When schools transition to sharing news and announcements online, many of them decide to use a digital email newsletter. At first glance it makes sense, especially if their school already has a print newsletter. Everyone else is doing it so it must be a good idea, right?
But the truth is that the heyday of email newsletters has passed. They were great for generating engagement back when email was the most social platform on the internet, but now we have Facebook and Twitter. These days, blogs are the superior choice for sharing news about your school because they are able to leverage the power of social media, among other benefits. Read on to learn all the reasons why you should pick a blog over a newsletter.
Blogs are Shareable
With an email newsletter, most of the people who are going to see it are the ones who have already signed up. Some readers may forward the newsletter to one or two people they know, but new issues are unlikely to draw in new readers. Blog posts are hosted on your school’s website, meaning that anyone can share posts from it on social media with all of their followers. One share on social media could equal dozens or even hundreds of views you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
Blogs are Searchable
Accessing old issues of email newsletters is often difficult, if not impossible depending on the service it’s delivered by. This means that people who miss an issue might never read its contents. Blogs come with a built-in archive, with all past posts easily accessible. Posts are all indexed by search engines, meaning that users can look up school news through google even if they don’t yet follow the blog.
Blogs are Interactive
Unlike newsletters, blogs come with comment sections. Readers can leave questions, comments, and feedback on anything you post, allowing them to feel more involved with the school and helping you find out what the community thinks. Blogs are a two-way street, with both the readers and the author contributing to the conversation, whereas newsletters only let the author speak.
Blogs are Easy
Making newsletters with the same look as a physical newsletter can be a pain, and often involves wrangling complex programs to make intricate page layouts. With blogs, there is no expectation to have fancy headers and multiple columns. Instead, all you need is a featured image and the text content. Blog platforms such as WordPress have simple and easy to use text editors, so all you have to do is write.
Don’t Leave Email Behind
The one benefit that email newsletters have over blogs is that they sometimes get more engagement from people who have already subscribed. However, this is only because readers check their email more often than they check their RSS feed, the traditional method of subscribing to a blog. You can easily counteract this problem by setting up email notifications that send to subscribers whenever you post on the blog. This way, you get all of the benefits of a blog with none of the downsides. Talk to your website provider about having email notifications set up for your blog.