# Personal vs. branded blogging

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2014-08-27

architect-this-city, atc, athiscity, blogging, blogs, branded-blogs, brandon-donnelly, curbed, lockhart-steele, personal-blogging, sustainable-cities-collective, this-big-city, uncategorized, vox-media

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As I approach one year of ATC and as people like Lockhart Steele (founder of [Curbed](http://curbed.com/) and [Eater](http://eater.com/)) return to [personal blogging](http://lockhartsteele.com/blog/2014/08/back-to-the-blog/), I wanted to share something that’s been on my mind for almost this entire last year. And that is, should ATC just be a personal blog or should there be some greater end goal?

Right now it’s a bit of a hybrid. It’s hosted at brandondonnelly.com, but along the way I created a somewhat independent [Architect This City brand](http://brandondonnelly.com/post/70622984732/the-story-behind-the-name-architect-this-city). The most obvious option is to continue to grow ATC and turn it into something like [Curbed](http://toronto.curbed.com/), [This Big City](http://thisbigcity.net/), or [Sustainable Cities Collective](http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/). In fact, a good friend of mine emailed me a few weeks ago and asked me why I’m not doing that.

But to do that would require a lot more time and many more posts a day. It would also mean more restrictions on what I can, or should, write about. Personal blogs are, well, personal. Branded blogs typically require a focus. Today I live comfortably in between both of those worlds. I write almost exclusively about city building, but I introduce many personal touches. Architect This City has become my personal brand.

In many ways, I feel like this tension is a natural one. With the rise of social media and the belief that “[everybody is their own media company](http://garyvaynerchuk.com/every-single-one-of-you-is-a-media-company/)”, more and more people are finding themselves debating whether or not they should position themselves personally online or create an independent brand.

At the same time, blogging is evolutionary. It’s a laboratory. And most of the benefits are entirely indirect. Writing helps you get your ideas on “paper” and sort through them publicly. And sometimes that leads to unexpected outcomes. I mean, in the case of Lockhart, he started blogging about his Lower East Side neighborhood and that gave birth to Curbed, which he then [sold to Vox Media](http://allthingsd.com/20131110/vox-media-spends-some-of-its-giant-funding-round-on-lockhart-steeles-curbed-network/).

So as much as I try and plan out where I think blogging everyday could take me, it’s also good to sit back, enjoy the ride, and just see where it takes me.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/personal-vs-branded-blogging)*