“Your voice is what makes readers feel like they’re catching up with a close friend when they visit your website. The best brand voices reflect real people, and writing in your own voice should come naturally to you. But as your audience grows and your content evolves, it’s important to make sure your style is consistent and professional.” ~ Kate Kiefer Lee
Click here for her full post on Design*Sponge’s Biz Ladies segment.
I originally started blogging as a way to talk about my wedding without talking my co-workers’ ears off about my wedding. After the wedding, though, I lost steam. I really wasn’t all that sure what to talk about. I still loved blogging, I loved the discussions and the interactions and the support and the feedback, I tried some creative rebranding, some redesigning, some features, some challenges…and something still eluded me. Still does.
I realized recently that I still haven’t completely decided what I want to do with my little corner of cyberspace, and that has to be the number one thing you consider when figuring out any kind of presentation. So I’ve been exploring that in an effort to find my voice.
I discussed on an earlier post where we should draw the lines between real and fake, and between real and too real. Obviously, even in this age of social sharing, there are personal struggles and issues that should remain private, but if we refuse to acknowledge those struggles or that we have them, we’re faking it. On the other side, we want to present our best possible selves, but we don’t want to run into that over-retouching line where life becomes art. There’s a definite blend of art and science to presenting yourself on a blog!
I want to be myself on my blog. I eased into blogging with pseudonyms and blog-names, but that gets old. I’ve seen a lot of people make the switch, or just throw their hands up and say, the hell with it, I’m so-and-so and you all knew that anyway. Yes, that brings with it some anxiety, but that’s some of the same anxiety I feel about “being myself” in life in general. For all I say it’s okay to be a woman in the armed forces, to like fashion and entertaining and social networking as much as adventures in foreign lands and obstacle races and football and motorcycles, I still feel self-conscious putting all of that out there. I think that conflict has also made it hard to find my voice, but this blog has been a good exercise in getting over that.
I’m probably not the only professional woman who struggles with that. I’m not the only one dealing with the pressure to conform, with all the strange looks that I get when I tell people that not only am I happily married but we’re following my career around, not my husband’s, with all the eyebrows raised when I tell people I’m in the army but, yeah, I kind of like cooking and art and wearing stuff that isn’t digital camouflage. When people ask me what’s going to happen to my career when I have children, there’s generally consternation when I tell them that it isn’t “I,” it’s “we” and since my husband’s going to be working out of the house anyway, we’re covered.
But it’s something I want to talk about.
I want to provide a resource and potentially a forum for career women {and not just them, but the men who appreciate them as well} out there to talk about how they’re making things work, not about how they’re being forced to choose between life and a career but how they’re overcoming the obstacles that forced those choices. I want to talk about what I do and the lifestyle, because that’s what my young lady cadets asked me about most frequently, and what relatively few people are able to tell them.
And I want to talk about beauty and fashion and presentation – just because we’re career women doesn’t mean we’re immune from the impact of that first impression. I want to talk about fitness and food and the contribution those make to enriching our lives. I want to talk about the glorious fun of travel to far off places and the adventures I’ve had there. I want to talk about living full and rich lives and making an impact, however we decide to do that. That’s my passion.
That’s where those of you who visit around here can help me out. What brought you here to this blog of mine? If you’re a frequent reader, what keeps you coming back? What kind of content do I publish that you find the most helpful? What would you like to see less of {and don’t worry, I don’t usually post looooong entries like this one so you’ll see less of those!}? Please feel free to comment here, but if you don’t feel like commenting directly, you can always email me here.
KCS
