Brain Wads

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Should Professional Blogs Get Personal?

If any of you have been following my blog for more than six months, you've probably noticed that it has gone through a bit of an identity crisis more than once. I've updated, redesigned, and changed my content focus and page layout numerous times. A couple of months ago, I finally found a layout that works for me. At least for a while. The thought of this identity crisis made me think more about blogging in general. It's a question a lot of bloggers face. Should you have a professional blog or a personal one? Should you maintain two separate blogs or have a 'hybrid' of sorts?

My first couple of blogs were purely personal - journal entries about my life road map to living in Chicago. It then moved onto weekend recaps and other random life musings. Then I decided I wanted to charge up my professional life up more through a blog. So I began to focus on just professional posts around marketing, emerging media and loyalty programs. The professional posting is what really helped my blog take off in regards to traffic but I still wanted a creative outlet to post things just about me.

I migrated to Tumblr with Thought Spasms. I now had two blogs.

I had intentions of making my Tumblr blog a journal of sorts. So far, it's mainly turned out to be where I post photos and videos that I find particularly cool but don't want to necessarily write an entire post around it. The interface of following other blogs on Tumblr is really cool and I've enjoyed the platform. However, I'm still at a loss.

Should I blend personal posts within Brain Wads again?

Sure a lot of my marketing posts mix in with personal life experiences. It makes sense to draw insights from those type of events. But the mundane, non marketing or tech related events in my life that I want to blog about...does it have a place here?

I'm looking to you all for feedback and advice: should blogs be purely professional, purely personal, or a hybrid of the two? Is it possible to mix business with pleasure in the same online space? Or should I keep maintaining profiles in two separate places?

What do you all think?

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