TMI – How Much Personal Info Should I Share On My Blog?

One of the many things to consider when you first start blogging, is how much of yourself you want to put out there into the world and how much personal info you should share on your blog. I mean, sure you want to engage with your reader, let them hear your authentic, true to personality voice within your writing, but does that also come at the cost of having to pretty much sell your soul and reveal absolutely everything warts and all stylee?

In this post I reveal whether there’s a sweet spot between not sharing enough and sharing way too much in your blog posts.

What Should I Share With My Audience?

When you look up the definition of a blog you get the following:

‘a regular record of your thoughts, opinions, or experiences that you put on the internet for other people to read’

But it’s not necessarily just that. You see blogging has evolved into something else these days. I’ve certainly seen a massive change throughout the 10 years I’ve been blogging. And whilst yes, blogging is about sharing your ten pence worth over in your little corner of the internet, it is also about providing answers and giving useful information to your audience. This is especially true if your blog is new. Remember, people don’t know who you are. So why should you they listen to you and why should they come back?

By providing your reader with a solution to a problem or by giving them super useful information about a particular subject, you are giving them value. You’re making it worth their while to click on your blog post. What gets them to stay there, read to the end, and then return for more, is you and your writing. And that’s where storytelling and your personality come in and it’s also where you need to decide how much of you to give them.

Ultimately, this will come down to how comfortable you feel about opening up to your audience. To help you, ask yourself the following:

• Do you want them to know about your family?
• Do you want them to know and see where you live?
• Do you want them to know about any health issues you have?
• Do you want to open up about personal issues?
• Do you want them to know about your past?
• Do you want them to know about any problems you’ve experienced.

These are only a few factors to consider, but it’s a good starting place and a great way to get thinking about how open you plan on being.

Depending on the nature of your blog, it may be that you don’t need to get too personal. For example, if you have a crafting blog, it’s unlikely you’ll be drawn into discussing your health problems. That being said, as you build your audience and you get more comfortable about sharing things with them, you may find yourself slipping more and more personal information into your posts. Which is why it is well worth thinking about this now and establishing whether you’re OK with this.

How Much Is Too Much?

As I said, you need to call the shots on this. I wouldn’t recommend sharing your What3Words location, or your bank details, or any other personal details for that matter. But you are going to have to give your readers something of you. Otherwise, they might as well be chatting to an AI robot… and that is a whole other issue for me to go over in another blog post at another time.

People need to feel that connection. They need to feel as though there’s a real person behind the writing. And when that human connection is made, there comes trust and loyalty and an invested reader. This all comes from your writing and your unique voice.

My writing style is very conversational. I write in the same way that I would chat to a friend. I’m happy throwing slang words and swear words in their every now and again, jeez sometimes I even make words up, which anyone that knows me will vouch I also do in real life. I am also incredibly open and honest. I talk extensively about my perimenopause problems, how hard I find running sometimes, how much of an overthinker I am, and well I do love a good moan. And that’s what my readers have come to expect of me. They like that I am able to vocalise in my writing what they are thinking and feeling, it makes them feel as though they’re not alone and that they’re part of a community.

One thing I will quickly mention is that it’s worth thinking about who’s going to be reading what you write. For example, if you’ve told family and friends about your blog be careful about name dropping anyone, or having too much of an opinion about personal events that could offend someone – a blog isn’t worth causing massive arguments over.

Conclusion

Finding a writing style that allows your true voice to come through takes practice. It will come naturally to some, and others may struggle. But as with everything, practice makes perfect, so the more you write the better you will get at it and the more your ‘youness’ will shine through. One final thought I want to leave you with is that although your blog is fundamentally about you, if you want to make money from it, it has to be about your readers too, which means giving them what they want and writing it in your own fantabulous way. See… I told you I like to make words up!

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