Most of the really successful blogs I know are good because they focus on one thing. Whether it be Engadget, Perez Hilton, or Smashing Magazine, each of these top blogs cover a specific topic.

While those blogs may be required to stick to a topic, the idea makes me think about the goals and missions of this blog. Would I be more successful writing only about restaurant reviews and cooking? Or just about fashion and beauty (though, maybe I’ll leave that to my friend at Sprinting in Stilettos)? What if I focused only on social media and marketing, one voice among many friends?

Part of what makes me unique as a person, is that I have multiple tastes and different ideas about things. Arbitrary rules that don’t make sense. Sure, everyone does, but I’m so weirdly consistent in my inconsistencies that it makes more sense for my blog to be a bit all over the place. Take food for example…

Examples of my food quirks:

• I won’t eat raw tomatoes in slices, wedges, diced or whole (like cherry tomatoes). I will eat them diced in salsa, as ketchup, soup, or as flavoring in a larger dish.
• I’m allergic to all nuts but peanuts and almonds. That said, I’ll eat peanut butter, raw peanuts, and almond flavored foods. I won’t eat plain raw almonds, unless they are smoked.
• I don’t eat fish dishes or other things that taste of the sea. But, I will eat fried fish (fishsticks, fried cod, calamari, clam strips), salmon loaf, smoked salmon flavored cream cheese, and the occasional crab cake (with lots of filler).

If you think about what social media professionals evangelize, it all comes down to authenticity and transparency. Usually this relates to a company offering a personal voice to the corporate blog, or making sure to be genuine and accountable for their actions on and offline. Whether this means being open and honest when a crisis happens, or providing great customer service, success for these companies usually comes with a personal touch.

I think this can translate to a personal blog as well. It wouldn’t be true to myself, or my "personal brand" if I focused on just one topic. My thoughts, interests, and ideas are all over the place. It’s hard for me to identify a niche audience I want to cater to, when I read and enjoy so many other types of blogs out there (just look at my blogroll). I don’t want to write for just one type of audience, I want to draw in people like me, with many different interests. And, most of all, I want to blog for myself. Which is just about as authentic a thing as I can think of to do.