Being, or Recognizing, A Credible Internet Writer

Introduction

When I first began writing on the Internet I was far less aware, than I am now, of the extent to which Internet writers often try to fool their readers in one way or another.  Close to four years after first discovering Internet writing myself, I'm really amazed at the amount of apparent "phony baloney" writers there are online.  What's happened for me is that as I've spent more and more time reading Internet contributors' material, I've noticed that I seem to have picked up a little more when it comes to seeing, reading, or sensing pretense (or out-and-out "baloney") when I encounter it.

As a result of knowing more about recognizing "baloney" in online writing, I've realized that I'm a whole lot quicker at immediately clicking away from profiles and articles that don't come across as credible.  As time has gone on, I've noticed how much more often I click away out of a sense that someone isn't credible, and I've wondered if there's just been a massive increase in the numbers of people who are trying to "pull crap" online.    That's, of course, a possibility; but I think, instead, it's that I recognize "baloney" sooner now than I once did.

Sometimes being a "phony-baloney" when it comes to one's profile isn't all that big a deal.  If someone wants to say he's a 20-year-old college student (for some reason), when he's really 40-year-old father of three; it's not such a big deal if he writes articles such as "how to polish your shoes".  After all, if he writes a decent article about how to polish shoes who cares if he's a 40-year-old or a Martian.  An Internet writer who posts poetry or short stories isn't even aiming to establish himself as "credible".  Creative writers don't have to worry much about credibility (although even they may disappoint - and lose - readers if those readers start to get the drift the writer has been lying about who and what he is).

For Internet writers who write about subjects that are more complex, and less black-and-white, than something like polishing shoes; however, credibility can make the difference between a reader's clicking away almost immediately, and staying and reading.

I have no idea what anyone thinks when they see my writing.  None of us do.  Particularly since my HubPages writing is free-time writing, rather than "business-only" writing, I suspect my frequently "do-my-own-thing" approach may lose readers who are looking for writing that is more "the standard, professionally written, web article".    As a writer, I don't mind losing potential readers who searched and got (in my article) something other than what they wanted.  I just don't want to lose readers because they can't trust that my writing is genuine. I know, too, that my "do-my-own-thing" approach isn't particularly what many Internet people would suggest Internet writers do.  My aim here isn't to try to tell people to do things the way I do them, because the "do-my-own-thing" approach isn't always right  for people who write for purposes other than to do their own thing.  The aim here is to point out the kind of things that can lose credibility for a writer, and to point out that, in the long run, credibility is an important thing for Internet writers.

A Conscious Effort Toward Establishing Credibility

In spite of my being less aware of detecting phonies when I first began writing online than now (and I don't pretend to have any magical, sixth-sense about detecting baloney today, by any means), I was well aware of the fact that people generally know they can't believe everything they read on the Internet.  I wanted anyone reading whatever I wrote to know, if nothing else, that I was "telling it like it is" (to the best of my understanding of what "like it is" is).  I didn't expect, or need, people to agree with me.  I didn't expect or need anyone to just accept what I said (especially if the article was about something that one might hope would be written by someone with more expertise than I have).  What I hoped people would know was that if I wrote an article based on research, I was someone capable of researching and someone willing to share resources.  If I wrote something that was based on personal experience, I wanted to share what that personal experience was.  With articles based on opinion, my aim was to share what had led to my forming that opinion.  To be honest, in an Internet world that was, at the time, fairly new to me, I was a little insecure about the possibility that people wouldn't believe what I wrote.  While I didn't care if people didn't like what I wrote, I cared very much that they knew it was written with sincerity and a good faith effort.

"Baloney Radar"

Most readers, I think, have some sort of "Baloney Radar".  As I said earlier, with some articles it may not matter much if the author's profile or writing gives off "Baloney Signals".  A good part of the time, though, it does.  After all, even if I only want to learn how to polish shoes, I'm likely to click away at the first hint of "Baloney Vibes" (sometimes not because the article looks questionable, but because I may wonder if an apparently phony writer has stolen that otherwise professional looking article).

