How Personal Should a Business (or other) Blog Be?

Blogs, all blogs, are essentially personal. Yes, you can probably find a counter-example, but I stand by my statement.

Bloggers often talk about how personal a blog should be, agreeing at very least that popular and successful blogs tend to vary in this regard. I think the answer is pretty obvious - blogs need to be "authentic" - written by a real person or people writing the same way as they act/think/feel/interrelate in real life.

Two non-blogger examples and then a "Ted" example. Bear with me!

I know two brothers named Chronicle and Counselor Bud who are extremely different.

When you see Chronicle he gets you up to date on his life immediately, including details you may not want to know! On the other hand, even if you haven't seen Counselor Bud in a while and he's recently gotten married and had a kid, if you asked him what's up he's say, "Not much." I can just imagine what their blogs would be like if they blogged.

Chronicle's blog would chronicle every interesting detail of his life. It would be intensely personal - and that would be appropriate for Chronicle. It would be appropriate whether it was a business blog, e.g. Chronicle blogging for his company or for himself if self-employed, or personal blog. Yes, some of the details would probably be toned down, but it would still be Chronicle. Anything else would simply be forced, fake, and probably not work well.

Counselor Bud's blog would be the opposite. He wouldn't hide personal details, but he wouldn't volunteer them either. His blog would be just like him: it wouldn't volunteer details, even major ones, about his life. He'd make a great business blogger, but could also write a fascinating non-biz blog too. If he tried to make his blog more personal, it would similarly simply be forced, fake, and probably not work well.

How about me? I'm closer to Counselor Bud, although with a good smattering of Chrony thrown in. Example -- both here, and especially in my home blog The Ted Rap, I've written or commented recently about being in Moscow and Siberia. I never mentioned why. Here's the reason - new daughter adopted from Siberia.
 

Chronicle would have mentioned the details of the long adoption process at least occasionally - and it would have been appropriate for him. Counselor Bud might have eventually mentioned the end result. I mentioned some details such as travelling to Russia and Siberia but only told those who asked why. These approaches are all appropriate.

Blogs should be as personal as their authors! One's business persona should be one's personality, maybe slightly toned down or somehow slightly tweaked, but authentic.

How personal should your business blog and blogging be? Depends - what's your personality like?

Comments

[Karen Bryan]

I've written a post on this topic:
http://www.businessblogboost.com/2007/06/28/should-a-buiness-blog-be-personal/