Guest Author - Sharlene Thomas

A late visitor to the 20th century, the business/personal blog has become a major tool in today's world. Whether or not having your own blog is a smart career move requires considerable thought. A blog is forever. Online. For eternity.

Blogging Is Seductive

The information highway has created an interesting phenomena -- a daily baring of our souls to perfect strangers, with a seeming disregard to consequences. Blogging is seductive. Repeat: blogging is seductive. What begins as tentative commentary subtly evolves into sharing information you would normally never divulge in a face-to-face conversation.

Going online in the privacy of one's office or home creates an illusion of anonymity and nebulous friendships. Bloggers can use multiple identities to meet the needs of their interests. Real identities are hidden (from technophobics) within the provider's records, available only through subpoena.

Some blogs are just too fascinating to skip and others shouldn't be given a moment beyond the first five words. And, reading blogs is a great way to procrastinate under the mantle of "research."

Getting Caught in the Blog Bog

For the small business owner, a subtle change occurs when blogging is used as an online advertising tool. Reviewing more than 30 such blogs over a three-month period revealed a pattern of the old neighborhood corner-store friendliness evolving. Surfers return for a daily dose of what's happening and regular customers buy product.

It's at the outset that a decision has to be made by the blogger -- just how much information can be shared with the public (perfect strangers, actually) before losing professionalism.

A business blog is meant to keep one's name in front of the public as much as possible. Surfers want new information, preferably, on a daily basis. If they like what is written, you'll get bookmarked for an easy update.

Hard to Control Your Audience

The personal touch in a business blog requires an understanding of the full impact of shared information with your audience in any single entry. One's audience. There's the rub. You really don't know your audience. Your subscription list may or may not have real identities and the size, alone, may make profiling difficult. You won't have the tools or the time of big business.

Writers, performers, and niche marketers focus on speaking to those interested in their products and services. Blogging is different, falling somewhere between a selected audience and a soap box sales pitch in Hyde Park, a forum opened to any passerby.

Blogs are fun to read, and write. There's an almost cathartic quality to them and therein lies the danger. Big business can control website blogs by department editing, if necessary. That's not always the case with the solo home-based entrepreneur.

Blogs Can Sabotage a Career

Too often, bloggers slip into revealing information they would, normally, keep to themselves. If you're running a home-based business, have a website and blog, it's not too big a stretch to assume that not only the general surfing public but your clients, as well, may be reading your blog.

It's all too easy to take a mental day off and create a more personal column, nothing heavy, just a little venting. Stop! This is the moment where you need to determine just how prudent it really would be to share any kind of information that would suggest there may be problems meeting deadlines, finding room to work, getting rid of toe fungus.

Regular clients probably subscribe to your blog. Sharing the fact that you can't get two hours together to get work completed because of family pressures and scheduling is like waving a red flag in front of a client. It doesn't really matter that you can point to years of satisfied customers. The client will only see that you can't find the time for them, which can make it very sticky wicket if you should have to ask for an extension on a deadline, regardless of reason.

And, clients aren't stupid. If you can find the time to blog, why can't you find the time to do their work? In my opinion, sharing trials and tribulations of your professional life, with a subtext of helping others in your field, would be best kept to that great online networking solution, the forum.

Blogging's False Intimacy Leads to Self-Sabotage

Take a page from big business and keep your career-oriented blog free of self-sabotaging information. The false intimacy created through blogging is the true danger of going online. It's "Dear Diary," with all the pitfalls and potential. Your blog is not a journal, and it doesn't have a key to keep others out. Used wisely for your business, it's a great advertising tool. But, if you wouldn't tell it to your neighbor, don't tell it to the world.