5 Reasons You Should Start A Personal Blog

With the Advent of Artificial Intelligence, the future of blogging is the personal blog. 

The first time I read Eat, Pray, Love, I fell in love with it. 

The author narrates her life story in a funny, profound, and moving way. We all have experienced overwhelming feelings that are difficult to explain. Many of us have been in a rot, unsure how to get out. Then, we have been caught in a situation where the future looks cloudy, and the present is like a dead end. Eat, Pray, Love is one woman telling us how she walked through those things and other things that are more beautiful. 

Artificial Intelligence and Writing 

Artificial intelligence has improved lives in many ways since its invention. Cleary, what are computers for? They are meant to make our work and life easier. Like ATMs, which are great examples of AI, they make it easy to withdraw money. You don’t need to ask a human to check your bank balance all the time; all that data has been fed into the machine, and it will give you funds based on the information it has about your bank balance.

In simple words, AI is a technology that automates a process or execution task(s) when it is given an explicit instruction called a ‘prompt.’

Nowadays, AI can write articles, essays, or even books, and it’s been a hot topic in 2023. 

Should AI be allowed to use people’s work as data? 

Is it legal? 

Since AI uses data, it works based on being fed people’s work. There is a lot to unpack, but I need to take a step away from the topic of ‘How AI is making it hard for human writers to get jobs’ to ‘The future of blogging is a personal blog.’

Writing Fast but Uninteresting Topics 

With a prompt like, “Please, write an essay on how to make money as a writer,” Artificial intelligence can write articles that are error-free and a bit detailed in less than the time it takes to throw a punch. 

In the past, this is what blogs do. Bloggers write articles on topics. When you seek answers, you go online to ask and end up on someone’s blog to read answers.

With AI in the industry, it’s faster to create such articles. But here is the issue. AI is using existing content to create new ones. They look like they are paraphrasing something that already exists. This used to be a beautiful thing, but when AI steps in, the game changes. AI has taken over what used to be a human form of expression. 

But there is a niche that will never be saturated. 

And it’s all about human connections.

Humans writing for humans

In the future and currently, most people will engage in human relationships with other humans. 

Think of your favorite social media apps. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok.

Who are your favorite creators or influencers? Will you still follow them or like their content if they use Artificial Intelligence daily? 

The answer is probably no. 

Because they are humans.

Because you like the way they do things, their uniqueness, funny memes, or ideas. 

In this case, this is something Artificial Intelligence cannot replicate yet or will never replicate. 

You.

Your personality.

And your experience.

So, it’s time to use that to your advantage. Start a personal blog.

What is a personal blog? 

A personal blog is an online written documentary of a person or group of people. It follows the style of having a blog for writing and expressing ideas, but the unique thing about it is that the major part of the content is continuously what a person does or thinks. Think of it as journaling or a diary, but a bit more refined. 

1. A Personal Blog is easy to make unique 

On a personal blog, one of the major parts of the content is you. Your face, your identity, or your personality, your name. Think about those YouTube channels you have seen of couples. It’s always about the couple, what they do, what they eat, or how they treat each other. Even if they do exactly what other couples are doing, they will still be unique in how they do things.

So, bring that into a personal blog, and you will have the same results. Make yourself an integral part of your content. Then, people will check you out. Even if you don’t run an entirely personal blog, make a significant part of the blog about yourself, and you will get many more followers.

If you are looking out for people who do this, check out 

• Waitbutwhy 
• Stephsmith.io 

2. Personal Blogs Are The Future of Blogging 

In the old days, people followed blogs because they had the assurance that someone with a unique personality was behind the blog. 

This same applies to other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. We follow people with unique personalities and content that interests or resonates with us. We rush to open their posts when we get notifications. 

But with artificial intelligence, it is hard to get the connection that comes with interesting people when all we have is their words or images. 

A personal blog (a personal story) can connect people to your content more. You are not just teaching. You’re teaching from experience. I have seen examples of this on the internet with people doing challenges, like 100 days of code. On Instagram, I have followed an influencer who posts daily after they move into a new country. 

This type of content is only common to a personal blog, and it is easier to follow if the insights are great and the personality behind the content is smart and charming. 

3. A personal blog is hard to compete with 

I use myself as an example. What are the chances of finding another person on earth who thinks the way I do, a man who went to the same local schools that shaped my experience and perception of life, studied architecture (as a hobby, literature, and psychology), does SEO and Web development?  

If you follow this blog religiously,  you will see these are the things I write about. Some of them get tons of visitors. Some don’t. But the overlap between all these things makes it hard for anyone else to replicate (I’m not sure if anyone is interested in replicating it). It is impossible to do the same thing Tim Ferris does because he does Tim Ferris, even if you write about suicide or a 4-hour work week or start a podcast. 

I’ve been learning to code. The best thing I have read about coding is a lady sharing how they started and explaining their tips on their blog. It is important to mention that sharing quality and helpful tips is still the core of blogging. Reading someone’s experience is far better and more memorable than what ChatGPT can create.

4. A personal blog gets true fans

People follow people. People love people. 

Marvel has a lot of fans because of what they do, but it’s not the same as how inspiring or happy people feel watching or seeing Spiderman. 

It’s how things work. 

We love football clubs, but when it comes to important moments or memories, we will start talking about players. We love brands or corporations. But other people are what give us memories and passion.

The term ‘True fans’ I am referring to here is from Kenny Kelly’s essay, where he posited that 1000 true fans are all anyone needs to make a living as an artist.

5. You already have the beginner resources (you) 

If you want to start a personal blog, the first question is, what do I have to say? The answer to that is your experience, fascination, and skills. What do you enjoy talking about? 

If you have a great career or otherwise, people will like to learn from you or (feel connected to your experience if you’re struggling). 

You just moved to a new city. You can go around and talk about things you see and experience like you are an alien on a new planet. People will enjoy reading that.

This is different from starting a business blog or something like HBR. You need more than your writing skills and blog hosting. 

Some of the challenges of starting a personal blog 

• It will take longer to monetize personal blogging, except in cases where you have a large following somewhere and can easily convert that into a blog audience. You will have a harder time monetizing a personal blog generally, but that depends on how valuable your content is and the size of the audience you can grow. 
• You will be boring to a lot of people. Humor is one of the best weapons you can use, but it will still be hard to keep writing every year without feeling like you bore people. 
• Your blog will become a part of what you represent. It is neither good nor bad. It’s hard to dissociate him from his blog. What if the type of content you write about isn’t that sexy? Would you like to be associated with that kind of content? In this case, you can hide behind a pseudonym.