As the internet keeps on evolving, it has been easier for people to create an online persona. It is becoming a new trend to have an online presence. In PUB101 I have built an online presences related to my interest about art history. Throughout my experience as an online publisher I have learned much more about how to build an online presence and the challenges one will face.
I created my blog called “Let’s talk about Art History” because during highschool I took a course called Art History 12 AP. I really enjoyed this course because I had a very artistic youth, being a photographer, being a son of a photographer and being dragged into many museums on family vacations. One concern I had about my highschool course was, it didn’t go into much detail of artworks I was curious about. So I decided to blog about Art History, to answer my questions I had about interesting historic artworks. Many photos that are on my website are some of my favourite art works and that is what made it so easy and enjoyable to write about. Knowing most of my information about art history really helped me create a blog that was personal to me.
One important lesson about publishing is tailoring your writing for your audience. According to University of Maryland, “Knowing your audience helps you to make decisions about what information you should include, how you should arrange that information, and what kind of supporting details will be necessary for the reader to understand what you are presenting”. This was something that I had to focus on when I was writing my blog posts. Before any post would go up on my website I always had to have an idea of who would be reading it. My audience was visual people aged between 25-55 years. Due to my audiences age, my writing was very sophisticated and straight to the point, providing the reader with proven facts. When creating my website layout I made sure to have more visuals than words on my homepage because my topic was very visual. Once users hovered over the images with their mouse, a small snippet of my article appeared and if they were interested, they could click to see the entire article.
Compared to the beginning and end of PUB101 my idea of publication has changed. Before enrolling in PUB101 I really didn’t know much about publishing. All I knew was that it was going to be a challenge creating an online persona that actually resembles who I am. However, after a few weeks of my website being up, I began to find it easier to build an online presence. I was able to make everything look how I wanted it to be and made everything personalized. Eventually, since my website’s design started to fit my personality, so did my writing. I started to go into deeper thoughts of my feelings, through my process posts and even my blogs. I even gave my opinion on history and what I would have done differently compared to pharaohs and kings. I probably won’t be interested in posting my articles on my wordpress once the course is done. Moreover, I will be taking into fact when posting to social media, that I can be fairly personal with my online presence. Online websites gave me tricks on how to better personalize my online writing. For example, writing as I speak, use personal language and tell personal stories. All of these tricks helps the readers understand me more. When comparing my first blog posts to my last blog posts, I can see the difference in how I became a more personal writer and I plan on continuing this with my social media accounts.
There are currently 75 million blogger websites, so many people will have similar challenges as I did when creating their blog. Many people planning when creating a blog will have to face trying to make their website more personal, appropriate for their audience and will have to know their information, in order them to have a successful blog.
References:
- Rowse, D. (2011, March 23). How to Write in a More Personal and Engaging Tone. Retrieved November 27, 2018, from https://problogger.com/how-to-write-in-a-more-personal-and-engaging-tone/
- Writing for an Audience. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.umuc.edu/current-students/learning-resources/writing-center/writing-resources/getting-started-writing/writing-for-an-audience.cfm
- How Many Websites and Blogs are on the Internet? (2018, September 27). Retrieved November 27, 2018, from https://blogging.org/blog/how-many-websites-and-blogs-are-on-the-internet/