Blogging: Purism or Commercialism. Can It Be Both?

byployd

53 followers

Updated 9 years ago

My experience is that people go into blogging for primarily two basic reasons. I know that some people will accuse me of being overly simplistic, but here is what I mean. I think that all dedicated bloggers want in some way to provide useful or enlightening information to all. I'll exclude the bottom feeders for now, though they are dedicated!

So, I am making a subtle distinction between useful and enlightening bloggers. What is the difference? To get right to it, a useful blog is primarily concerned with improving our day to day lives with specific information, techniques and current products that we can buy to make our material lives easier and safer. They tend to be more purely business oriented. Who does not need that?

The enlightening blogger shares something in common with the useful blogger in that they both present a call to action. Of course, this normally involves products and services, but the enlightening blogger attempts to see things from a wider perspective. This might be a concern with philosophical, environmental or philanthropic issues. They often promote voluntarism and the use of social media as a means to achieve a desirable goal.

So, the difference between useful and enlightening bloggers is only one of degree. they both want to persuade, but they are addressing a different audience with different motivations. The enlightening blogger is usually less concerned with monetizing his or her blog and more interested in conveying a message. They are more interested in networking with like minded people for other benefits besides income.

This subject is big and I can't do it justice in one post. I plan to develop the theme in the future. Thanks to all!

Pat