According to media writer Simon Dumenco, “there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing - writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology” (Scocco, P.1). The use of a blog is to efficiently provide ones written materials to a specific target audience in communicating a product, concept or idea with your personal branding. To do this effectively, bloggers, or writers, must create their blogs with a specific purpose and target audience in mind, then cater the design and content to hold greatest impact for this audience.
In evaluation of blogs created by my fellow students in COM480 Communication Studies Capstone, I found all created blogs to hold many valuable components and key attributes necessary to effectively target their intended audience. For the purpose of this class, students were to create a blog showcasing their written work to potential employers, including both assignments from the COM480 class, along with previously completed written work and assignments from past classes. The blogs I evaluated are as follows; Communication Happens http://communicationhappensblog.blogspot.com/ by Chassity Beals, The Expert Witness Communicator blog http://the-expert-witness.blogspot.com/ by William Gulya and Communication Today blog http://lilgunny.blogspot.com/ by Dolly Burgos.
The first blog I reviewed is Communication Happens. I really like how clean this blog design looks, and it looks very professional with a monochromatic color scheme and a good amount of “white space” on the pages. I think that many readers in her target audience would find this design appealing as it communicates professionalism. On the opposite side however, some readers may find this layout to lack personality and it could be perceived as plain or boring as most of the pages do not contain any pictures to break up the flow of text.
On the Communication Happens blog, I also like the drop down options under the “Sidebar” tab to customize the view to the readers’ personal taste. Personally, I like the “Magazine” view but I found that not all of the views work (such as “Snapshot”) so that would be something to update in the future. Also, I found the right hand menu not to be very user friendly. I actually found it by accident when I moused over it looking for information about the author and I think if it was more visible on the page it may make the blog a bit easier to navigate. As far as content, Chassity excels in providing appropriate content for her readers, although I would recommend a subtitle to provide a bit more context to her readers on the purpose behind her blog.
The Expert Witness Communicator blog has a lot going on and I appreciated the direction provided in his blog summary on the home page as it provides context to the reader as to the purpose of his blog. I think it is a fantastic place for William to advertise his book and found that very exciting. He also has a lot of information on his blog, which is valuable, but I think it may be helpful to categorize them with sub-menus or something to make the extensive content a bit easier to navigate. Also, this might just be my computer but I have to scroll from side-to-side to see the full blog page, something I don’t prefer and don’t recommend for blog design. If the page setup was narrowed, or perhaps the margins were narrowed a bit, I think the blog could be more user friendly.
The sheer volume of content available on The Expert Witness Communicator blog sets William up as an expert, which I believe is valuable in achieving credibility with his target audience of potential employers. However, while I really like the introduction description under the page name, but I found it hard to read when the white text overlaps with the white on the background image. Maybe that text color could be changed to a grey or blue to be easier to read. To me, the background actually detracts from the professionalism of the site as it makes the header and description difficult to read, thus showing a lack of consideration for the audience. It could be inferred that the writer was more interested in his stylistic preferences than in the usability of his blog, something I know is not intended by William.
The Communication Today blog is bright and cheerful. Based on the blog design, color scheme, font colors and pictures I feel like I know a little bit about the author and she seems like a friendly writer. I would recommend adding additional pages to the blog to showcase other pieces she has written. In its’ current state, this blog only has one page and the content seems very sparse. When targeting potential employers with this blog, the hope would be to provide a wealth of writing examples to showcase Dolly’s writing prowess, however this is not the case currently. I would also recommend including a short summary or introduction statement under her blog title to provide context as to the purpose and intent of the blog.
As a final note, since this is a blog for professional use I think it would be ideal to use her name rather than “Travel Hound” in the “About Me” section. If this is too personal, perhaps initials or “Ms. B” to continue the professional vibe.
During the online discussion surrounding this assignment I received feedback from classmate William Gulya regarding my blog, Communication: A Two-Way Street. He shared positive feedback regarding the color scheme and layout of my blog and recommended that I take some of my posts and make them separate pages to add balance to the blog as opposed to endless scrolling. I found this to be helpful feedback and adjusted my blog so the home page only shows the three most recent posts. Additional posts can be found by clicking “Older posts” at the bottom of the home page, or by selecting the post by name from the blog archive list on the right hand tool bar. In this way, readers do not need to scroll endlessly on the home page but still have quick access to all my blog posts.
Chassity Beals also reviewed my blog and did not identify any points for improvement. She did however mention that even a “passerby” reader may want to subscribe to my blog, which reminded me to add subscription buttons to my blog home page, which I did immediately. I also added a badge for my LinkedIn profile after the “About Me” section to allow readers to learn more about me on a professional level.
Viewing blogs as an efficient outlet for professional writing, it makes sense that writers must create their blogs with a specific purpose and target audience in mind, then cater the design and content to hold greatest impact for this audience. I believe the feedback I received from my classmates has helped me raise the caliber of my blog in its current state and I look forward to future improvements as I make my writing more available to the online community.
References
Beals, C. (2012, June 7). Communication Happens [Web log post]. Retrieved from
http://communicationhappensblog.blogspot.com
Burgos, D. (2012, June 7). Communication Today [Web log post]. Retrieved from
http://lilgunny.blogspot.com
Gulya, W. (2012, June 7). The Expert Witness Communicator [Web log post]. Retrieved
from http://the-expert-witness.blogspot.com
Scocco, D. (n.d.). 50 Thoughful, Funny and Polemic Blogging Quotes. Retrieved
June 10, 2012, from http://www.dailyblogtips.com/blogging-quotes/
Weaver, J. (2012, June 7). Communication: A Two-Way Street [Web log post]. Retrieved
from http://communication2waystreet.blogspot.com/
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