As I just discussed in “Should I blog for myself or for a company?,” it isn’t necessary to choose between writing in a personal blog or writing in a company blog but because trying to keep up two blogs for newbies in the field can be overwhelming, you’ll definitely want to start out with one or the other. I thought we would discuss the pluses and minuses to having your own blog first, then move on to company blogs. Hopefully this will give you the chance to make an informed decision about what you want to do for yourself. 🙂
The largest pluses to having your own blog are:
*Your blogs can be as short or as long as you want them to be. In my personal blogs, I have often thrown up a YouTube video with nothing more than, “You’ve got to watch this!” or “Enjoy!” which obviously won’t work when you are blogging professionally. Most company blogs have a minimum length requirement, and I have never seen one with a five word minimum. Darn it.
*Your blogs can be as frequent or as sporadic as you want them to be. This can actually be a blessing or a curse, because I’ve found that when I don’t have deadlines, I’m much more likely to let things slide than I am if I know that I have to produce X amount of blogs by the end of month. Of course, there are some really prolific bloggers out there who would chafe under having a maximum amount of blogs allowable (as most companies have – you not only have a minimum but also a maximum) although that’s never really been my problem. I love to write, but I also tend to be lazy. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.
*You can write on any topic you want to, although you risk losing readers if your topics vary too wildly. Like I said in “What kind of blogger are you?,” not having a niche is almost always a sign of a hobby blog. In my personal write-about-anything hobby blog, I have written about spiders, death, cramps, books on CD, and fighting with your spouse. You would be hard pressed to shoehorn that into a single niche. If you are trying to write a professional blog where you make money from it, you need to make sure that your blog covers one topic (more or less), such as crocheting or cooking with your crockpot or restoring old cars. But with a personal blog, you do have the choice of occasionally going off-topic if the mood strikes you.
Because there are so many wonderful things about blogging for yourself, I’ve actually had to break this up into two blogs, so make sure to check out part two, where I talk about being able to control the look and the income of the blog.
This was part of a series on blogging. If you haven’t read the other entries in this series, make sure to check out the summary page for a listing of all blogging articles. Comments and feedback are always welcome – feel free to leave them below or send me an e-mail at Hava L {at} Families dot com. Thanks for reading!