It’s funny how The Pew Internet & American Life Project can release results of a study in December, but a late-February article about one of the study results published in The New York Times can create such an uproar.

The Pew study offered a broad overview of how members of different generations use the Net. Among many other things, the study revealed that teen and Millennial blogging have declined. Half as many teens said they worked on their own blog in 2009 as did in 2006 (a drop from 28% to 14%) while Millennial blogging has declined by 2%, from 20% in December 20089 to 18% in May 2010.

From the Times’ perspective, that spells doom for blogging. According to the article, “Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation.”

Of course, people have been sounding blogging’s death knell for years now (here’s an example from 2007). I always worry when I read these predictions that some organization will abandon a perfectly good blog, suspend efforts to improve one that isn’t so good, or opt not to start one.

As with any statistics, these numbers can be interpreted (and misinterpreted) any number of ways. As Tac Anderson wrote in his post responding to the Times article...

What’s really happening, as Toni Schneider of Automattic — the corporate parent of the WordPress publishing platform (see disclosure below) — noted in the NYT piece, is that what blogging represented even four or five years ago has evolved into much more of a continuum of publishing. People post content on their blogs, or their “Tumblrs,” and then share links to it via Twitter and Facebook; or they may post thoughts via social networks and then collect those thoughts into a longer post on a blog. Blog networks such as The Huffington Post get a lot of attention, but plenty of individuals are still making use of the longer-form publishing abilities that blogs allow.

While the number of young people creating blogs may be in the decline, the number has increased among older generations. According to the study, “Blogging among members of Gen X increased from 10% in December 2008 to 16% in May 2010, and 11% of Younger and Older Boomers currently blog as well. The result is a slight increase in blogging for adults overall, from 11% in late 2008 to 14% in 2010.”

But numbers and definitions aside, there are still plenty of reasons for businesses to stick with blogging. Following is my top 10 list of reasons to keep (or start) blogging, which can all be summed up in a single “no duh” observation:

#1: Blogs can serve as a hub for other social activities

I hardly ever post anything to my Facebook page, but it’s nevertheless well populated with my content. That’s because my blog generates an RSS feed, which I use to automatically cross-post to Facebook. My blog posts are also automatically tweeted with a shortened URL leading my Twitter followers (and those of the people who retweet my tweets) to the blog post. As a result, i get a lot of comments and interaction on Facebook and Twitter. Yet the only work I need to do is posting to my blog. The rest is automated. Why is it important to produce the content? See #2 below:

#2: Social interaction often begins with content

Many of the most useful tweets I see contain links to longer-form content. Some are poniters, some offer opinions on the content, some reference their own comments left to the post. Content like blog posts and articles from the mainstream press stimulate a lot of the conversation that goes on in the social space. Blog posts increase the odds that people—including the younger set who aren’t blogging—could wind talking about your organization.

#3: Blogs can boost SEO

Search engines use a grab-bag of criteria in their algorithms, but there’s no arguing that frequency of updates to the page and its currency are two factors that drive results higher. That could produce a real benefit to organizations with blogs.

#4: Business blogs are different than personal blogs

The fact that fewer kids are blogging doesn’t mean fewer businesses should follow suit. Personal blogs are a channel for interaction with friends and family, for personal expression, for journal-keeping. Business and corporate blogs serve other objectives. Consider the blogs from Indium Corporation, which share highly technical knowledge (e.g., “Will Multiple Reflows Damage My Solder Joint?”) with a very specialized audience (business-to-business buyers of soldering products like fluxes and circuit board assembly products). Blogs can also aid in recruiting, media relations, crisis communications and a host of other business circumstances that are irrelevant to individual bloggers.

#5: Blogging will remain a vibrant platform for longer content

Most of the younger ex-bloggers quoted in The New York Times article talked about wanted to dash off thoughts more quickly. Occasionally, people do have thoughts that require a longer format. The fact that Millennial bloggers decreased by 2% to 18% means that 18% of Millennials still want to convey more thoughtful, nuanced observations. As for business, thought leadership can’t always be reduced to a tweet or status update.

#6: Blogging platforms continue to evolve

While fewer people overall may be blogging, a variety of platforms continue to gain traction. WordPress hasn’t lost any steam while Tumblr and Posterous are growing. And Dave Winer—the guy who invented blogs to begin with—is hard at work on a completely re-envisioned approach that could appeal to a new generation of bloggers.

#7: Blogs are the fastest way to issue an authoritative statement of record

An authoritative statement of record is hard to fit into a status update. Consider United Airlines’ experience in which the six-year-old story of its bankruptcy was mistaken for a new item and published by an investment firm. It was widely carried by mainstream media, causing United’s stock price to plummet 75%. An immediate post to a blog (which United didn’t have) could have stopped the selloff, but the time required to issue a press release correcting the record allowed the shedding of united share to continue. Of course, a blog post could have automatically been tweeted, posted to a United Facebook page, and so on.

#8: Blogs let you convey your message with your own look and feel

Your organization has an identity that’s hard to force-fit into Facebook and Twitter’s design. In an FIR Live episode back in August 2010, Jennifer Cohen made it clear that her client, UniBall, used Facebook as the focus of its campaign to give away pens, but the email people received included a link to the website that displayed the pens as the company wanted them displayed.

#9: You often don’t need a large audience for your blog to be successful

Indium is a great example of the notion that your blog doesn’t need to reach a mass-market audience. The community of people interested in soldering supplies is relatively small, but they’re the ones searching for terms like “solder fortification,” but when they do, they’re likely to find the Indium blog and its community of subject matter experts. Another example: CEO blogs. Michael Hyatt, Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, told me the story of a crisis he was able to put down in a matter of minutes bbecause the people he needed to reach read his blog.

#10: It’s yours

It’s important to keep in mind that social services come and go (remember Friendster?), but your own blog will always be yours to control.

This is by no means a comprehensive list—just a look at why the Pew stats shouldn’t convince you not to blog. I still maintain that every company should have a blog; the list of reasons if far longer than the top 10 list above.