Blogging in English or German?

Just a couple of weeks ago a friend mentioned that my blog is just SO English. And she is not the only one who recognized that. Ever since I published my blog I have been asked why I have chosen to write my blog in English.

Well, I have put some extra thinking in this question and considered switching to German over and over again. Spoiler alert: I decided to stick to English for the time being after I answered myself following 5 questions:

1. WHAT DO THE STATISTICS SAY?

I have published my blog only 2 months ago in December 2015, but still I check my visitor statistics at least once a day (but YES my blog is only a casual hobby.. aaaabsolutely^^). The stats include information from where my blog has been viewed and surprisingly enough the share of non-german speaking countries is about 10% and has increased from December to January. Well, therefore I thought there is some potential to reach international readers with my blog in the long run, right?

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2. WHO IS MY TARGET AUDIENCE?

With my blog I have the feeling (or hope) that the target audience will find me rather than the other way round. But Marketing taught me that it is crucial to define ones target group in advance. And so I did. I decided that I want my blog to be read from all over the world (raise the bar, right^^). Especially during my semester abroad in New Zealand I made international friends with whom I want to share my stories. After all they will be part of the one or another flashback story 🙂

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3. WHAT IS MY VISION FOR MY-TRAVEL-EMOTION?

Even of higher importance than the target audience is the long-term vision. And believe it or not – I have one for my blog^^. Besides travel stories and tips I want to put greater focus on the emotional part in future. Posts on emotions associated with traveling or not, like trust, love, family, friendship, disappointments, forgiveness, empathy, motivation and many more will follow in the next months. In my vision, both topics – traveling & emotions – will merge. I want to interview people on my journeys on their thoughts and experiences towards my especially featured emotions. I want to integrate portraits and enrich my posts with different views from other cultures and foreign countries.

I know this is a long way to go, but when you reach for the moon you will still land among the stars when you miss it.

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4. WHAT ARE THE PROS FOR WRITING IN ENGLISH?

Firstly, as a non-native speaker I see a great advantage to improve my language skills when writing my blog in English. I kind of got rusty when it comes to English vocabulary and storytelling. Writing this blog in English brings back and strengthens some skills – at least I hope so. Secondly, as mentioned before it supports me in achieving my long-term goal to win an international readership.

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5. WHAT ARE THE CONS FOR WRITING IN ENGLISH?

Being a non-native speaker is on my contra list as well. It takes me far longer to write a post in a kind of acceptable style. I do a couple of proofreads before I publish a post and still I am quite aware of some grammar and spelling errors being left. This can of course reduce the likelihood of loyal international readers as I am kind of picky with errors on websites myself. Besides I know from first feedback of friends and family that English hinders them from regularly reading my posts.

One could now argue that the cons side is longer than the pros list, but I always stress the lack of weighing the points on such pros and cons lists and after being online for just 2 months I want to stick to my initial goals, target audience and vision. At least for now…

In the meantime I appreciate any kind of feedback, experiences and thoughts on that. Comments are of course welcome in German as well 🙂