Metablog: Up close and business-like
With what revolution self-publishing is facing the world, and innovating it in the process, a valid inquiry would be: When is a blog too personal, and when is it too business-like?
Bearing in mind the different tastes of readers, and the different aims of bloggers, it would be easier to understand what choices to make and how to make those choices when self-publishing. A set, not fixed -mind you-, idea ought to be the starting point for any individual desiring to express something. This idea, call it intuition if you may, is what would spur that person to keep on blogging, and to keep that blogging experience both enjoyable and informative. It may fall under promoting a business, saluting Sushi, accounts of mall hang-outs with buddies, or supporting human rights. You name it, there’s a blog that talks about it.
So when is a blog just too personal?
Who could tell? It may be the person behind the blog’s intention to post journal-like entries and to focus on placid everyday details. This is an option that is empowered online and that has found supporters worldwide. It could attract readers, particularly if the blogger enjoys a special political or a social status in her society.
Yet the more profound and cosmopolitan value of the so-coined “personal” blogs may lie in just that; being personal. Imagine a person blogging from a distant African country, about the everyday misery and hunger she sees in her neighbourhood. Any such an account would be, I daresay, louder in appeal and impact than you choice of numbers of sophisticated full-of-words-nobody-understands documentaries. It would be more plausible, because the voice behind it is someone like you and me - someone we relate to.
Minding your business?
One of the most important roles blogs play is enabling those distant, almost inhuman, figures behind business projects and firms to appear a bit less like the huge, sometimes metallic, money-generating machines, and a bit more like human beings that can actually talk and (catch) sometimes be funny.
Establishing that blogs offer that option to business people, it would be logical to deduce that, by appearing rigid and all too professional on a business blog, one is quite losing the point.
There is no written code to write a blog successfully. That adverb may not be what the blogger is after in the first place, and is, in its criteria and definition, highly debatable. A blog is in essence a personal experience, even if it talks about your upcoming project, your company’s big night at some award ceremony, an intimate encounter, or your aunt’s cat Whiskers.
Useful links:
Metablog: Blog fashion
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Related Posts
- Metablog: Boss friendly content
- Metablog: Exposure
- Metablog: Can your blog find you a job?
- Metablog: Blog directory
- Unveiling Metablog
December 18th, 2005 at 11:46 am
An excellent topic! I think a blog is anything that you, as the owner, that you want it to be, whether it have a business orientation or a more personal orientation. To say that a blog is too personal, too businesslike, to controversial, etc., is merely an issue of perception in the eyes of the reader, and not a given fact, indeed, varying from reader to reader. The problems begin when readers try to change the dynamic of a blog. It is up to the blog owner to set the agenda for their blog, and those who do not like it are free to find another blog that is more to their liking.
I don’t know if this comment addresses what you had in mind for this entry, but this whole issue is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind recently.
Oh, and if you were to create a blog saluting sushi, I would definitely be a regular visitor… :-)
Really enjoy your writing! Keep it up!
December 18th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Hello She, and welcome back! I value your feedback and I agree with you that is is a problem when blog readers desire to change what a blog talks about, in a sense this means a blog is not the blogger’s domain anymore.
There are examples of successful “community blogs” where readers do the talking, and that is something beautiful, but it isn’t available on every blog.
Blogging, and following a blog, is ultimately a matter of choice. No obligations, no strings attached, just the merry spirit of self-expression.
Glad you enjoy the writing, stay tuned for more :)
December 19th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
Interesting topic you have chosen to discuss.
Strip away the words, the jpeg visuals and fancy html, at the end of the day blogs fulfil the basic human need for a) self expression and b) to be heard and have an audience (no matter how transient the listeners or short-lived the attention span). At a raw level it fulfills a psychological narcissistic need to be appreciated.
With respect to personal/impersonal content, much is in the eye of the beholder. Obvious commercial content aside, a blog post can easily migrate from personal to impersonal (and vice versa) in the space of a few lines, but that would not necessarily be a bad thing. I, you or anybody else could write about subjects of which we have no direct personal experience of but a reader could find interesting nevertheless. I think the key is to adopt a style of writing expression which complements the topic being discussed and keeps things interesting and lively. :) Blogs which are too personal can be a turn-off as well as blogs written as if they belong in some archaic academic journal.