Mamacita says:  What is blogging today?  Yesterday, blogging was an extension of our selves.  Blogging expressed our personalities, and shared little bits of our lives with strangers who often became friends. Today, many people “blog” to make money, to pimp products, to be living billboards for Disney. . . .  There is nothing wrong with that, but those kinds of blogs are not really what “blogging” is about.

There is a big difference between a business blog full of content marketing and a personal blog full of you and me.  I think we have lost the concept of personal blogging in the excitement and heat of blogging for profit.

But there are many different kinds of profit.  If you are blogging for the express purpose of making money, good for you.  If wearing a badge that proclaims you as a Mommy Blogger and nothing else, well, if that’s what you want. . . . Proud Disney blogger?  That’s nice.  Every post offers your readers a freebie if they jump through a few hoops?  That’s nice, too.  Not everybody likes every kind of tea.  We’re all different.  We like different things.

Some of us blog with no labels.  I think those blogs are the best kind.

I’m not referring to actual business blogs here.  Those have a perfect right to pimp their products because we expect them to.  It’s nice when they throw in a little personal life, too, and the best ones know that and do it.

There are still many of us old-school bloggers, and some newbies as well, who are still expressing ourselves on our personal blogs.  Some of us are writing for businesses, too, but it’s our personal blogs that probably opened the door to that.

My point?  Please don’t abandon your personal blog – the blog that introduced us to each other and shared your lives with us – because you’re too busy now blogging for money.

I’m really not interested in reading about how your family loved your free  kitchen appliances, or how Disney gave you free passes in return for positive blogging about your experience.

What I AM interested in is your day-to-day life.  That includes your vacations and your love of cooking, sure, but it’s better without the constant references to all the freebies you’re getting by mentioning products by name.

Once in a while it’s great, but if that’s all you’re blogging about. . . . if that’s all you mention. . . . if it’s obvious that a post isn’t a personal glimpse into your life and is merely a Hallmark commercial trying to tug at my heartstrings and convince me to purchase something. . . . that’s not a blog.

That’s just a marketing post.

Please, bloggers.  Let’s bring back the personal blog.  Keep the pimping on the honest business blog.  On our personal blogs, let’s be ourselves again.

Those personal blogs that introduced us to each other all those years ago were wonderful. Bring back the wonderful days.

Please?

P.S.  A conference that focused on personal blogging and not on product placement and pimpage would be nice, too.  Can we bring that back?  Oh please, can we bring that back?