From Casual to Serious Blogging - what makes the differences and what does it mean?

I have been writing my personal blogs for years, if it was not my good friend shine (this talent and pretty lady has become a serious blogger in 2 months time, starting from ground zero) who had introduced this world of blogging to me, I would have no idea of what serious and professional blogging could be.
  

“You rent a server to write diaries?”
“Why are you doing blogging?”
“What do you want to achieve?”
“What do you want to earn?”

These are the most common questions I have come across when my friends know about my new started blogging life.

In fact, blogging is very popular nowadays, and many people are owning and writing their blogs, some even own more than one blog at the same time.  There are tones of service providers out there for us to create our blogs to share our thoughts.  However, most of the bloggers, including me before, are casual bloggers only.  What makes the differences between casual blogging and serious and even professional blogging?  What could be achieved through blogging?  Why are some people doing so seriously?  These would be some common questions that casual bloggers would pretty much like to know.

Casual vs Serious Bloggers

What are the differences between casual bloggers and serious bloggers? 

For serious bloggers, they may not yet or they may not target to become professional bloggers, who could earn substantial incomes based on blogging.  If it is not for / not yet for money / income, what is the difference between a casual blogger and a serious one?

The answer lies on the attitudes of the bloggers.  For casual bloggers, most of us, are writing our dairies, our own stories, our own feelings, what ever we want to write, etc.  We don’t care whether we have reader or not.  The posts so written are circulated and read by our own friends.  What most, in fact, we are our own readers.  So, to a certain extend, casual bloggers write for themselves, and not the readers.  

The story is quite different for a serious blogger.  For serious blogger, they write for their readers.  Their readers may or may not know themselves, or maybe even international and have different cultural backgrounds.  It is what they write that have attracted and retained the readers.  Therefore, what they write should not be related to themselves only, but to the readers at large.  Posts by serious bloggers would be meaningful to their readers and their readers would find it worthwhile to read the posts. 

For casual bloggers who write for themselves and not their readers, they may not write their posts regularly.  Sometimes, they may write several articles a day, sometimes, they may not have any post for a whole month.  They never think of their readers’ expectations nor habits.  While for serious bloggers, they would write regularly on their own pace.  Through regular posts, the serious bloggers are able to manage their readers’ expectations and habits.  This is the basic but the most important effective way to build up readership, for the readers know what to expect and would not get frustrated.

It is also important for any serious blogger to identify their niche, areas in which they are interested and good at, and it would be a pleasure for them to share such experiences and knowledge with their readers. 

Serious bloggers tend to plan for their posts, normally over a week.   For sure that we would write according to our instincts or some new experiences, serious bloggers still have a plan to follow somehow.  Well planned posts would garantee consistent quality, that is the magic.

Why become a serious blogger?

Every thing has a reason, blogging should have no exception.   

By creating a website / blog, we in fact have created a platform, “an online shop”, which operates 24 hours around the clock and could be accessible from every corner of the world and we don’t need shop assistant. 

On this platform, we could sell and diplay things which we want to.  And what is most important, is to sell and advertise “ourselves”.  We could form our community and  networking through this platform.  We could find someone who are with similar wave lengths as ourselves from everywhere on earth.  This is the most important thing we could “earn” or “gain” through blogging.

Some important notes for new bloggers

To become serious bloggers, we would need to write regularly, even daily.  This may be the most difficult part for a casual blogger to become a serious blogger.  However, once you start writing and try to work on this, it may become your habits to write regularly.

Don’t hesitate that you may not have topic to share with your readers.  Topics come from our everyday lives and we would build up our own habits to write when we do it day by day.  You would find it more easily to write your posts after practising it for some time.

Quality posts are important to retain your readers.  Never scrafice your writing quality in order to get your website updated everyday.  Readers are able to tell whether you have hearts in your posts.   

Identifying suitable readers is also important for serious bloggers.  Joining forums and blog communities would be necessary activities for serious bloggers to build up the readership. 

Want to create your platform? Want to build up your readership and community?  Start as a serious blogger today and you would find out more fun and rewards.

Filed under Success, career, blogging |