musings...

Wow, even I didn’t think it would be over three months since my last update. I’m starting to think I might be lazy. But then again…

I’ve had some interesting conversations lately about blogging (in particular) and what is to be a blogger (in general).

Depending on why you blog, it might be that you your blog is an extension of you. More of an open diary, where others can share your life, your ups and downs, where you can share some jokes, some neat things you’ve found, and wax lyrical about whatever is on your mind.

I’ve tended not to do so, primarily because what’s on my mind half the time will be of very little interest to others. Well, I think so, anyway.

Which brings me to my point for this post. Why do you blog?

• Is it to help promote the brand of YOU?
• Is it to help sell your business?
• Do you blog for pleasure or for a living?
• Have you even considered this question?

I have, and the answer helps me. I blog to share experience and to try to promote ideas that might be useful to others. It’s part of the reason I blog infrequently: I only truly want to share what I think will be helpful.

In order for your blogging activities to be successful, you’ll need to focus on the reasons you are doing it, but remember those reasons are up to you. Some things to consider:

• Have a reason, and try to stick to that as the core theme and idea behind your blog.
• However, don’t be slavish to that reasoning, blogs, like businesses, evolve.
• If, like me, you blog elsewhere as well, evaluate if it is even useful to continue a personal blog.
• Maybe there are other outlets for your creativity in writing, such as twitter, facebook, quora and others.
• If it’s not working for you, on any level, unless you are paid for blogging, then reconsidering either the reasons you blog, or find a different outlet.
• I’d also recommend that you have different outlets for different things. For instance, if you primarily blog about business, perhaps when you want to go “off topic”, you might want to either do that elsewhere (facebook?), or even consider running another blog to meet different needs entirely.
• Finally, to get the best of a blog, both for you and your readers, only blog about what you enjoy and are passionate about, and if it ever seems too much like being a chore, you’re probably not blogging about something you enjoy enough.

Happy blogging, and tell me your thoughts in the comments.

Image credit: I’m Blogging This by antigone78 on flickr, used under creative commons with attribution license.