Jay Dolan make some good points in his presentation on authenticity. He started by acknowledging that being afraid to put yourself out there is normal. For anyone who has ever had a blog they know that it can be extremely nerve wrecking the first time they publish a post. The idea behind blogging is to let the world hear your voice. You want to let the world hear your opinion and invite people into your thoughts but how far is too far?
Jay started by pointing out that in order to keep your readers you have to deliver genuine content. Many times this means exposing a bit of your personel life so that people can see your human side. The issue arises, however, when trying figure out how much of your personel life to put out there. As a blogger you have to figure out where the boundaries are and commit to keeping them. You don’t have to share everything about yourself in order to be genuine. You are allowed to take on a “persona”. We all do it. Social media has enabled us. All you have to do is ensure that your persona is genuine. As Jay pointed out, letting people know you struggle with depression would be very real and genuine, but if you are not comfortable with doing that then you don’t have to. Your online persona can be just as genuine if you just put a little thought and creativity into it.
If you want to watch Jay Dolan’s full session or watch any of the other sessions you can do so at Blog World Expo
