Bloggers Festival Guru

As a blogger, unless your blog serves an online personal diary, building an audience is important. One way to build a loyal audience is to set the right tone for your blog. There is no one right tone for every blog. Being clear on the purpose of your blog and the audience you wish to reach can help you set the proper tone.

 

 

Know Your Target Audience

This seems obvious, but knowing your target audience is essential to developing the right tone. You must often dig beneath the surface to find your blog's target audience. That audience often determines what information you include in each blog entry as well as your blog's overall tone. The subject area of your blog often provides clues.

For instance, a blog on technology innovations might target people who are always first to try out the newest gadgets to hit the market. Your blog entries could also be directed toward people who shop for technologically advanced products because they perform specific functions. These two audiences are significantly different from one another; blog entries for these audiences would also differ in tone. In the first instance, the tone of your blog entries may emphasize the “cool” aspects of the products you write about. Blog entries for the second type of reader might take a more no nonsense approach.

If you blog about alternative forms of energy, you may write a blog entry about electric cars. If you're writing for auto buffs and technology experts, your blog entry would include a discussion about the car's range as well as intricate technical details about the car's electric engine. To reach ecologically-minded readers, a blog entry on electric cars would probably address the car's lack of emissions, as well as concerns about coal powered plants actually providing much of the energy that powers electric cars, as well as discussing what happens to spent car batteries. The tone of the first type of blog entry would assume the technical expertise of your audience, while the tone of the second type of blog entry would assume your audience's political savvy.

Let Your Passion Show

Unlike newspaper reporters who are instructed to remain objective regardless of the subjects they write about, blog writers are more like columnists and editorial writers. As such, you should allow your blog entries to reflect your unique point of view. If you actually don't care about what you're writing in your blog, why are you writing it? This doesn't mean that you don't have to concern yourself with providing accurate information. However, you're not limited to a “just the facts” approach in presentation.
Be Consistent, Yet Flexible

Once you've identified your target audience and developed your blog's tone, it's important to maintain consistency. Blog readers who expect entries filled with charts, graphs and detailed explanations will be disappointed to read an entry that is heavy on opinion with little or no hard data to back up your claims. On the other hand, major news developments related to your blog deserve acknowledgement on some level, either within a blog entry or perhaps in one or more blog entries especially devoted to the news event.