For those with personal blogs out there, who do you write for? Is there someone you gear your blog towards? Who is your audience?
In my case, I have a wide audience. I mostly write on personal matters and thoughts so the majority of my readers are people I know, either in real life or people I know from the internet. These people are friends and family that pretty much know what’s going on in my day to day life. I don’t really write for them though. In fact, if I didn’t write here I’m sure they’d keep up with my life in another way (and many do keep up with my life in multiple ways). I think mostly I write on this blog for myself. It’s not so much so other people can read my thoughts and what’s going on, it’s more for me to be able to organize my thoughts and put them down.
Sure, there are times when the post is dedicated to the audience at large, and an audience that extends well-beyond friends and family. My Song of the Week posts are made to expose new music to anyone who happens upon my site. Or take a post like The Genius of Tupac. Again, friends and family know what a fan of him I am, this was directed at a larger audience, especially people finding out what Tupac was about for the first time. And then there are my rants on various items, services, and stores to warn people of these things. Sometimes, I even like to throw in a post to show just how weird eccentric I really am. Every once in a while, I’d even write to a specific person (who I know still visits but I no longer write to them). For the most part though, I write for myself. This may not get me the most traffic or visitors, but I’m not trying to be the most popular. I’m just being me.