Nisha, great post and I completely agree. I consider myself to be a personal brand blogger. I am all about learning so naturally I am drawn to blogs that will provide me with information that I can apply in my own life and business. With that said, I still do read personal blogs, but find that they do not keep my interest nearly as much as the personal brand blogs.

In my opinion, it is always best to have a blend of your personal life mixed in with your thoughts on topics that concern you—oftentimes; you are not the only one so personal brand blogs allow the perfect opportunity to simultaneously educate others while throwing your two cents into the mix. Personal brand blogs generate more discussion to me. There’s only so much you can say about someone sharing where they went on their family vacation ( again, nothing wrong with this, but you get my point).

I have been blogging about my job search, networking, social media and a personal interest, Geocaching.

While I haven't posted anything in about two weeks I have some posts I'm working on in relation to my networking activities the last 2-3 weeks.

I have been writing more about my networking efforts, because I feel that's where some people can relate to and gain some insight into. I have been reading more blogs like this as well to give me some direction as well in what and how I write.

I also have written some job search tips, and other items of interest, so my blog is focused in general around networking, social media, and my job search.

I agree with what Matt wrote too, all starting out as personal, my first few posts were just that, but as I talked with more people about my blogging efforts including the "should I host my own blog?" question I'd ask to a few people in my personal network.

I came to discover that people were interested in finding out more about it, so I took the leap from wordpress.com to my own hosted site, and not long after that I had gotten the attention of some local media as well.

I'm not afraid to get 'personal' but at this point I've chosen not to get too personal, I agree with your statements about not selling yourself, but being passionate about particular issues and topics, though depending on what you do, selling yourself can be part of it too.

Because I am in transition career wise at this point, I have chosen to write more about networking, social media, and other topics more closely related to landing my next career opportunity. I want to keep my blog more in line with that, but once I do come to that point where I've got that opportunity, the focus of my blog may change and be a bit more personal than it is now, but the focus will likely still be on the topics I'd mentioned before as it is what I am passionate about.

@Matt -- I definitely agree a lot of us start as personal bloggers, and the best blogs combine personal and professional.

@LaTosha -- agreed, and that's the consensus I've been getting from a lot of comments here and on my own blog -- that people want to learn from blogs, but they want to see personality from the writer as well.

@Brian -- my blog is still young, so I haven't gotten a lot of tangible benefits from it yet -- but you should talk to Ryan & Ryan who started this site -- they've gotten job offers, press coverage, and started a company because of their blog. So there's definitely tangible benefits, depending on how much you put into it. It isn't all about your Google results.

@Martin -- Sounds like you're doing a great job with your blog. Your strategy of writing about topics you're passionate about will definitely help you - but I definitely think you can still write the personal stuff even now if you want; it'll show your personality as a writer.

My question is, what if slavish adherence to the status quo, gearing your blog for as much traffic as possible and blogging the same old staid content actually stifles the flow of new ideas? I cannot count on any of my limbs the amount of blog posts I've read that have titles like: "7 cool ways to do this" or "10 handy tips for this" but often the content is not cool or handy at all, it's just old & obvious. Does this mean I'm reading the wrong blogs?

Nisha - What if the blogs I'm talking about are run by bloggers that are hot property on the internet and that everyone loves and admires? To paraphrase Mugatu from Zoolander, sometimes it feels like I'm taking crazy pills... all the looks are the same!

No but really I get very disillusioned with it all sometimes because it really all does seem the same and no fresh or new at all and yet these people are stars on the internets. I mean I find the subject matter interesting but it's just hard to find fresh perspectives these days and not just people blatantly driving traffic with various tips & tricks like provocative titles and bullet points.