I love blogging. I love being able to share my thoughts with a global audience, and reading about other bloggers’ ideas as well. For me it’s like peeking into the minds of other people I am not likely to meet in the flesh, at least not in this lifetime.
Knowing and understanding why you blog helps keep a clear vision of your direction and goals, as well as your needs.
At first, it wasn’t easy to freely write online. The idea of being vulnerable to millions of strangers all over the world was incredibly daunting. Still, I had to persist to help overcome one of my greatest hurdles: self-expression. I noticed that my writing often tends to gravitate toward an expository and informative manner rather than from a personal standpoint. Cold, hard facts posed no threat to me, as opposed to speaking from the heart. That was my greatest challenge.
So I blogged. And I blog still.
Being among other creatively expressive bloggers is comforting, not only because some of us share the same blogging interests and goals, but also for the mere reason that we’re dedicated to the act of blogging itself. Also, it’s cathartic. And it gives me a playground for my otherwise constipated thought and emotional processes.
But that’s just me. We all blog for different reasons that can be narrowed down to the following:
Connections
Blogging allows us to start conversations, discuss ideas, and keep in touch with people from around the world, both on a personal and professional level.
Identity
Many bloggers, myself included, blog to discover, shape, and reinforce our own identity, and doing this includes expressing one’s self and finding one’s own voice.
Creativity
Blogging can be a wonderful creative outlet, whether it’s playing with prose and poetry, photos and images, audio and video, or designing the blog itself.
Wealth
While blogging solely for money is quite difficult, it can generate plenty of revenue with hard work, commitment, patience, and skill. There are many bloggers who have already successfully earned much from blogging, either from brand selling, advertising, online marketing, SEO, e-commerce, or other blog monetization methods.
Education
Blogs are a gold mine of knowledge, and being active in the blogosphere can keep both the blogger and his readers informed and updated on their subjects of interest, as they share and exchange resources. Blogging can also help develop literacy and communication skills within a 24/7 learning environment.
Authority
Closely linked to education, blogging can also serve to establish one as an expert in his field of interest and influence thinking trends or at least teach interested readers, which in turn could also serve as an avenue for earning money online.
Service
There are bloggers who are dedicated to using their site as a platform for providing assistance and support to others. One such blogging site that has evolved into support groups under several interests is Tumblr.
Ability
We blog because we can. Period.
Positivity
Blogging is an enjoyable activity in itself, and it also helps supplement other leisurely pursuits not necessarily related to blogging. It allows one to entertain others and one’s self. For some, it’s also not just fun but a labor of love that feeds one’s soul. And for others like me, blogging can be a source of inspiration, motivation, self-reflection, and healing.
After joining a blogging community in which I could read about shared sentiments of other bloggers and contribute some input of my own, I gradually became less afraid of my humanity. Learning to articulate my ideas and feelings online also helped me get through and recover from a very difficult period in my life. So in essence, blogging to me was and still is therapy. In many ways, it could even be better than therapy.
You may have other reasons for blogging aside from those listed here, and it would be interesting for us to hear how they have shaped the way you blog. So what is blogging for you? What’s your story?
Photo credits: www.gsnlists.org, www.moreinmedia.com
The Discussion
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Authority is always most important. I love the creativity blogging offers, but the value it gives to building authority cannot be beat by any other marketing effort.
Thanks for writing this Carmela!
This is a great and informative post.Well, the points given were facts that could never go wrong. I have visited so many pages with the same discussion and topics
I create my own personal blogs to express my thoughts,carefully choosing words that would best describe my feelings, sentiments, wishes, desires and share my knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics.Its a good medium to market a product thereby increasing the product sales. Blogging has become a very lucrative move.
really beautiful, useful, and this was the guiding writing an article, readers can look forward to definitely write a blog to have and, congratulations ..
Made a few friends with blogging and also got answers to many questions I had through blogging.
nice article thank you ..
The categories discussed in this article is the basic theme on which all blogs are written. Thanks for sharing.
I just found this site. I am glad because I can add my knowledge about blogging. I am a new blogger. thank you, allow me to bookmark this site.
I blog mostly to help people understand or at least get introduced to stuff I know about. I haven’t monetized my blog yet.
Great Article! For me i just love doing blogging because few years from now when it gets really big i would like to look back and say” thats my website”
I don’t know if I’m really blogging as such, but a lot of these reasons still apply to the articles that I write on my site.
Blogging definitely has it advantages. It can seem like too much work and even hopeless to make money with blogging, but that is your first hurdle to get past…. negativity and doubt can prevent you from doing anything… one you start blogging and visiting other peoples blogs you will begin to meet and learn from others… before you know it, you will be making some moola….
Take care,
~Jeremy
As a blogger I will have some sort of a desire to connect with readers. It’s probably an advantage to actually engage readers in someway.It’s also important to be ‘virtually intuitive’. One of the dangers of relating to people online is that all can not be as it seems.
Blogging is now a part of my life and hobby of mine and it gives me chance to know about the world and surrounded things…
Thanks
For me i just love doing blogging because few years from now when it gets really big i would like to look back and enjoy the site.
For me blogging is a great possibility to share my thoughts and find answers to many questions.
Great article with great information, i love blogging because it’s a really good way to share your interesting or informative things through blog. so you can share with your friends as well as other persons.
Hi great article with some interesting comments. Here at University of East Anglia we have just released a video infographic on “What is Blogging” – I’d love to know your thoughts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwcW5AKcfl4
To me, blogging is great place to make new friend and get more knowledge
started off blogging dreaming of money, but now I think it’s a bit more!
Great article. It’s a good idea to know why you are blogging, that way you can steer your blog in the right direction.
For me blogging is an outlet while job-seeking. I agree that it’s therapeutic. I haven’t gotten to the community-building part yet but I hope that I can eventually build at least a small following. Cheers!
You really had quite a great list their. And all of them were backed up with impressive information that I can relate too. As for me, I blog because I want too. Because blogging is the only way that I can release the days tensions. And it is the only way for me to let the world know what I think. That for every person reading it, I hope will be a man who understands my point of view.
I agree with you that blog commenting is also one of the best ways to marketing your blog.
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