Writing Strategy 41: Don’t Offend the Audience(s)
If you see changes on my site, they are always after deep thought. I feel that not being aware of and not respecting ones writing audience is what can keep good blogs from becoming great. Lots of changes occur in my writing before it gets posted.
Some of my readers will recall my recent post1 on rules of conversation where I state the goal of rhetoric as being to please all and offend none (ideally). It was brought to my attention today by a language blog I frequent that my site, which I had bannered as a “language blog,” “has no posts on language.” He went on to mention some of the commercialization aspects that turned him off. That makes sense, because I put them there not for the sake of language bloggers, but for the sake of my commercial/personal blog audience that seems to comprise the bulk of my readers. Of course my blog has language topics throughout, but not as the title “language blog” apparently connotes.
As the author, I make the choice what to call my blog. This is very important. In my case, I made my blog a “niche” blog and called it a language blog because I wanted to attract a narrow but enthusiastic audience about my subject. When I found that a commercial/personal blogger audience was reading Riley Central more, I should have weighed my decisions equally between all known audiences specifically by asking, “What will turn off the language bloggers?” . . . commercial . . . personal etc. I put up some commercial material recently (Like this post . . . buy me a Starbucks . . .social bookmarks . . . etc.) and blogged about some personal events that had nothing to do with language. As a result: I imagine I lost some language blog readers.
To wrap this up, I hope you can see the universal truths in this rather than just my particulars. Choosing a niche is important. How to broadcast your niche is even more important. It all gets back to defining your audience, then being aware who it is and being sensitive in your decisions to that collective audience. I hope this “back of house” information helps someone out there! It truly applies to all types of writing.
I started to say that this post just negated my earlier comment on audience for everyone, but it doesn’t. It merely means we have to know who our audience is. That is a weak point for me, defining audiences. It has kept me from finishing my children’s book because I have no clue who I am writing for, I am writing strictly by instinct. I get an idea and words just fall onto the page. I thought the story I wrote was for younger children and two different 12 year old girls fell in love with it. I found myself questioning if they were ‘normal’ 12 year old girls (I didn’t know them) or if the one or two I knew were just too mature for their own good. . . I need a professional person to figure all that out for me. . . and, of course, the money to pay them.