Blog with Passion

During the Wordcamp Philippines 2010, I attended a talk on “Blogging with Passion“.

I have been blogging for several years now and I admit there are times when the passion to write wanes. It is as if I just write to meet deadlines for online tasks and not write about what is “in my heart and in my mind”.

So how does one blog with passion?

The answer is simple: LIVE A PASSIONATE LIFE.

How? By doing the things you love and by sharing these with others so that they may learn a thing or two. If one lives his/her life with passion, it shows in how well they communicate their experiences. I know, because I write with a passion to share my experiences too.

Bloggers are receiving a lot of flak these days because of some issues regarding some offline activities that have significance with their online contents. Ok, this is about those who managed to have themselves invited to events they would not have otherwise been invited in the first place.

Blogging is supposed to be an “online diary” where the writer, or ok, the blogger, is free to write about the things he/she wants within the limits of course of the proper netiquette.

Bloggers are not supposed to be indebted to the companies who give them free dinners/lunches and freebies, be these in the form of gift cheques, product samples, tours and what-have-yous.

But if one gets invited to these events, then write about what the event/buzz was all about but make sure that your own point of view is incorporated in the post.

If one thinks he/she is compelled to write a post in exchange for the freebies, then write a disclosure about it and be clear that the writer is in no way connected to the company lest others have the wrong impression.

Yes, it would be better to put some personal insights in the posts they publish to avoid the copy-paste posts.

There I said it. There is a proliferation of copy-paste bloggers (where the scrapers are not included because that is an altogether different matter). And their tribe is alarmingly increasing.

Sometime ago bloggers like me, who write some posts  for online companies for paid links, were the target of flak. That we are writing under false pretenses and putting in links that are not supposed to be there, is what others think we do.

Putting a weight loss tablets link in a post about a totally different topic is a big no-no for me. So there, sue me, joke.

I see no point in bashing these bloggers who write for a few $ (like I would bash me huh, lol) because how they write their posts and put in the links really depend on how well written their posts are (am not saying this because I perceive that I write well, I don’t). It is not cheap to blog and if there is a way to blog and earn, both in decent manners, then why not?

This time, it is another sort of bloggers that are being targeted by others (bloggers, traditional media people and other people in the know) : the people who love to go to events and at the same time, willing to wrestle their way to get into those events they were not invited to go to in the first place.

I go to events, yes I do. I even say that I have been fortunate to be invited to go to such things. In other words, I often disclose that I did.

It looks bad, of course, to those who spend a lot of time and energy building up the blogger’s reputation as new media forerunners.

Maybe the PR agencies are still learning the ropes but for how long, I can’t say. Maybe these bloggers have learned a lesson about these unfortunate branding, maybe they didn’t. Maybe people will learn not to generalize others because of a few who exhibited such behavior, I can’t be too sure too.

In the meantime, because the blogosphere is a small world, it pays to be a better blogger and not lose sight of why we blog in the first place.

And why we introspectively remember why we even started a blog at all, I wish each one of us: world peace and more passion to live a passionate life!

Ciao!