VOF Week 3 “Blogging : Laying it bare”

Blogging for me is wearing your heart on a sleeve. It actually depends on how much of you want to share with the world. I had tried blogging, excited at the prospect of having my work, thoughts, feelings and experiences out there for a global audience to read. I had written before, spoken of things, people and places in my life. I kept a journal since I was nine, wrote to close friends on a daily basis while in boarding school. This was going to be a walk in the park, I thought. I quickly discovered two challenges

Content and Audience

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Content

I was not sure how far I should go with what I write. How much of myself would I put out there to be read. Much as I would love to share my thoughts, feelings and experiences, should I impose a self limit on how much information is on my blogs? How frequently would I have to update my blog? Funny how until today,I never realized what power the blog would have in as far as my work as an Artiste and Activist. Unlike a website the blog content has to be constantly updated.

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Audience

Who is my target audience and how to I get them to visit my blog and keep them interested in the content? As a woman, writer and artist I would reach out to those with similar interests, but although I told many of my friends that I had started a blog very few actually “checked it out.” I think it is important to understand your audience, know what people are reading, which blogs have loads of traffic. Word of mouth, in this case “email” helps bring traffic. I also believe like a good story you should leave your audience wanting more from you, so they keep coming back to see what else you have got. Joining vibrant blogs, contributing and providing links back to your blog, I believe can help grow your audience.
To be able to keep your blog alive it should be dynamic and able to change with the times to keep up with the daily changes in Web 2.0. Incorporating animation, video and audio for me would be a way to keep people interested in visits to my blog. I also feel that blogging is cultivating an audience one person at a time, making their visit to your blog a personal experience moving them into action or spreading the word!