Being true will serve more than just bloggers. There appears to be a real shortage of genuine people these days. Just being true and transparent will carry most people, bloggers, companies or others, farther than they can even imagine. Truth stands out nowadays. And the truth will always come forth.

As one better and wiser than me once put forth, What does a man gain if he loses his soul (integrity, identity, reputation, you name it) in his quest to gain in the world.

Just curious, but what are you doing in Beijing? Are you a technical writer at a company there? Do you speak Chinese?

I decided to utilize my blog in a different way. I write about whatever I want. When ideas start dancing around in my head at 3 or 4 in the morning I jot them down on paper or make a draft in my post editor until I can bring them all together and come up with a decent and useful post.

My feeling is this about blogging…it’s a personal weblog and if I don’t know anything about it – how can I share it with anyone else.

It’s all about passion for what you’re writing and presenting it honestly. Thanks for sharing.

First off, I think we need to differentiate between amateur (in the best sense of the word) and business blogs, which have commercial decisions, marketing goals, and budget to balance.
Most amateur blogs have little difficulty in being honest.

Why not?

If you’re insincere, people will go elsewhere. There is no shortage of blogs out there.

But things are more complicated with business blogs. A company that invests, let’s say 1m, in building a shiny new blog wants a return. And that return, somehow, needs to be reflected in the bottom line.

This puts real pressure on the blog’s owners and those who signed off on the business case to make it work.

Put yourself in their shoes.

You’ve been tasked to be the ‘voice’ of their new blog. Where do you start?

Here’s why it’s hard to have a genuine voice.

1. Political correctness – you and I can say what we wants on Wordpress blogs but people who work for Nasdaq-listed companies need to be very careful.

What you say have to be measured, non-offensive, and avoid potential lawsuits etc. This is a terrible place to start.

Many top corp blogs only get published AFTER the legal team reviews/authorizes the post.

2. Proven examples – unlike in other fields, there are not too many examples of good, compelling business blogs out there. If you want to learn about, say graphic design, there are oodles of sites.

But there are not too many biz blogs to gauge what works and what fails.

3. Marketing – biz blogs with a marketing agenda tend to smell bad. No-one is taken in. We’ve all wised up. This type of ‘broadcast’ marketing is losing its effectiveness as consumers, esp among younger types, can feel when their getting ripped off.

Which partly explains the popularity of viral marketing. You decide what you want to promote.

Gerry McGovern (a must read) hits the nail on the head.

“I remember a couple of years ago telling a marketing professional that I had 13,000 subscribers to this opinion piece.

“So that’s 30,000,” he replied.

“Sorry?”

“So, if you’re promoting it you’d obviously tell people you have 30,000,” he said matter-of-factly.

This opinion piece is a form of marketing. It’s just a pity that, in many people’s minds, marketing is synonymous with lying.”

Finally, three blogs I think are doing it right.

Gerry McGovern – http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/
Seth Godin – sethgodin.typepad.com
Louis Gray – http://www.louisgray.com/live/

All the way from Beijing,

Ivan