From the Naked Conversations Blog:
Some things should remain private, but that does not prevent you from getting closer and more personal with your readers than the marketing and legal departments traditionally have. The idea is to show the world that you are a real person, with real fallibilities and passion about the topics you cover. You need to show us enough flesh and blood, so that we know you are trusted as a human, rather than a borg-like unit of a robotic global enterprise.
You need to use language that sounds like you, when you are talking with a professional friend. And you need to reveal about yourself only to the level of your personal comfort. For example, Scoble reveals a lot more personal stuff than I choose to reveal about myself. We both reveal enough to readers that they know we sometimes disagree as partners, occassional to a very high degree. But we also reveal our respect for each other’s judgement.
When you are trying to decide what’s personal and publishable, and what’s private and not, keep in mind that blogging exploded because of a general discontent with and disbelief in CorpSpeak, language inflated by marketed and obfuscated by the legal department.
Naked Conversations is a blog by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel which was created for and has become a book.
The point they raise in this post is crucial for anyone considering starting a blog to understand. Business blogs are not personal like your private journal is personal. Business blogs are personal in the sense that they are not the product of a marketing department or public relations firm. Their content is not vetted by the lawyers (No! don’t even think about it!). Your customers hate that shit. Stop trying to cram it down their throats. Talk to them like a real person, like they are real people. Connect with them. Allow for the relationship to be established. It’s scary, but it’s the best thing you could do. Why is it scary? because relationships are two-way streets. When you enter into a relationship with somebody, you will change them and you will be changed by them. You know this from your intimate relationships with people, such as a spouse. Well, it’s true with businesses and customer, too. So be prepared to let yourself be changed for the better. There’s a name for that: improvement.
So, how, exactly, do you draw the line between the private and the personal in a blog?
- Remember what the specific purpose of your blog is (don’t have one? figure it out and write it down).
- Think about it beforehand and decide what you’re not going to talk about. I do not divulge details about my relationship with my wife or family or friends, for example. Blogging about the death of my cat was probably the most personal thing you’ll ever see on here.
That’s it. Only two things. It’s refreshingly uncomplicated; it simply requires a bit of forethought. If anyone has other ideas they’d like to add, please feel free to comment.
