I have done it both ways and continue to make that decision on a case by case basis. The easiest ones to succeed with for me was when I used the real info.
It will probably be easier for you to succeed if you used your real name and a real photo, especially with a blog. That doesn't mean you have to do it.
You can get away with using an alias if it doesn't bother you. Writers do it all the time.
You can also get away with pretending to be someone totally other than you are.
I know for a fact that there are some guys out there (even in the internet marketing field) who go around pretending to be women because it gives them an advantage. They pretend to be women because most of the people in the internet marketing world are men. And men treat women with more respect and dignity than they treat other men with. It is human nature. If a guy sees a girl saying something they disagree with, the guy will usually be more polite about correcting her or maybe they won't bother speaking up at all. If it was a guy telling another guy, then sometimes they rip each other's heads off.
And you also get the situation where guys will suck up to and kiss ass for someone they think is a girl. They will flatter her and act like a submissive follower of her if they think she is hot. It is in their nature to do so. But that person pretending to be a nice 26 year old sexy looking lady might really be some 45 year old, fat dude living in a dumpy apartment who never got his life together. And you would never know it. He is sitting at his food stained keyboard that sits right next to a huge ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts from some no-name brand of cheap Indian Reservation cigarettes. He hasn't showered in a couple days or shaved in a couple weeks. The dude is so nasty that he even has a booger dangling out of his left nostril that is about to drip out onto his lard ass, stretched out, highly stained and yellowed Jim Beam t-shirt. But he has everyone convinced that he is really the sexy, flirty 26 year old chic or whatever.
The problem with doing that is, what if you want to skype chat with someone and you are pretending to be someone you are not? Or what if you decide you want to record first person YouTube videos of yourself explaining something? Or what if you want to participate in an interview that you know will bring you a ton of publicity? If you are faking who you are, then those types of things will make you feel weird. And it is possible you might have to turn an opportunity down when one presents itself because you will be afraid they will uncover the truth.
Obviously you are not a guy pretending to be a girl. And I doubt you are a girl pretending to be a guy - (nasty). But I think you get the point.
If it is a niche you don't mind being associated with publicly, then use your real info and put up a real photo. If it is a niche you are embarrassed about in any way, use the fake stuff. But realize that you might be holding yourself back if you really start to succeed with what you are doing.
Don't for a minute think that most of the photos you see of people online are real photos of them. Half the people who join forums like this one use fake photos of Caucasian men or women when in fact they are probably from some part of the globe where there aren't many Caucasians at all.
