A blogging decision: Can you help?

The blogging world has changed so much.... is there still room for a multi-purpose single person blog like this?

Should I take my pet blogging over to Honest Dog, create a new blog for helping animal shelters, rescue groups, and shelter reform activists with their PR, communications, and social media, and just use this for bloviating -- most of which I do on Facebook now, which only my friends ever see?

If you're a shelter, rescue, or animal activist, would you be more likely to follow a new blog with just one focus -- helping you with your PR, social, and communications -- or would you feel just as comfortable if all that was confined to a single category on this blog?

I have added a cute photo of a kitten to make this post less stressful.

Sincerely,

Confused on the Interwebz

Comments

[Laura S]

Hi Christie,

I have struggled with the same question. I've started several blogs to deal with various aspects of pet advocacy (mostly concerning pet health) and, while I'm nowhere near as accomplished a writer as you, I have struggled to sort out the best way to consolidate the content so that it's accessible to people who are interested in it. I've ended up with all all-in-one blog that is focused on pet advocacy and nothing else.

Fortunately, one of my key topics is rarely written about, so the majority of my traffic comes from search engines. In a sense, that one topic brings in traffic that will view my other content (or not) just because it is there.

I think, however, that if I had the opportunity to join a topic-centric blog such as the Honest Dog, it would be a good idea. The old Pet Connection blog was a favorite of mine, and I loved it for the variety of high quality, thoughtful writing found there (yours included).

If I were also blogging about, say, politics, I'd probably start a different blog for that (I have Facebook pages for that now, but no blog... yet). I guess I see Facebook as a potential audience building tool, but the real original content is contained on my blogs.

I don't know if this is useful at all, but thought I'd throw it out there.

[Barb Wright]

I don't think you have to choose just one location for your blog. You can post your blog articles on several blog sites. In some cases, you can link them to make it easier. Personally, I use a WordPress blog that I link to Facebook, etc;

Bottom line is whatever you like best. It's your blog and it's a great one! :)

[John]

I struggle with this EVERY DAY. There are so many avenues to communication - is this a blog piece, a FB post, a twitter thought? Who's my audience? How developed is what I'm trying to express?

I'd keep the personal blog just because it's your damn sandbox and no one can tell you how to use it - if you wander from focus, fine. That's evolution. Then again, I started as a humor blogger.

[Melissa Logan]

Honestly, it sounds like what you need is a full website that includes a blog in which you can "bloviate" separate from the other content. Does that make sense? I see a content management system with helpful info and a separate blog.

[Cindy R]

As a pet writer and ardent blog reader (but not a blogger myself),I think there's a place for both tightly focused blogs and more general ones. But I really appreciate the general ones because they inform me and get me thinking about things I might not encounter otherwise. If X and Y are my passion, and I only read blogs or websites about X and Y, I'll never know about Z -- which could be important for me in all kinds of ways. That's one of the things I most loved about Pet Connection.

[Gail Browne-McDonald]

I like Melissa's suggestion...I like the idea of having one spot where I know I can go to get the complete picture. I follow your posts all over the place on different subjects and having a ChristieCentral would be a good thing.

[Arlene Clarke]

I read 5 or 6 blogs fairly regularly--yours included. (I've never met any of the writers of the blogs I follow, so the connection isn't personal.) I like your pet focus, though I also find the straying into other avenues (personal and political) interesting. I don't do Facebook, so that wouldn't be a substitute for me!

[Monica]

Cindy R makes an excellent point. I like it that you have one place where you have all kinds of things I can browse through. I like it that sometimes a FaceBook post leads me to an article here and if I have time, the article leads me further. (Farther? No, further. Um.) The main thing is this: is it apparent that on this blog I could find specialized info about pet-related organizations using social media for PR? If not, make it apparent. I guess I'm saying revise this blog so that kind of stuff is easy to find and focus on as a sub-focus within the whole blog. But don't make it harder for me to discover Z when I came here by way of a link to X.

[Monica]

P.S. Good choice with the cute kitten photo!

[Nancy]

Does it have to be an either/or? The common thread to all the writing you propose is still YOU and your unique perspective and voice.

For me it would depend on the goals I want. Am I trying to reach new audiences with a message? Grow my subscribers/followers? Branch out in the topics areas I cover?

You could still do all of those using the same blog, but your strategies to reach the goals might be different.

The one caveat to having more blogs is that the workload increases exponentially (she says from experience.) Yikes!

[Lea Flynn]

What I have done is to create a "blog", if you will call it that, which is strictly dedicated to postings for rescues, etc. I find this works best for me as I am able to post and repost according to need and dates without having to wade through everything else.

[H. Houlahan]

Too many different blogs = dissipation. None of them get the attention they need. I prefer the eclectic mode. I just skim or skip any posts that are about topics that don't rivet me.

I'm starting to think that too much "content" from good writers has migrated to Facebook. In addition to limiting the audience (which is, of course, often the very point), the Facebook stuff is ephemera, and is rarely crafted and edited into a polished presentation.