Do bloggers really need to be active on Twitter to be successful in their blogging?

It’s a question I posed on Twitter last week and it inspired some interesting conversation.

First, I asked the following question:

The only one anyone could think of was Seth Godin–and even that’s not entirely true. So, I posed the following question as a follow-up:

I posed this question partly out of professional curiousity, and partly because I have a client in this situation right now (they’re going to start blogging, but won’t be active on any other social profiles to share content).

So, since there is seemingly very few, if any, PR/social media/marketing bloggers that aren’t also on Twitter and Facebook, it seems like I answered my own question–at least within our industry.

But what about other industries? Just because you blog, does it mean you need to be on Twitter?

The advantages of doing both are many:

* Opportunity to share your content with a wider audience.

* Opportunity to grow your blog community by meeting other bloggers through Twitter.

* Opportunity to lurk for blog and content ideas.

* Opportunity to follow industry conversations–also good for blog ideas.

All great, but again, does it mean you have to do both?

If you’re starting a blog from scratch, wouldn’t starting a Twitter account also make sense regardless of industry? Don’t you want to increase your chances for success?

Truth is, not everyone has the time to devote to the time-sucking Twitter black hole. Sure, you can schedule your tweets. You can pick certain times during the day and duck in, and duck out. But, those bloggers who flourish using Twitter do so because they are highly active on the platform–not because they schedule 3 tweets a day.

Where does that leave us? Do you need to be active on Twitter to succeed as a blogger? Do we have examples of bloggers or industries where people aren’t on Twitter? I’d love to hear your thoughts.