I probably read about 50-100 blog posts a day. A good half of these are probably business/marketing/social media related; down from nearly all I read about 6-8 months ago. In truth, that’s still too many, but I live in constant fear that someone is reading more than me, thus knowing more than me.

[In reality, there are lots people that know more than me. There will always be people who read more. And the doers not the readers are probably learning way more anyway.]

Carlos wrote a great post on this phenomenon.

The point is there’s an ebb and a flow to everything. I can’t read enough to know more than everyone any longer than a great blogger can consistently put out top quality content. I know this because I used to put out a top posts from around the blogosphere (of what I was reading) each month.

I remember months when Chris Brogan was stellar, others where Valeria Maltoni’s writing stood out, or David Armano’s. (For the record, Amber Naslund’s on fire right now). Bloggers who put out so much content will be better some months/weeks/days than others the same way baseball players go on hitting streaks or get in slumps.

Sure, the best players are usually near the top; but those top spots, they fluctuate.

That’s why most people settle into a niche.

And I believe it may be why many Gen Y writers are shifting away from writing about business, marketing and social media.

Seth Godin’s Linchpin talks about having the ultimate combination of high passion vs. high wisdom. And if we’re being honest, most of us who are Gen Y simply haven’t been in business long enough to necessarily have high wisdom.

If we stay with the theme of honesty, most of our elder peers would be reluctant to put us in the top stratosphere of business bloggers anyway.

The solution?

Get out of the echo chamber and write about our own lives.

Sydney is a great example of this shift that I’ve been witnessing for awhile now. As she was finishing school and scouring for an internship/job Syd wrote about a lot of social media and digital marketing topics, but shortly after becoming full-time at Weber Shandwick she altered the theme of her blog and made the transition to a much more personal route.

I can’t speak to Sydney’s reasons, but here’s my rationale on why so many younger (I’m trying to get away from the whole Generational labeling thing) bloggers are transitioning to a more personal approach:

1.) We blogged about social media marketing as we were learning about it, but we have the foundation now, which leads to…

2.) It’s so tough to break through the echo chamber day in and day out in order to stay near the top of such a crowded space. Sure, you can write an incredible post one day, but the next 3 you’re probably just adding your $0.02 to what Jason Falls already said.

3.) We’ve realized that social media isn’t this ridiculous craze, but that it’s part of the fabric of a lot of other things we do with respect to business. With the shine gone, perhaps we’ve grown a bit burnt out by all the chatter. Maybe our heads are down and we’re trying to get results, new things to talk about.

4.) With an increasing emphasis on relationships, transparency, and ideas we actually find reading about the everyday lives of others and the challenges they go through more pertinent. We still don’t give a crap about what anyone had for breakfast (unless we’re reading a fitness blog, right?), but we do like witnessing how other people our age are navigating similar career and social situations. Especially once we’ve grown to know these people.

5.) We’ve come to understand that with so much information at our finger tips virtually anyone can find the information they’re looking for online (how they organize and synthesize that information is a whole different story for a whole different post), and so maybe one way to stand out is via our ideas and our personalities. This is the goal of Brazen Careerist.

What do you think? Is the climb to the top a difficult one until you reach a certain point in your career? One that probably demands you’re a little older?

Are the reasons I’ve mentioned responsible for younger bloggers writing more about their personal lives and their own experiences than social media?

Have you made a similar transition in your own writing?

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