Can Blogs Be Honest??
Earlier this week I had lunch with Joshua Newman who is a fellow young entrepreneur and successful blogger. One of the topics we talked about was how blogs were an interesting medium and how they were limited with respect to honesty. A few things I've realized are:
- Many of the events that happen in my life involve other people. Because I respect them and my relationship with them, I can't blog about many details. For example, Josh mentioned a few instances when he had received backlash from people he mentioned in blog entries.
- The content of blogs are half-truths. Blogging about everything in my life would be boring and tedious for readers to go through and a drag on my time. So I must be selective based on my limited time and my interest in grabbing reader attention. As a result, readers form a "limited" picture of me, but I guess we all have to deal with this in our interactions with others.
- At one point, Josh asked me if I felt limited in what I could blog about as a self-development author. Sometimes I definitely have hesitations about being completely honest about my limitations, but I still go forward anyway. Obviously, I have an interest in getting readers back to the site and eventually purchasing the book. At the same time, I want to build a brand based on honesty. If I build a brand based on perfection, people will create a false picture of me that I will constantly be having to live up to. If I'm honest in my blog, I don't push myself into a corner and I can always just be myself. Hopefully this will be appreciated.