Image courtesy of ijsendoorn
Here’s a sight that I’m starting to see more often around the WoW blogosphere. Bloggers are shifting the focus of their blog onto something else entirely. Incidentally enough, a post on the Blog Azeroth forums asked this very question:
Does anyone have any experience of changing the focus of their blog? I like being the Feather Duster, but would it be a bit dishonest of me to keep going like that, when a large proportion of my posts will be about alts?
Those of you just starting blogging have time to think and to plan ahead. The blogs that are already established have problems doing a 180 shift and writing about other topics on a full time basis.
Why is that?
When you brand your blog, brand it as you
Whether you’re aware of it or not, the moment you start a blog it is considered your image. You have to pick your face and your brand accordingly. Many WoW bloggers blog from the perspective of their class. Some solid examples here are dwarfpriest and resto4life. Instantly by looking at their web addresses, you already know what they’re going to be about.
By that same token, when you look at a blog url like worldofmatticus.com, www.groupsofwords.com or toomanyannas.com, you don’t have that same feeling of knowing what you’re getting yourself into. Heck, you might not even be aware that they’re WoW blogs. But this gives us an advantage further down the road.
ChickGM asked me a good question a while ago:
Why World of Matticus? Why not World of Mallet?
When I started my blog, I did not know how far I wanted to go with it. I didn’t know if I would be changing the focus of my blog in the future. I didn’t know if I would still be playing and writing about my Priest 8 months down the line or if I’d be bored. That’s why the blog is named after me and not any of my toons so that I have the flexibility to change.
Another possibility is if I decided to change servers and the name of the toon was already used. Wouldn’t be cool now, would it?
What’s wrong with changing focus?
Nothing.
Imagine what would happen if:
- Coke stopped selling drinks and sold cars
- Nike stopped selling athletic wear and sold desktop computers
- Amazon became a lingerie and womens wear company instead of being an online shopping powerhouse
It’d be weird at first, right? It would take time to get used to the fact that your favourite companies aren’t selling the products you wanted from them in the first place. The end result is that you turn to their competition to get the stuff that you want.
Let’s apply this perspective to WoW blogs. I have a Shaman kicking around that I use if muscle is needed anywhere. There’s a few select blogs that I go to in order to catch up on Shaman related stuff.
What were to happen if they were to one day stop writing about their Shaman and decide to write about Mages instead?
And this right here is a big pet peeve of mine. If I go to a Shaman blog, I want to read about Shaman stuff. I’m in for a surprise if I go to Warlock blog to read about Warlocks and find out that the author has shifted his focus to Hunters even though everything about the name, the layout, and the posts just scream “WARLOCK STUFF”.
What would happen if Phaelia decided to just write about Rogues one day and switch her mains? It would suck massively :(.
So for all of you potential bloggers out there, keep these ideas in mind when you first start writing. If you pick a brand and a name that’s distinctly associated with a class, you will find it hard to shift later on down the road when you’ve already established yourself as an authority in said class. If you don’t have a problem with that, then by all means feel free to continue.
I just want to repeat myself and say that there is nothing wrong with changing your focus if you can plan for it accordingly.
But if you do plan to change, expect a pretty hefty uphill battle as you may lose some readers. It could take some time to re-establish your audience numbers to what it was before the swap.
And there’s nothing wrong with suddenly finding yourself slammed by real life, as my good buddy Matt keeps telling me. Let the world know you’ll be gone for a while, and come back with your sanity and sense of humour intact. <3 !
Hey, at least I could switch mains/blog focus to a Restoration Shaman, amirite?
Phaelias last blog post..Epic Dolls Episode 43: Druid Discussion
Perhaps that is why my “Warcraft blog” turned into a “Hunter blog” not long after I started it… the name is fairly hunter specific after all!
Pikes last blog post..So You Want to Play a Hunter? Part 1
Phaelia: Truesauce aura!
Pike: Aye, simply because of the word “aspect” which cues the brain into thinking “hunter”.
You had me panicking for a minute, then I remembered the blog name is Armaggedon’s Coming.. ok that’s nice and generic, ohh no the url is gnomeaggedon.
Looks like I am stuck with ending the world at the hands of a Gnome.. plenty of options there still…
But yeah good point, the blog isn’t purely about Gnomes, or the end of the world. Still I couldn’t help myself.
