Week 9: Blogging Pt. 1

To be perfectly honest, I don't know if I'll use a blog for the business that I've chosen for this class. While I think that a blog could be useful for our department, it would be more appropriate to have the counselors blog as they are trained experts in the field. Given how impacted our department gets, it would be far too difficult to find one or a few counselors to commit to blogging even once a month.

Still, in an ideal world, one could potentially add a lot of personality to a blog in our department. In fact, I think that having a blog with personality would be absolutely necessary given the demographic we are trying to reach and the type of information that we are providing. Seeing students day in day out, I realize that academics are not a high priority for a large portion of the student population. Therefore, adding interesting and pertinent information in a manner that students can relate to is necessary to build and maintain a decent following. I think that having guest bloggers would be very useful and help with maintaining the followers with fresh posts. For instance, a blog from a former student who tells a little about where they are now as well as tips, tools, or resources that has helped them succeed in their goals not just academically, but  personally and professionally as well. We could also have guest bloggers from different departments on campus sharing information about their areas of expertise.

I find myself wondering IF it would ever make sense to not have personality in a blog. I started thinking about other businesses that may not require and what I realized is that the nature of a blog is to demonstrate personality in providing information or perspectives. I wouldn't see a point in using a blog for anything less, since most businesses can send out email blasts with product updates or press releases. Most companies just have that information on the website, while another tool may be needed to direct the consumer/client/user to the website. This, in my opinion, is where an interesting blog would come in to play. It is a further way to brand yourself or your company. I think back to how many bloggers that I used to follow now have thriving businesses with products and services that correlate to what they were first blogging about. They were able to monetize their following despite not having started with an actual business. Speaking for myself, I would not have followed them initially had they not had interesting content and an interesting way of providing content through personality and style.

UPDATE: After reading a class member's post, I wanted to add a clarification to my existing post. While I believe that personality is necessary in creating an interesting blog and build a following, I don't want that to be confused with expressing personal opinions. If blogging for a business, I think that common sense should be used when inserting personal opinions, and if possible references should be used if anything is being sited. For example, a blogger with a nutrition business may post about the negative effects of gluten and siting research or studies would be extremely helpful. On the other hand, if that same blogger began to blog about their opinion of abortion laws in the U.S., and unless they were an expert in government and law, they may alienate some of their followers. Keep in mind, I am talking about non-relevant information. By all means, I want to read about farm subsidies that pertain to nutrition, especially if it is from an expert and is well sited.

As a society we are now provided endless methods of expressing our opinions from something as subtle as "liking" a candidate, or pulling out the soapbox and writing countless posts on through a personal Twitter and Facebook account. Unless it is relevant to the business, I don't need to see personal opinions in the blogs that I read, and I plan to follow the same guidelines if I blog for a business.