I can't pretend to know that phony writers never manage to do well with Internet writing.  Maybe some do.  If they do, however, they need to be fairly skilled at being good phonies (I'd assume, anyway).  Usually, writers who lack credibility don't appear to do very well on writing sites.  In fact, there may be perfectly "legitimate" and honest writers who don't do well because readers can't trust them, based their profile, their other Internet offerings, or their writing.  (For example, particularly polished, grammatically correct, articles found on a profile that would otherwise suggest the person can't write English well or wouldn't have experience he claims to have is likely to lose readers - or at least the readers who want to be able to believe the writer, and believe that he, in fact, wrote the material.  I don't know about anyone else, but I know if I suspect a writer has copied material I'm not sticking around, no matter how well written the article appears to be.  I'll go looking for a different article on the same thing in the hopes of supporting a writer who is both credible and capable.)

Things That Can Lose Credibility (and Readers)

The "quickie" profile.   I'm not suggesting that other people do with their profile what I've done; because with my trial-and-error approach to my profiles (on any site), some approaches that seemed like a good idea at the time can end up looking - what - odd, or too much, or too little.  We often live with our profiles for quite awhile.  I go back and forth between one approach and another, depending on a mood change every several months (or more, or less).    My profile aside, the "quickie" profile is about three or four inches long (or less).  It either offers little or nothing about the writer, or else it comes across as if the person who wrote it has made a lazy attempt at establishing a persona.    The "quickie" profile usually has no image or else an image that looks like the person has been looking for so many images for so many profiles, he has become lazy and posted "whatever" for a picture.

Lack of personality/unique tone in the writing.   Common advice to Internet writers is to say only what needs to be said, and keep the article straight and to-the-point.  This is solid advice in general (at least for people aiming to write "professional" articles).  Even so, an article that looks too flat also can look too "generic".  A generic-looking article can be fine (and even "professional looking"), but a writer who has only generic-looking articles needs to find some way to make his profile seem "non-generic".   Internet readers may be different, but I know that if I search for something online and get even a professional-looking article, if the picture looks like the contributor "just posted whatever" as an image, I'm not going to read that article.

In general, it is said that a real photo of the writer works best.   A real photo doesn't mean "a real photo of some other person", especially an actor or model.  A lot of people don't want to post a photo of themselves (either out of shyness or a wish to maintain personal privacy), which leads to a choice of image other than a real photo.  There are images that look as if they have some meaning to the writer.  Then there are those "just-post-whatever"-appearing images.  My personal opinion is that the non-real-photo images that are most credible are those that seem to indicate something about the person's personality or about something important to him.  The least credible images (at least to me) are those that seem to want to create an impression that the writer is one thing or another without simply posting a real photo and without showing any signs of the writer's personality or wish to send some message (other than what we wants readers to believe he is).

Telling people what they need to do to be successful at Internet writing without the writer who writes the article doing what his article suggests he knows how to do, and does, himself.

Telling people how to do anything without the writer's making it clear that he, himself, has done the thing he's telling people how to do.

Coming across as if the writer has been browsing the profiles and other activities of people who do well on writing sites, and appearing to have condensed and/or consolidated things from those profiles and activities; and then either presenting those things as one's own ideas/approaches.  It's one thing for a writer to say, "I've been looking at the profiles of people who seem to do well on writing sites, and I've noticed the following things about them."  It's another to present what has been gleaned as one's own original thinking and approach.  Telltale signs that someone has done this are that he otherwise shows no evidence anywhere that his words are things he does in practice.

Links from the profile to blogs with little or nothing on them, and blogs that appear to be "all color" and no real writing beyond a few sentences.

Articles that appear to be in good grammar with responses in grammar that makes it clear the individual can't really write English very well.

No signs of personality or personal voice anywhere on the profile and/or on anything linked from it.  Obviously, a person who is new to a site won't have had much chance to demonstrate his voice or personality.  Still, there are ways to show signs of personality and voice even with only a few articles (or in the case of HubPages, Hubs).  Voice can show up in those one or two articles.  It can show up in one's profile.  Maybe a link to the writer's other writing would show his personality or voice.  Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for new members of any writing site to make those first couple of articles ones that do show a little personality and voice.  Even if the first two articles are "generic-seeming" articles that offer little opportunity to show personality, that's when showing personality and voice with the profile may make the difference between creating the impression the person is a new member/writer and creating the impression he's a phony one.

Things That Can Add to Credibility

Including credentials in the profile (although stating credentials isn't always enough if the person's material otherwise indicate nothing behind that statement of credentials).

Mentioning writing-related experience  (that can help readers know the writer knows how to research or has been paid by someone to write).

