Having been a former marketing pro, I’m quite familiar with Al Ries’ “immutable laws” along with his whole body of work. That immutable law refers to extending a brand, as in your example of spreading the Coke brand too thin. However it doesn’t mean a company can’t launch another brand, say Coke launching Powerade. As a matter of fact Al Ries recommends this approach (checkout his book Focus).

So for example you could do create a blog called BlogWars to cover defensive PR in the blogosphere and build the BlogWars brand without issue. But if you created a “Problogger Blog Wars” blog, it might dilute the Problogger brand and confuse people…

It would be very nice if you would change the urls in the article from medgadget.nl to medblog.nl. But if you don’t change them the visitors will nevertheless automatically be redirected to the right page.

at the moment I barely have enough time to run one blog! I think having 2 would make it too difficult for me right now. Its one to look at in the future for me.

Thanks again!
Z. Glass
http://www.25ReasonsWhy.com
Author of: 25 Reasons Why I Won’t Hire You! and more…

And Chuck, I agree that a blogger should be passionate about what they write, but I believe it is possible to write well, and passionately on a number of well chosen subjects. Darren is one example but by no means the only one.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I need to settle on what domain to start with. Darren’s blog and the reader’s comments have taught me a lot in a short time. I really would value your opinions.

One a light hearted look at an expats life on the Costa Del Sol and the other dedicated to Timeshare sales and marketing solutions.

I have recently put the Light hearted blog on hold while I concentrate all my efforts on the Timeshare sales training blog.

My decision was based purely on time and readers demands. But it’s nice to have my other blog for the times when I just want to write about something light hearted and family orientated.

In hindsite I personally should have waited until I had established the sales training site first then started the light hearted blog when I had more time.

Hindsites a wonderful thing and what works for one person doesn’t always work for everyone.

Keep Blogging Fun

If you have two or more things that you are very interested in, and you are more of an ‘expert’ (or there is a bigger audience) in one, you might want to hold off and start a blog in a niche where you aren’t such an expert.

Why? When you finally get around to the thing you are best at, you’ll know what to do – you will do a much better job.

I have problems with “niche” blogging or site building by people who don’t have a legitimate personal interest in a topic anyway…but I see a lot of blogs, and based on what I’ve seen, few bloggers can sustain ONE blog with solid, helpful information, much less two.

Darren, of course, is one of those who does this very well…but I suspect that even he has to fight off a burnout factor with multiple posts per day.

Form my own personal experience, as well as that gained from observing others, I have come to believe that bloggers should blog ONLY when they have something to say that hasn’t been said before in the way they are going to say it (i.e., where is the added value?…otherwise, just link to the original blog that inspired you in the first place). And I believe you can cover different aspects and even writing styles and approaches just about as effectively by using categories within the same blog.

To me, one of the saddest things to watch these days is people scrambling to inform others with a base of knowledge and perspective for which they’re not qualified or truly interested…simply because they believe they can make money doing it. This love of the “make money online” concept can only lead to a bad place in the long run.

Instead, I believe we need to look to “help people online” with a unique, valuable presentation of information…and, once you’ve established that people care what you have to say (i.e., you are succeeding in helping them), THEN you have a vehicle by which you can (hopefully) make some money.

I write about literature and writing, which is a HUGE subject, so my blog could easily be divided up into a few different niche blogs. But I’m just starting out right now and learning the ropes. My blog is gaining in readership, but down the road I’m certainly open to branching out!

Thanks!

@Jasia: The workout playlists on my 2nd blog take an enormous amount of time – and at first I slowed down posting on my main blog, so I feel you totally. What works for me is writing every post on the weekend (or as close to it as I can get). Plus less sleep. At first I thought the less sleep was temporary – but I’m finally getting used to it because I don’t think I’ll ever get back to sleeping as much! Also if you can find other people to contribute articles (I actually pay others per review).

During the week, I finish up any posts that need finishing, comment and do all the other things required to run successful blogs. Still fine tuning the process though. Good luck.

Nice post, never really thought of having more than one blog to convey different kinds of images. In your case though, it’s not like you maintain two blogs on your own, its just that you contribute to both, so I see how it makes more sense.

-Terra
http://www.BetterForBusiness.com

The #1 ranking is based on a few different measures (see Darren’s Medgadget link above). The Morning News Fix is a regular feature my readers enjoy, but I understand if it is not to your tastes. :)

Tim,

Hmm. That’s a great question. You’ve stumped me! :)

And for a health blog, there are mostly posts about morning news fix on the blog.

I find the post interesting but I really dislike people claiming that they are the number #1 blog in something. Let others do the talking for you if you are that good.