Re: Do people IRL know you have a blog?

I assume nobody reads my blog, at most a couple people check out the pretty pictures but that's about it.

My opinion on blogging is do it for yourself, not to achieve something. That way it doesn't feel like wasted effort when nobody reads it and it can still be fun or cathartic to write.

The thing about irl blogs is how, if it's tech related, then it kinda follows you. So there's a pressure to keep things corporate to not scare away job opportunities.

There's a reason why LinkedIn reads like garbage, and even if it's obvious, people neither point it out or stop.

I showed my Mom my personal website a few years ago, and her only comment was it needed more pictures, so I added a picture of a window plant to exactly one page. I haven't showed it to anyone else IRL.

https://brynet.ca/article-x395.html

A good enough personal brand means you have a name (generally) disconnected from your individual job and you are known as an entity in your own right, often not entirely pinned to a single discipline. The most cynical example here is probably Kylie Kardashian, ostensibly a billionaire entrepreneur, but you could just as easily sub in a lot of modern content creators like Mr. Beast.

These can come about naturally through some amount of fame, naturally through having a natural talent for something that generates interest in you and your opinions, or you can grind for it in a kind of numbers game.

If you are working towards getting your name "out there" and having some of that sense of recognition, if you're hustling for subscribers or follows, if you are following trends to post about in order to try to get more readers, you're behaving in brand-building exercises.

If you're just writing for the sake of writing, or to keep a journal for your future self, or just so your close friends can keep up with you, you're not.

Dude is right, no one except for the audience cares.

I was a successful blogger in the 00th years and with a side business around Made for Adsense because once you understood SEO it was inevitable, if this rings a bell.

Reading a blog seems magical. Just imagine “Do ppl IRL my print magazine?” to use another metaphor. Nope and yes. Same goes for artists, say singer and songwriters: “Do you listen to my stuff?” Why should they?

Understanding your readers and fans is not easy. Statistically speaking, if all your close friends read your blog, you either are on to something or you get lied to.

So if all around read your blog you might be some truly impressive author with a huge fan base - and 99,9999% won’t fit in here.

As a side note, I still know quite a fraction of successful YouTubers. They are publishers, content creators. It is work for them, maybe evolved from something they did for fun. These dudes always prioritize money now - because they know their niche a bit better now and want to appeal to it.