TrustRadius Insights for LiveJournal are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Easy-to-use Platform: Many users have found LiveJournal to be a user-friendly platform for sharing experiences and thoughts without the need for coding skills. They appreciate how fun and easy it is to navigate.
Convenient Phone App: Several reviewers have praised LiveJournal's phone app, which allows them to easily add userpics and customize settings on the go. The convenience of this app has contributed to their overall positive experience with the platform.
Customization Options: A number of users have highlighted the extensive customization options available on LiveJournal. They appreciate the variety of blog templates and designs that allow for easy customization, catering to both novices and professionals alike.
I mostly blogged about the activities of the campus newspaper for which I worked in 2000-2002. Otherwise, I'm using this product for personal blogging. I maintain a writing and publishing/editorial blog there.
Pros
Easy posting format.
Variety of blog templates/designs.
Easy to customize said formats.
Communities.
Extensive commenting capabilities.
Cons
Slightly more extensive customization options.
Cheaper usage fees for paid accounts.
Likelihood to Recommend
I feel it's better for personal blogging than for business.
I currently use LiveJournal as a personal means of communication. At my current company, it is not something that is being used at the time. I do not see an immediate need for LiveJournal for my current company at the moment. While it is a solid platform, and customizable to a tee, it is one that may benefit a company that is looking to be in-depth with it's customers and provide a personal experience.
Pros
LiveJournal allows for customization. There are many communities on LiveJournal that provide layouts for novices and professionals alike.
It's relatively easy to create a post and incorporate media into them, such as pictures of products or events associated with a launch.
Cons
LiveJournal is a bit clunky. Posting is easy, but formatting a post can be a bit difficult, especially if the user doesn't have much HTML expertise.
The search function is practically unusable. When searching for a community to join or check out, it is difficult to wade through the list of results. Often times, the results that come back are not related to the topic a user is searching for.
Likelihood to Recommend
LiveJournal is best suited for personal experiences. It is a platform that works for personal blogging, whether it's maybe a CEO of a company looking to discuss a new product or providing a place for customers to respond to a product. LiveJournal doesn't really lend itself to everyday company blogging. It's a very personal platform and for a specific kind of user.
LiveJournal has been used as a supplement to other social media tactics like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. It was was mostly a way to display shorter posts with more targeted relevance to a subject matter than some of the longer-form blogs that I was tasked with composing.
As far as addressing problems, its basic goal was to be a cost-efficient way to expand our outreach om the internet. Especially since I worked for an internet-based company, this was very important.
Pros
Anyone can use it: The default formatting for LiveJournal is so simple that anyone could grasp it. It's true that the results are quite bare-bones without customization, but depending on how you want to use it, this may be a good thing.
It has free options: By default you'll be added to a Plus account that gives you 1GB worth of space and the basic freedom to create decently detailed posts.
There are advanced settings too: For those that have the experience, HTML and other forms of coding are allowed. This makes it easy for qualified individuals to get the most out of even the basic services. You can even program your own custom themes if you have the know-how.
Tagging features mean that SEO enthusiasts can try their hand at making their posts more present in popular search engines.
Cons
You may feel nickel and dimed: Yes there are basic free options available, but beyond those choices, the site makes it very difficult to not spend money. For example, they have many themes you can apply to your page, but many of them cost about $30. This is fine depending on the financial situation of your company, but for those that don't want any more added expenses, you may want to steer clear.
The interface may be too simple: Even some of the most professional pages wind up looking somewhat bare-bones and inexperienced. Especially when there are other free alternatives out there like WordPress that create nice GUIs without any hard work, this can be a real turn-off.
Because your journal appears in a large community and most users don't spend the money to register a specific domain, sometimes it can be hard to bring traffic to your LiveJournal. The best case scenario for us was to put the link on our homepage, but that only ushered in a few random comments on occasion. It has a niche fanbase which means you won't get as much traffic as Twitter or Facebook even if you use their tagging tools.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think the best scenario for LiveJournal is for those with more artistic career paths. Those interested in photography art, entertainment etc, are probably more inclined to see a benefit in LiveJournal. It allows for easy commentary and conversation which is most essential to those kinds of fields.
Other areas where it might not be useful is in retail or corporate-based scenarios. The service implies a casual atmosphere, so it may be a tough sell for those that want to look professional.
A final question I would pose is what you truly need it for. It can be a great additive to any social media campaign because it's free, but you wouldn't want to base your entire strategy around it.
My LiveJournal expertise is based on 12 years of personal experience. In general, LiveJournal is not necessarily intended for use by professional organizations; the vast majority of its users are simply hobbyists who post diary- or blog-style content to their own personal journals or to interest-based communities. That being said, there is nothing stopping a professional organization from using LiveJournal for internal and/or external communications. Users may create communities with restricted membership, so an organization could set up a blog or bulletin board for its own employees. In my experience, using LiveJournal for external communications would prove more difficult, as most content is user-generated and not affiliated with any sort of business pursuits.
Pros
The friends list feature aggregates content posted by the users and communities you follow, so you don't have to visit each individual journal.
The privacy settings are easy to use and understand. Posts can be set as public, friends-only, private, or you can create a custom privacy filter that enables access only by certain users you have approved.
LiveJournal offers a wide variety of journal styles and customization options, with the most options available to paid subscribers.
Communities enable users to make online friends and connections who share similar interests. Users may comment on posts and initiate conversations with original authors and other commenters.
Cons
It is difficult to discover new content on LiveJournal unless you know where to look. The search feature needs improvement; for example, searching for a specific term will not produce a comprehensive list of entries, although some will appear. Rather than browsing for new content, it's better to use LiveJournal to follow the blogs of specific users or communities.
Organizations hoping to use LiveJournal to advertise products or services may be met with resistance from users who see the platform primarily as a tool for informal communication.
Posts are generally displayed in reverse chronological order. In communities with a large number of users and posts, content can be pushed down so far on the page that it may be overlooked. Someone may post a topic first thing in the morning, only for 25 other people to post to the community over the course of the day. Users must scroll through all of the day's posts in order to reach that first morning topic. Unlike a discussion forum or message board, the posts do not show up as a condensed, easy-to-access list of topics.
Likelihood to Recommend
In general, I would not recommend LiveJournal to organizations wanting to communicate to potential customers. Although it is an easy-to-use blogging platform with a large number of free and relatively inexpensive customization options, it is known primarily as a source of user-generated content. Smaller organizations looking for a free or inexpensive blogging platform may find LiveJournal useful, however, as a way to communicate with employees or existing customers.
