You Call Yourself A Blogger?

An odd thing happened the other day when someone asked me what I did for a living.

It’s a loaded question, but when I was done rambling about my small business consulting practices and digital media studio services I also said I was a blogger.

Really?

Am I really a blogger?

I’ve been blogging for about a year now and I’ve never really added it to my list of professions. Let alone told someone that when they were looking to evaluate my abilities.

What about you?

Do you consider yourself a blogger? Do you want to?

What makes you a blogger?

When can you actually consider yourself a blogger?

Quality vs Quantity

Is it when you make your first post or you one-thousandth post? Enter the argument: Quality vs. Quantity

If you’re just starting out in the world of blogging and you’re researching how to blog articles – you will inevitably come across this debate. Some will tell you to write well thought out pieces that readers will undoubtedly love. Others will tell you to pump out content every single day to keep drawing in a crowd.

But where’s the happy medium? Who’s to say what is quality and what is not?

Let’s take a look at my two favorite bloggers: Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

A quick site search shows Chris has 4,460 pieces of content under his domain and Julien has 1,530. Both are certainly considered great bloggers. Chris posts nearly every day where Julien posted once in July.

So does it matter that Chris has almost 3 times the amount of content? Should it matter to you?

You need to find what works for you. Sometimes you might feel like writing a one paragraph entry and other times thousands of words.

Information vs Emotion

When I read Chris’s articles, it’s mostly for the information. He is an expert in my field and I look to him as a beacon of innovation and ideas to improve my own services. I like to learn new systems and mechanics from many of the bloggers I follow in my RSS feed.

When I read Julien’s articles, it’s for the emotion. He triggers a lot of thought, passion, and energy when I read his material. Unmatched to the point I want him to write more. I don’t follow many people that write like this, because honestly, not many people can.

So when you’re writing your content, are you writing to inform us? Are you writing to inspire us?

I’m trying to fuse the two together and I hope I’m doing a good job at it.

Your Goal

I’m going to be upfront with my goals for the MattReport blog:

1. Help you through learning something new
2. Have you promote me to others
3. Hire me

Fair enough?

So 99% of the effort to reach the goals of this blog are achieved through working hard to help you enough that you might refer me or hire me. If I’m not helping anyone with my writing, I’ll never get to point 2 and certainly never point 3.

What’s your goal for blogging?

Now, Call Yourself A Blogger

Blogging will really humble you.

At first you think it’s super easy. “Hell, I could do that!” you shout.

Then by day 3, you’ve run out of content, you’re burnt out, you stop writing and the last blog entry is dated Dec 11, 2010.

It takes a good balance to keep up the consistency of quality and quantity. To write as much as Chris does and to write as well as Julien does. There’s simply no answer to that debate.

You do whatever feels best to you.

You will eventually find what your writing style is like by doing. You might start out trying to write about a particular topic and find yourself getting bored with it. If you are, then your readers certainly are too. Focus in on something you’re passionate about.

Lastly, you have to have that goal you are trying to achieve. It could be to become wildly popular, earn money blogging, or to simply keep your writing skills sharp. No matter what, you should set a goal to work towards.

It’s going to change as time goes one, but that’s the beauty of maturing through life and this entire practice.

What’s your blog story? Let us know below.

[ Photo from Flickr]