22 Jan The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Comms Bloggers

There was a time not so long ago when you could hardly move on the internet without running into someone writing about the marketing communications industry. Social media, PR and digital marketing were all the rage. Everyone had an opinion and communications blogs were abundant.

Now? Not so much. At least, not where the UK is concerned.

I was recently performing a new year clean up and refresh of my RSS feed. And what struck me was the lack of decent quality blogs emanating from British shores. Less than one in five of the blogs I’m now subscribed to are UK-based. And of those, only a small handful are updated at least once per week.

Most of the blogs I now subscribe to are written by professionals in North America. Which isn’t a problem in itself, but the lack of UK voices does concern me.

What happened? Where’s everyone gone?

I figured that maybe I’d fallen behind; that there were new individuals out there I was just not aware of. So I asked around some of the influential British marketing communications bloggers I know and follow for recommendations. Who do they read? Who should I subscribe to?

The response was depressing to say the least. Or more accurately, mildly alarming. “There’s not many”, said one person. “I mainly read US”, said another. “It’s a very short list”, said a third.

Between the three of them, I was given a dozen names. Half of those were either each other or people I already had on my list. The other half were niche bloggers, writing about the public sector, charity or small business.

And other than the small handful of people I originally followed, I’ve not added a single UK-based name to my RSS feed.

The vast, vast majority of Brits are, or have become somewhat predictable and dull, unprepared to challenge the status quo or say anything different. We’re not publishing ideas or creating discussion or pushing thinking forward.

And that’s a pretty shocking state of affairs, if you ask me.

Can it really be the case that there are so few quality marketing communications bloggers in the UK now that you can’t even draw up a decent list?

I’d like to try, but it’s very obvious I can’t do it alone.

So please can I ask who YOU read? Drop their name or blog address in the comments and I’ll publish a list of recommended writers in the near future. It’s time to give the UK comms industry a shot in the arm!