A bloggers profile is an important part of developing ethos amongst her readers.
Looking for feedback from my savvy blog post readers:
- Are you likely to check out a user’s profile?
- Does a user profile determine whether or not you will continue to visit that person’s page?
- What kind of information are you expecting to find in a profile?
I expect to find two types of information in user profiles: personal and professional and probably a mixture of both
First let’s look at Allison Enge’s Profile
She blogs on blogger.com and I assume they have a generic layout of questions for the blogger to fill in, otherwise I just don’t know why she would need to input that her gender is female. I’m assuming it’s more for statistical information for the blogger.com people to look at gender statistics.
BUT it also tells me something about her, she is a go with the flow type person, it asked for her gender so what the hey she just filled it in. Her choice to do so, develops ethos with her readers, because it shows a sense of honesty.
Occupation is self-employed. Enge’s occupation is missing a chance to further develop ethos with her readers. Self Employed requires further explanation to build on her honesty. This is also a chance for her to develop her reputation and credentials.
Location Thief River Falls, MN. Giving her geographic location does build on Enge’s ethos of honesty further. Her location will more than likely develop a geographic pathos with certain readers, because they may have a geographic pathos to northern Minnesota itself.
Introduction
My name is Allison , although most everyone knows me as Allie. Or Nolan and Hannah’s mom.
While this introduction is few in words, it’s effective at developing ethos and pathos with her readers. Trust is developed through goodwill. “Most everyone knows me as Allie,” is friendly. Pathos is developed by the line, “Or Nolan and Hannah’s mom,” most people can relate to this. I’m Angus’ mom, not Beth to some people.
For favorite movies Enge lists only one, “How to lose a guy in 10 days.” The movie is a chick flick and a comedy and can further affect the pathos of her readers with people who also like this movie.
For favorite music Enge says,
I really listen to anything that my kids listen to so I can sing along with them and they can roll their eyes, I then just sing louder with the windows open.
This is consistent with the comedic pathos connection.
For favorite books Enge says,
My iPad is full of books from classics to stories of the Amish and who doesn’t like a little 50?
Once again, consistent with comedy.
Conclusion: Enge’s profile focuses on personal information and is making an indirect argument(logos) to read her blog because she is an honest, comedic mother.
Next looking at the Mama Bird Diaries Profile
Kelcey Kinter’s profile starts off with professional information. She has worked in the White House, has been a TV reporter and anchor and has a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University. This information is developing an ethos by inspiring trust through her credentials and intelligence.
Kinter shifts quickly to a different tone with the rest of the paragraph.
“I’ve lived in Montana where this city girl had to drive three hours just to find sushi. But nothing has ever kicked my bum like motherhood. It’s exhausting. It’s frustrating. It’s strangely addictive. Now I understand why my mother loves me so much.”
There is a lot going on in these 6 short sentences. Kinter is honest, she displays goodwill and a general moral quality that all contribute to her character. These sentences also present causes for emotion in her readers. Longaker and Walker identify this as pathemata, “to arouse, intensify, or change the audience’s emotion. Then the emotion functions as a reason for embracing an idea or taking action.” This idea that Kinter is after, is that her readers become loyal readers.
Dylan is my 9 year-old, Summer is my 6 year-old, Chase and Harlowe are my 3 year-old twins and Cash is our baby boy. (Yes it’s a lot of kids.) My husband Rick (an anchor for CBS Miami) is handsome, loyal, funny and an amazing dad. He’s too good for me. I hope he doesn’t realize it because there is no way I’m taking care of these children alone. We’re sort of like the Von Trapps if we were a lot more talented.
Kinter displays a lot of personal information that will continue to develop trust(ethos) in her readers. She also displays a bit of humbleness, which is important because her life does seem above ordinary and she doesn’t want to alienate her readers, hindering pathos.
Where I Write:
Kinter moves back into the professional information in this section. She contributes to other sites, she’s been rated, published in numerous newspapers, featured on TV shows, and has been a speaker at two BlogHer conferences. This is a direct argument(logos) to the readers as to why they should value what she has to say.
