Does Your Blog Have Personality?

Just this past week, I attended LitFest, an annual event hosted by Lighthouse Writers Workshop right here in Denver. During a one-on-one conference, a writer asked me a question about her blog. She mentioned that in order to ease the social-media burden, she was blog sharing with several other writers; each curated the blog a month at a time. She noticed the blog wasn’t getting much traffic and asked me why.

To answer her question, I first had to ask a few of my own.

I asked if she herself follows any blogs. She said yes. Then I asked why. Her answer? Because she likes the content or finds the information useful.

But is that all?

I’m nothing if not persistent. When she looked at me blankly, I said there are dozens of blogs about agents and publishing. Why did she prefer some blogs over others?

It’s not just about content. It’s also about personality.

Blogs have personalities, and readers like to follow bloggers who have a unique style or an appealing voice. A shared blog maintained by multiple writers might lack a distinguishing personality, style, or voice. If that’s the case, chances are good the blog won’t gain much traction.

Watching her “Eureka!” moment made me think that you might find this information helpful, too. So ask yourself: Does my blog have a distinct personality? If the answer is no, then maybe blogging isn’t the right social-media platform for you.

And that’s my agent public service moment for July.