Yeah mine (Ardent Defender) is pretty much branded. Life of a Tankadin playing Defense! And when they Arrive a Death Knight Tanking and playing Defense. What can be better than a Ardent Defender?
Galohearts last blog post..What Do I do When Not Raiding
Critical QQ is now about Moonkins.
Euripedess last blog post..Anger at Things in Specific
Generic “life of a nin” ftw!
😛 maybe I should focus more, since I don’t think I have yet written two posts on a single topic 😀
2ndNins last blog post..On the divisive nature of Zul’Aman
I’m happy you made this point. When I chose my blog name I was very cognizant about the brand. Time will tell whether I’ve made the correct decision.
Now to work on my branding…
Jays last blog post..Another Great Game on Kongregate
I guess Tankette’s Rambles is a pretty good description of my blog. I’ve thrown in a couple posts about my holy priest alt. I’m not starting a second blog for him, lol.
Tankettes last blog post..Smooth Sailing Raids
“Amazon became a lingerie and womens wear company instead of being an online shopping powerhouse”
Well, we are a retailer for that: http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=14333511 and http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=1040660
Lol, I suppose I lucked out on naming my blog; yay for me!
Daxenoss last blog post..Back
Can’t go wrong with musings of a nut job =).
I’ve wrestled with my blogs focus a little bit over time. I started it because I didn’t have anywhere I could talk about the game and my experience with it. So, my blog started out as a wow diary where I could talk about what was on my mind.
Fairly quickly this developed into what I thought about my main class and spec. I also noticed there were very few resources out there to help moonkin make the correct choices. So my blog has become more of a Moonkin help site.
I wonder if I am boring people with my non-moonkin stuff that are looking for help, and I worry that others write me off because they don’t care about moonkin. Plus most of my traffic comes from my Kara gearing guide and I worry that I would get no traffic if I stopped my moonkin posts.
The truce that I have struck with myself is that I write what matters to me. (Gray Matter. Get it?) Since I care about moonkin then I will write about moonkin.
If I decide to make my Spriest my main or to stop talking about my moonkin then I have to deal with the consequences. But that shouldn’t matter. I do it for the out let, and I don’t have many readers anyway.
Graylos last blog post..Spell Damage vs Spell Haste (for Moonkin)
Great post, although I’m a total offender. That being said, I’m not sure that I really have anything that useful to say, or that my blog has much of an audience to worry about.
And as a blog reader, I rarely visit a blog just to learn about the class. I’ve never played a priest, for example. But I find the bloggers interesting, and across classes there is so much that happens in WOW that I can relate to.
That being said, I can see where a shift in focus could be weird for many readers (thinking BRK at the moment), and such changes would definitely have to be planned out.
Thanks for a great post as always. Love the site…
Seidhkonas last blog post..Future talent builds…
I have only recently joined the WoW bloggers, and I wish I had read this post before I ever reserved the domain. My by far favorite character is my protection warrior, and yet, I don’t play her much at the moment. I mostly play my rogue and a little bit of druid. I will want to write about them, but will I hurt my fresh blog by writing about them? I don’t know.
So far I am trying a balancing act by providing tank content specifically to give me leeway to post about alts now and then. At least I have no intention of fully changing to posting about any alts, but it’s an interesting thought.
Kadomis last blog post..A new resource for healers
Well I guess I’m stuck on playing pink pigtailed gnomes then… 🙂
Actually I don’t pick the blogs I read out of class. I read blogs that have shows personality, that sort of speaks to me in a voice I like. Blogs that represent different aspects of the game. On my blogroll you’ll not just find mage blogs but a bunch of dedicated pala blogs, druid blogs and so on. If Blessing of Kings, for example suddenly switched his main from a pala to a shaman, so what? I like the way he writes, no matter if he’s writing about pala stuff or anything else. I always learn something from it. He has branded Blessing of Kings to be something bigger than just a pala buff if you see. He can switch focus as much a he likes – I’ll hang on to him anyway, trust me, as I will to all the other guys and girls on my blogroll. Actually some of you can even blog a bit about other games than WoW, about gaming in general – and I’ll still read you!
You have branded your blogs by other means than just finding the perfect name and nieche. You’ve branded it by working on it daily, by simply blogging in a honest way, from your heart, with personality and style. That goes a long way to, and overrides the class aspect, from my point of view. But maybe I’m a bit odd in my broad taste for blogs?