Blogging Beyond Your Subject Matter : Adding Personality

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Chuck Westbrook has a great post today on his blog called More than a Niche: Thoughts on Blogging Beyond Boundaries. He talks about the writers personality shining through in the evolution of the blog.

Many blogs begin as niche blogs covering a topic of interest or expertise, especially blogs started to help develop the author’s personal brand. Over time, however, the audience takes greater and greater interest in the author’s thoughts beyond the primary topic and, eventually, in the author’s personal life.

We all start blogs with a subject matter in mind. Some of us write about social media, traditional marketing, manufacturing, digital technology, or physical therapy. There are millions of subject matters out there!

Chuck talks about the problems some of us can have with “balancing writing about the main topic” with thoughts from your personal life.

Balance writing and personality

I find it extremely important (in the business environment) to mold your personality to your business. People want to know there is a person behind the words! So how do you do this in a way where your readers are not put off and you still add some personality in your posts?

Chuck has some great points on his post and I wanted to add a couple of my own.

1. Switch It Up. For every 5 “industry posts” write a post about something that happened to you that day. Be conscious and try not to offend anyone. Don’t be an idiot.

2. Photos. Connect a personal photo gallery to your blog. Add pictures of your family, friends, co-workers.. Connect your Flickr account to your blog. I still have yet to do this but I think it is a great idea to add some personality to your blog.

3. Goodwill. No, I’m not talking about the store. Write a weekend post about some charity groups you have been helping. If you tend not to help charities you probably should hide in a corner. Champion the NFP’s you are representing! This will add some indepth personality to your profile without getting completely cheesy.

AND NEVER. EVER. EVER. EVER:

Talk about relationships. Break-ups or Dates. (this is strictly for the business owners/employees in all of us). If you still have a personal blog on Xanga… go right ahead.

Picture of Kyle Lacy

Kyle Lacy

Kyle Lacy writes a regular blog at KyleLacy.com and is founder and CEO of Brandswag, a social media strategy and training company. His blog has been featured on Wall Street Journal’s website and Read Write Web’s daily blog journal. Recently, Kyle was voted as one of the top 150 social media blogs in the world (on two websites), and produces regular keynote speeches across the Midwest. He also just finished writing Twitter Marketing for Dummies by Wiley Publishing.

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