Finding Your Blog Voice
Here is a video clip of a panel at the Blog World convention that I was supposed to speak at last summer. You might have to turn up your volume to hear it properly.
So how do you find your blogging voice?
Here’s a tip. You can find your voice according to your blog niche.
What do I mean by that? Well in my case I’m the Blog Bloke. To me that says I have an expertise in blogging and I’m a down to earth sort of chap without any pretence, and I’m not afraid to speak my mind.
Believe it or not that is the real me, so I try to write in the same voice as if you were to meet me in person. That’s no small feat to pull off blogging semi-anonymously.
Because we can hide behind our computer screens it’s easy to give in to the temptation to create a character that we aspire to be. But is that the real you?
Remember the first time when you saw yourself on camera. What we think of ourselves and how we are seen by others can sometimes be diametrically opposed.
So what is your schtick? Maybe you are a humorist blogger, or perhaps you are trying to establish yourself as an authority on a certain topic. Or maybe you’re just writing your online biography.
No matter, what’s important is that you speak in a voice that is unique to YOU. Don’t try to be like everyone else or some mentor that you look up to. Just be yourself.
Fit your niche around you and not the other way around.
Have You Found Your Blog Voice Yet?
1. Have you succeeded in finding your blog voice and do you have any success stories that you can share with us?
2. Are you being true to yourself or are you playing a role that you want us all to believe?
3. Are you writing in your real voice, or do you find yourself faking it out of character because that is a role you perceive your audience expects from your blog niche?
4. Or have you been able to find a balance between being true to yourself and the role that you are trying to establish within your niche?
5. What challenges are you facing trying to find your true blogging voice?
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I’m not sure if I’ve found my niche or not, but I think I’ve found my blog voice. I really think it would be hard to “fake” it for any length of time. I think our personalities come through in our writing despite our best attempts to disguise it. I like the fact that my blog can vary from humorous recollections to serious musings. I think that pretty accurately reflects who I am and what I’m about.
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Probably the worst offenders of faking it are the younger bloggers (and blogging newbies) who want to make money from blogging and try so hard to pass themselves off as experts.
So they play a role that they think their readers expect.
The problem is (like you said) they will eventually be found out either by copying other’s work (faking it ’till they make it), their own lack of knowledge, or their true colors will come through as they interact with other bloggers.
It’s probably an issue of maturity more than anything else. On the other hand, I understand how difficult it can be for younger/new bloggers trying to find themselves much like in the real world.
It’s not easy not an easy thing and a journey that we all have to go through in life - both online and off.
If you have found your blogging voice Lee then you are already ahead of the game for most bloggers.
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As a personal blogger, I don’t think it’s a matter of trying to find my blog voice, specifically. Your article brought to mind all the lessons I had in school writing classes about finding your voice. I personally am true to myself and write in my natural tone of voice.
I think I found my voice long before I understood the concept; it was always my style to be simple and straightforward, and I hope that shows in my writing.
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Oh, I’ve definitely found my voice. I’m exactly who I say I am in my blog. I’m perhaps sometimes a little too “out there” with my real personality, but as a humor writer who writes about my everyday experiences, it’s hard to make things up and pretend to be someone else. I really wouldn’t want to do that either. Frankly, I’m so weird, I have no reason to fictionalize anything. My life is loaded with blog material.
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So Kathy, it sounds like your blog niche is built around your true self. That’s the proper way to do it. Too many unfortunately try reinventing themselves the other way around.
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The same goes for you Kirsten. Your blog niche is yourself and it doesn’t get more unique than that. So long as your character is strong enough to come through in your writing (like I know it does) you have arrived girl.
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I think it’s a very loaded question, when you ask if the blog’s voice is the voice of the person behind the blog.
Who is that person? Is your voice, your content, your tone, your outlook similar in all situations IRL?
Does your outlook not vary slightly if you’re out on a date with the special someone, or when you’re with the boys at the pub? How about your parents, or strangers, or close friends, or perhaps business associates? Does your ‘voice’ remain exactly the same in all of these situations?
Mine doesn’t. And as politically incorrect as it must be to say it in our post modernist world where we’re all encouraged to throw down the fetters and truly embrace who we are, we sometimes overlook the fact that who we are cannot be described in any manner approaching completion in any single voice or instance.
We’re a tapestry, not a thread.
Cut down on the rhetoric, a simple example would be that I curse terribly when in the company of good friends, who know me well and don’t take offense at it. In the company of others, I’m one of the most mild mannered people you might meet. Not much else changes, merely my choice of vocabulary.
So am I then selling out to the Man? Pretending to be something I’m not? Not in the least.
What’s important, I think, is the sincerity of your content. How honest are you being when you put across any given point of view? What are your motivations for putting across any given point of view? If you can be true to yourself in what you believe and what you say, how you say it becomes less of an issue.
Besides, Personal Publishing gets taken on the hard side of Personal. What about Publishing? It’s still written media (or typed, but you know what I mean). Your voice… may just be your writing style…
Which is as much a matter of taste and inclination, as it is a reflection of your real life personality. And by the by, no one ever said that your writing style has to be exactly like the way you speak.
Which is something for which I am thankful, because if I spoke like I write, I’d start at breakfast and end at dinner, likely missing lunch in the process.
The Raconteur’s last blog post..Re: The Raconteur Bible - What About the JWs?
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Using the term “voice” is of course just a metaphor. Clearly we can’t hear a person’s voice from only the written word. Without hearing the inflection, the tone or swagger of a voice were are at best limited.
That’s what makes blogging all the more challenging.
I couldn’t agree more about being “sincere”. We should strive for our own blogging voice and not copy someone else that we hope to be like or what we think our readers/listeners might expect.
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