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One blog with multiple topics, or two focused blogs?

  1. rastewart
    Member

    I have a blog (http://flamingcatheads.wordpress.com) and am co-author of another (http://3catalogers.wordpress.com) focused on issues in my profession, but also have an old inactive blog (on another service) that was a little more personal and free-ranging (literature, music, libraries generally, whatever else came to mind). I've been thinking of creating a successor to that one on WordPress. The alternative would be to expand Flaming Catheads, maybe with a cataloging category and an everything-else category, but I have the feeling it would be better to keep Catheads focused and do another blog for the other stuff. I'm just curious as to what the sense of the WordPress community is. Thanks!

    The blog I need help with is flamingcatheads.wordpress.com.

  2. sberkun
    Staff

    Traffic wise it seems best to have one blog with multiple categories. You'll have one site with more content, more cross-over between posts, etc. And it will be easier for you to manage as you'll only have one dashboard to log in to. Many popular and professional blogs wander between topics.

    But if you want to keep these things separate to avoid any confusion between your work identify and your personal identity, and that's the most important consideration, multiple blogs are the way to go.

  3. rastewart
    Member

    Hmm, I hadn't thought of the traffic aspect. Thanks for pointing that out.

  4. raincoaster
    Member

    As someone who posts to seven blogs five days a week, TRUST me when I say it's far easier to manage mentally when you concentrate on just one or two blogs. It's much easier to write and write well when it's a smaller number of sites.

  5. maidiebike
    Member

    Why not merge the 2 blogs somehow? I did look at your 2 blogs briefly. The 2 do look quite related. I like the flaming catheads blog title better. :)

    I am also part of your profession but none of my blogs cover knowledge management and content management matters at this time. If I want to showcase my expertise in this area, it would be a lousy mix with ..cycling, sustainable communities, art and food!

    http://www.thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com
    http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com (personal blog)

  6. maidiebike
    Member

    Also your audiences for whom you are targetting for 2 blogs are the same/very similar. So no problem merging the content into 1 mega-blog. (or meta-blog)

  7. rastewart
    Member

    Thanks for the nod to my title, maidiebike. :-)

    I should have clarified what blogs I was talking about. You're right that Flaming Catheads and Three Catalogers cover very similar ground; I don't feel quite free to merge them, though, because 3C is a group effort and Catheads is strictly my own. I have, like a good cataloger, linked them with lots of cross-references where it seemed appropriate.

    The original idea was that Catheads would be more opinionated and, if you will, more philosophical about trends in cataloging and bibliographic control, while 3C will keep its focus on highlighting useful resources and alerting the cataloging community to news such as the RDA open-access period (apologies for the jargon, non-catalogers). The news and useful-tips page versus the editorial page, as it were, or in professional terms the Ask the Catalogers! blog versus the Philosophical Cataloger Explores the Big Issues blog. I've been a. busy b. distracted by our library's reorganization c. a lazy slug d. all of the above and, obviously, haven't given Catheads the attention it needs to differentiate it sufficiently from 3 Catalogers.

    What I was thinking about was ... just what the world needs ... a third blog that would be much more free-ranging in subject matter: libraries (not just cataloging), but also literature, jazz & classical music, the excellence of the trombone & fiddle, urban wildlife (critters, not parties), pipe smoking, philosophy, language, the occasional political foray, and whatever else crosses my mind, such as it is. Does that clarify the situation a bit more? The alternative would be to graft that on as a kind of second room to Flaming Catheads.

  8. maidiebike
    Member

    I'm sure by now you have specific opinions/ideas on not just libraries, but also about taxonomy development and metadata standards which would be of great value to others not formally trained on principles and real life applications of expertise on a huge, broad scale, particularily on user behaviour.

    So the Catheads blog allows you to do some rebranding and launching more broader blog in this direction, if desired.

    Then it frees you up for third blog completely on topic selection, writing style and photo selection. (I really recommend this as well as for the cataloguing blogs since cataloguing is not merely a technical exercise, but an intellectual one on how people ascribe meanings to words in order to organize information better --from their own world perspective.)

    The lst blog third wave cycling does have a general business focus and hence, needs to stay on subject. It is written for a more narrow audience. This blog does not promote my personal blog in a direct way at all.

    My personal blog, cyclewrite, gives me greater freedom to write on subject matters that include both cycling and other topics.

    If I wish to express my opinion on cycling infrastructure development from the standpoint of knowledge transfer and knowledge management in this field, I would be expressing it in third wave. This audience includes people whose job portfolio includes cycling. The photos are specifically chosen to be pertaining the subject, not because they show pretty scenery. I actually had a debate with the firm's prez about this because I feel occasionally an arresting sideline hold a reader's interest. But no..

    Such a topic would not be covered in cycle write blog which my audience includes friends, family and cycling enthusiasts.

    However I have been amazed on which posts/topics have been most popular in third wave blog.

  9. maidiebike
    Member

    Though raincoaster's comment about writing for multiple blogs requires some head-focus juggling..for myself, I find synergy to write for 3 blogs. It allows me to plant certain topics/angles related to cycling to different audience targets.

    http://insidevancouver.ca/author/maidiebike/ For this list of articles on an organization's blog, these articles reach the broadest audience possible internationally as well as for locals.

    The most important thing is to keep and distinguish difference target audiences for each blog through topic selection, 'voice'/writing style and blog purpose.

  10. rastewart
    Member

    Thanks very much to all who have weighed in. The whole discussion has been very helpful in sorting out the issues to be considered. At this point I'm still inclined to create the third, more personal blog in order to keep Catheads more focused and, as you say, maidiebike, to make it a means of defining myself professionally as well as exploring cataloging/metadata/cognitive-mapping issues. But I'm going to give myself a few more days to think about it while I post a bit on Catheads and tweak its format a little.

    I looked at http://thirdwavecyclingblog.wordpress.com/ (very cool design!), http://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/ and http://insidevancouver.ca/author/maidiebike and can see how you have kept the approaches distinct. As an aside, they also made me think I should get my bike out again. (And made me kind of wish I were spending my summer in Vancouver, instead of Chicago where the temperatures are in the 90s (F) day after day and the air sodden with humidity. But I digress, just as I do on my blogs.)

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