Consulting:
Kinter names a few huge brands that have hired her for consulting such as Coca Cola. Then she quotes herself as saying, “Too many of these companies are trying to promote themselves on social media with just boring promotional tweets or Facebook updates. They need to hire clever, funny writers who engage with the audience as a way to connect with women. Companies need to work harder at being part of the conversation.” This is another argument that Kinter is making to a secondary audience, saying that if you hire me I know how to promote your brand through social media and I’m good at it.
Conclusion: Kinter is developing a personal and professional argument to two different audiences. She wants readers to follow her blog and she also wants companies to hire her.
Meet Suburban Turmoil
“Lindsay Ferrier is a wife, stepmom and mom living in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to writing Suburban Turmoil, she’s host and co-creator of Tout Your Town, airing on PBS in Spring 2014. She’s also a contributing writer to CafeMom’s The Stir and The Huffington Post”.
The tone in Suburban Turmoil is different from both Enge’s and Kinter’s profiles. It seems that Lindsay Ferrier hired an outside source to write her profile. I also had a hard time finding her profile because it wasn’t in the usual place on the blog page, it is a tab in the navigational bar at the top of the page and it just says the word, “Meet.” This approach may negatively impact her ethos with her readers. Trust may not be inspired because she doesn’t even take the time to write her own profile. It does highlight her reputation and credentials, but the form in which they are presented may actually develop into a negative emotion for the readers. They may feel put-off and unimportant to the blogger, therefore they will question why they should read her blog or why they should remain loyal to her blog.
Writing
Started in 2005, Suburban Turmoil now gets nearly a million unique visitors each month.
This section is rather long, here is the link if you would like to read it all. I will just point out a few points.
This section states that her blog has been mentioned in magazines, newspapers, and websites, such as the Chicago Tribune, Redbook and goodhousekeeping.com. This establishes her credentials, and intelligence. Since many people, women in particular, read Redbook and Good Housekeeping, this could affect the pathos of the audience. The logos, or argument, would be: since my work is featured in these popular magazines and websites, you should read my blog because I have good stuff to say.
Next there is a paragraph on the awards she has won. Which may develop ethos because she must be knowledgeable on what she is writing about in order to win awards.
The next paragraph digresses to talk about the style blog she started and then sold to CafeMom. Though she still writes a column for the blog. I question whether this paragraph positively or negatively affects the ethos, pathos, and logos. If she is still writing posts for that blog too, it may confuse readers, on why they should follow her on this blog.
The next paragraph follows the same suit, here all the newspapers Lindsay has written columns for.
The next paragraph is her on camera/ television work. Which for the sake of brevity, I am going to skip over. I am going to do the same with her appearances paragraph, because the following paragraph is what I really want to get to.
Personal
Lindsay is wife to WSMV-TV reporter Dennis Ferrier, mom to 6 year old “Bruiser” and 9 year old “Punky,” (no, those are not their real names!) and stepmom to 20 and 23-year-old young women. She’s also caretaker of Dottie, a poodle/dachshund rescue dog from Bonaparte’s Retreat that Lindsay and her family are pretty sure is the best dog in the whole world.
Lindsay attends Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Nashville, which she secretly calls the Church for People Who Love Laughter and Food. And Also God. She loves to read, travel, cook, and spend time with her family.
Finally we get to the personal paragraph. I have had to wade through way too much professional information to get to her personal information. If her personal life is so important shouldn’t it be at the top? This really affected my ethos and pathos. I’m not sure why I should trust her as a mom, because I haven’t heard anything about why she loves being a mom and writing about it. I’ve heard how popular and successful she is, but the argument is missing as to why she is so successful. Why should I as a mom, believe what she has to say? Also, the continued third person narrative is very ineffective, especially for her personal section. This would carry much more ethos and pathos if she had written it herself. Also the fact that she doesn’t write this entire page, brings up the question about if she is too busy? If Lindsay is too busy to write about her personal life, should I reasonably trust that she is writing every blog post? She may be too much of a celebrity to manage this page anymore. All of these question continue to make me not trust her and what she has to say.
Conclusion: Way too much professional information. The third person narrative negatively affects, her ethos and my pathos. The location of her personal information seems to show where her priorities lie.
Just Beth 