Blogdentity Crisis
When I first started GenPink I had very clear plans in mind.
GenPink is about being a twenty something woman. Letting others know how our generation is different than those before us. We are career women, single & married, girl friends, and individuals. There is a delicate balance in being an individual and being part of a support system for your friends, family and your environment. GenPink is about balancing family and work, technology, entertainment, and exploration of new ideas.
I believe there are two types of people – doers and planners. Those who DO and then possibly figure out a plan and those who plan and prepare before they take the first steps. I am very much a planner. I research, doodle, plan, rewrite, analyze and compare options before most any big move in my life.
Before I bought my domain name and started this blog there was some seriously planning. Since opening my doors to the blog world I have diverted from my plan and for a while I was not able to figure out why.
Tonight, the answer came to me. From everything I have read about becoming a successful blogger the first and most important step is developing your niche. Simple – my niche is twentysomething women. This seems simple enough. Wrong!
The problem is being twentysomething is not really inclusive of anything besides a decade of birthdays.
When I was in college I had (still do) a great group of girlfriends. For me each girl friend brought out a different part of me. I spent the wee hours of the night doodling, xacto knifing, printing, gluing and all other things graphic design with my graphic designer friend. Naturally, my fashion design roommate was my go-to gal for all things fashion. My other roommate I would consider to be a bit of philosopher. We often spent late nights discussing life. Each one of my friendships developed based on our common interests. Collectively the 6 of us had a great time in college, we had fun, we cried, we laughed, we watched Sex and the City and we developed lifelong friendships. Now that we are out of college we are graphic designers, art teachers, fashion designers, mothers, photographers, wives, single, happier than ever and stressed out of our mind. How can my niche be twentysomething women when I don’t even have 1 word to describe my 6 college girl friends.
I could focus on myself and write for someone like me, but I am more random and diverse than any person I know. How many women do you know that get just as excited about learning a new CSS trick as decorating the imaginary house in my head.
I would never call my photographer friend to tell her about a fabulous font website. Just like I would only call 2 of the girls to tell her about this interesting intellectual post about Gen Y girls being princesses. I had a fear that blogging was the same way. But by trying to not leave anyone out I was striping myself of all my areas of interest.
So to sum things up the problem is I have too many interests.
The solution – I am just going to let myself be random. If you are reading this (and better yet are subscribed to my feed) and you could care less about graphic design, feel free to skip over my post about the fun color generator site. Also, I am planning a redesign to encompass my personal style and my randomness. I am open to any other solutions/suggestions to my blog identity problem.
My mom is a professional speaker and she starts many of her talks by saying "I will be covering many topics, I have many opinions and as always I say ‘take what you want and leave the rest.’ "
So from now on I will not hold back from writing about the cute shoes that I want for fear of not appearing to my intellectual friends.
