Blogging or professional writing?

Are you a blogger or a professional writer (for the digital media)? Actually, there are slight differences between the two. I do both myself. Let me make an attempt to distinguish the two.

When we blog, we usually talk about things that are of interests to us, and we want to share our interests with the world. As well, we will post pictures of ourselves or of the things that interest us or our readers. So, to the majority of the population, blogging is a leisure activities. Bloggers may write for fun, or may write when they feel like; and bloggers usually do not target a certain group of readers. (Well, there is more to blogging to certain professionals, I will leave that out for the time being). There are no specified length on blogs. It is totally up to the bloggers how much they want to write. Readers are encouraged to leave comments for the bloggers. Chances are your blogs would receive real readers and they might also become followers / fans of your blogs. Some bloggers would even turn into writers!

The professional writers, which I refer to as writers in the digital media, are writers who get paid to write. They may work full- or part-time. They may be freelancers, or they may go through agents. Different from blogging, they don’t write to show their personal interests or tastes – they don’t write for fun. Instead, they will write for someone else, like promoting new products, or new company services, etc. And when the professional writers write, they will target their articles to certain audience (be it search engines or real readers surfing the internet). The writing will be limited in length since the writings have to capture the audience in limited amount of space or time. There is limited to no interaction between the writers and the readers. Please also note that these writers may have to start writing for free, until they get their reputation established.

I am working on both at the moment. And obviously, I don’t get paid to write professionally, since I have not got my name out there yet. Nevertheless, I will work hard on this direction. I love writing – both blogging and professional writing. They are very different and both enjoyable!