

But always remember us bloggers did it first.  😁

Sue xx