‘Is WordPress a blog or a social network site?'

Let’s cut to the chase, WordPress is what you make it!

With 42% of the web built on WordPress it can be considered both a blog and a social media platform, but in reality it can be so much more.

Understandably when people think of social media, WordPress probably isn’t at the forefront of their mind with big players like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube leading the pack, followed by the likes of Tik Tok, Reddit and Pinterest. These ‘traditional’ social media platforms fit the Oxford Languages meaning of social media in that they

are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

But so too does WordPress.

A blog is defined as

a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.

WordPress fits this definition too.

When considering the two, the ‘traditional’ social media sites tend to differentiate themselves from a blog largely in the amount of information shared per post. In 2021 the median length of a successful blog post is 2,164 words whereas a typically successful social media post is aiming for 50-80 characters.

The purpose of the posts and desired results from them though largely remains the same. The user wants to communicate their message and elicit a response.

Before Facebook and Instagram were the social media juggernauts they are today, blogs, on the likes of Blogger and WordPress were people’s social networks. When I first became a mum in 2009 I found the women who would become my real life friends on one of the now thousands of ‘Mummy Blog’s’ out there. It was a simple Wordpress site, where a mum local to me shared her parenting journey and made other mums feel a little more normal when they were struggling. She grew that blog into a huge community, hosting real world events and creating friendships that last to this day. Much like this mummy blog I was a part of, whole communities were built and thriving on blogs, with the comments sections filled. Nowadays WordPress tends to have handballed the comments section over to the ‘traditional’ social media sites. A user will share their post to their preferred social media platform, their followers/subscribers will read/view their content and then head back to social media to provide their feedback. This doesn’t mean that WordPress isn’t a social media site, it just means that people don’t always choose to utilise it to its full extent.

WordPress is ultimately an excellent tool for anyone online, you can use it to build a community with a thriving comment section, in which case it is more like social media. Or you can switch of comments, you can pour your heart and soul out into it, more like a journal and then it would likely be considered a blog. Alternately you can build it out to be a fully functional website of entirely your own making, maybe it tells the world who you are or maybe you are running a huge business with it, making sales every day. WordPress is what you make it.

#socialmedia #blog #wordpress

References

Beltis, A. 2021, How Long Should Blog Posts Be in 2021? [New Data], Hubspot, viewed 11 July 2021, <https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-long-should-your-blog-posts-be-faq>.

Oxford Languages 2021, viewed 11 July 2021, <https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/>.

Shleyner, E. 2018, The Ideal Social Media Post Length: A Guide for Every Platform, Hootsuite, viewed 11 July 2021, <https://blog.hootsuite.com/ideal-social-media-post-length/>.

WordPress 2021, viewed 11 July 2021, <https://wordpress.com/>.