Mentioning life experience in articles, when that experience is related to what the article is about.  Include at least a little information that makes it obvious that life experience you claim to have had is real.  Readers aren't stupid.  They can usually spot the difference between someone's saying he has had life experience without offering any signs that he really has, and someone's obviously having really had that experience.  One of biggest losers-of-credibility for an article (at least in my opinion) is bringing up some claim of personal experience in such a superficial and offhanded way it's clear the person is "just saying he's had the experience".  In other words, mentioning life experience without including things that only someone with that experience would know may be worse than not mentioning it all.

Being "the same person" wherever you go on the Internet).  Whether people write for "straight business purposes" or with a more casual approach, they have a personality and identity.  People who write for straight business purposes may choose to share less about themselves, but they still have a personality and an identity.  People who write in more casual way may share whatever they choose to share or not share, but they have their personality and identity.  Someone may write under a pen name or their own name.  Again, they are the same person.   To be credible, "that same person" should show wherever he writes or posts.

People may have their silly side and their serious side.  They may have their "analytical" side or their "dreamy" side.  Still, there will be something in whatever they write or do that will clearly show these are different sides of the same person.  There are consistencies in the way people do things - the kinds of words they use, the subtle signs of their personality, the format or style they seem to lean toward, etc. etc.  Credibility is gained when there is that thread of consistency that runs through everything a person does online.  Even the person who writes for business purposes in one place and personal reasons on another site (or account) will still bring that thread of consistency to his material and approach, no matter how different the writing subjects or styles.

Some people think in terms of branding.  For my purposes on HubPages and other "casual writing" venues, I haven't really thought in terms of branding, as much as I've thought it terms of that less formal, more subtle, thread of consistency. 

For example, if someone were to go through my "collection" of still as yet not-in-full-swing blogs he'd see that they're all different but that I tend to do a similar thing on all of them.  Could I be a phony who just has a bunch of different sites and profiles that pretend to be someone else?  Sure.  Still, the more writing (or even showing of personality in ways other than just the writing) that a person does, the more (if he's phony) he risks making a mistake that will show up lies.  Besides, the person who is what he says he is will usually not have some strangely inconsistent signs that he's not who he says he is.  Most of us have probably seen those profiles that appear to be of 20-year-old, young, men who can't write English well (as evidenced, perhaps, in what they've written on their profile) with articles that seem obviously to have been written in the voice of an American mother of young children. 

Who Cares About Credibility Anyway?

While some people have little use for a writer who has no credibility, others aren't interested in anything but what each, individual, article seems to offer.   A lot of people don't care if someone says he's a 50-year-old world traveler, but is really a 25-year-old supermarket clerk who has never been beyond a 20-mile radius of his hometown.  On the other side of the matter, there are writers who don't care who believes them and who doesn't.  Many people just take for granted that the Internet is full of baloney a lot of the time, and one has to take whatever he runs into with that proverbial grain-of-salt.

In a way, it may not matter if a phony-baloney writer manages to fool a lot of people and write credible articles.  After all, if someone is smart enough to fool all those people and write credible articles, does the fact that he's phony even matter?  If he's smart enough to fool people he's probably also smart enough to come up with sound articles of his own.  If he throws in some phony personal experience it doesn't matter much to a lot of readers.

There are, however, a whole lot of phonies who become phonies in their attempt to become successful in Internet writing.  These are often the people who aren't smart enough to know that credibility makes a difference, or to know why it is people aren't voting up their articles.  Much of the time, why it is is that people sense they're phony and click away as quickly as they clicked on.  What I guess I'm saying here is that these "less skilled" phonies need to learn how to be more credible.  The thing is, though, that being credible takes a lot of time and a lot of work.  Being credible (or at least seeming credible) is the thing that helps online writers do well.    If the most clever of the phonies manage to do well, more power to them, I guess. 

As for those people who aren't clever enough to realize that credibility matters, and aren't clever enough to know how to come across as credible; well, I guess what I'm saying here is that they should know they shouldn't bother even trying.  They give off all signs of being phony and of lacking substance; and by virtue of the fact that they don't seem smart enough to realize how obvious it is to other people, they aren't likely to be capable of even faking more credibility.

As for readers who do prefer to read material written by people who are sincere (regardless of what it is they say), the above points will, I hope, offer some tips on what to look for when reading.  Also, for new Internet writers who hope to aim toward building their own credibility (or who don't want to be mistaken for a phony), I hope some of the above points may offer ideas on where to start.