Five Reasons Why Blogging Is Your Best Career Move

Published February 06, 2009 @ 07:45AM PT

In the midst of a troubled economy, I been having conversations with my job-seeking friends almost every day. What I've begun to notice is that whether they are aspiring social entrepreneurs, future diplomats or future music industry titans, one piece of my advice is always the same: start a blog.

There are about five reasons I've become convinced that starting a blog is the single best career move you can make:

1. Learning
To write a good blog you have to read everything. You may have a whole bunch of starter posts ready to go about U.S. relations with central Asia, but to keep yourself and your readers satisfied and returning, you'll be constantly looking for other writing that pushes your own thinking. In this way writing a blog becomes one of the single best ways to build your expertise.

2. Refining your passion
Many of us know roughly what type of career(s) sound appealing. Some of us have a particular industry we are or wish to be embedded in. But it's often more difficult to figure out what specific piece of the puzzle gets you most fired up. This blog has definitely helped me affirm which pieces of the wider world of social enterprise I'm most excited about. When you'll blog you'll find yourself drawn to certain topics; you'll read about people and think, "I want this job." Money can't buy that type of clarity of purpose.

3. Becoming a voice in the space
The cool thing about the blogosphere is that if you have interesting things to say, sooner or later people will start to find you. They'll begin to riff off of your ideas, in the meantime sending people your way with their links. This fuels on-going conversations with people in the field and pretty soon you have one of the top ten blogs on the agronomics of southeast Asia. I think the best blogging is a fundamentally symmetric mode of communications, in which the reader is equal to the writer. The blogosphere does respect credentials, but in the sense that if you're already an established expert in a field, people are likely to find you faster. If you're a good writer who adds value to the conversation, people will listen whether you went to Harvard or Hooters for college. There's simply no better way than blogging to become a voice in your field.

4. An excuse to network
There's nothing more important to your career than having a deep social network. Employers that don't have the time or resources to go out and recruit like McKinsey use social connections as a proxy for determining quality. But the thing is, networking is not just about quantity, its about quality. As you begin to establish your voice in the field, it gives you a great context to email or LinkedIn the brightest thinkers in your field, or the most interesting organizations. The thing that's different about having a blog is that you're actually looking to talk to them about something, rather than just networking for the sake of networking. You can write a post about their most recent book, and ask them what they think, for example. When you go to conferences, people will recognize you from your writing. Seriously, it's the best networking tool you have.

5. Social media expertise
The entire corporate infrastructure is literally freaking out as they feel like consumers are slipping through their fingers. They're beginning to realize that the old mode of advertising, marketing, and product differentiation just don't work - whether that's differentiating your cereal product or your undergraduate curriculum. And they recognize that there's something to this new "social media" thing where people talk to and interact with companies that seems to be really powerful. But by and large, they don't know how to harness it. As a blogger, you'll learn first hand about social media. You'll figure out when and how to engage with commenters. You'll sort out how personal to be. You'll get familiar with techniques for distributing your message. You'll almost certainly learn how to use Twitter and a host of other services. And in the process, you'll become a gateway to a brave new world for the next company that hires you.

All of this is predicated on one big thing, which is that if you blog, you blog hard. You can't write a crappy post every other week and hope to get a lot of traction, but if you're dedicated and thoughtful, blogging is the best career move you can make.

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Comments (10)

Excellent post, Nathaniel - you've hit the nail on the head. Of course I'm biased, since I started socialfinance.ca to learn about, and create a space for conversation around, social finance. As you point out, I'm now getting better at identifying what I'm really passionate about in the space, as well as making connections to people who share these interests (like you). And I think for our generation, social media is built into everything we do, and we almost expect seamless transitions between online and offline conversations. We're not there yet fully, but we're clearly making some great strides (see SoCap08)!

I think you raise an important point: "if you blog, you blog hard"... it does take time, effort and commitment. And often success is not measured just by the number of comments that people leave, but by the number of times your blog posts are visited on Google Reader, starred, and shared via feeds, Twitter, email, facebook, etc... as your posts tend to be!

Posted by Karim Harji on 02/06/2009 @ 08:34AM PT
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Thanks Karim, your blog is a great example of this. I love the updates - and always look to socialfinance.ca for event recap! Keep up the great work.

Posted by Nathaniel Whittemore on 02/06/2009 @ 10:25AM PT
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Good post Nathaniel. You hit on all the reasons that I started writing my blog. Mine in the beginning were 1 &2 and now it is also turning into 3,4 & 5. My focus still remains on 1&2.

When you have to write, you have to research, collect, process the information and then add your thoughts and present it. So it is sort of a journey of enlightenment (hopefully) for the writer and the reader. The feedback/comments of the readers give you point of views that you did not consider and helps shape your thoughts better.

Roshan
www.twitter.com/roshanthomas

Posted by Roshan Thomas on 02/06/2009 @ 11:09AM PT
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I started blogging a few weeks ago and haven't really hit a base yet, but I'm still writing. Great post!

Posted by Lashawn Chillious on 02/06/2009 @ 12:54PM PT
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Nathan,

Right on point. Blogging at isaacholeman.org is among my more important learning experiences as an undergraduate. I've helped six of my friends set personal or project focused blogs in the past couple months for pretty much the exact reasons you mention.

I would also add that the difference between blogging with wordpress.org and building a sophistocated website for a company or nonprofit is becoming exceedingly small. In addition to the gaining that "social media spider sense," blogging is the best place to start learn the technical and design chops to build a web presence for most small/medium sized organizations.

Posted by Isaac Holeman on 02/06/2009 @ 01:22PM PT
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I love this post, but I dunno personally... My mind changes too much. If I wrote daily or even weekly on a blog, people would get tired of me changing the way I say things. I have for a while now kept blog(s) with occasional posts, but nothing to attract a following. I've never attracted a following in anything I've ever done because it stresses me out when people start expecting me to deliver all the time... well, except maybe this new meditation session I'm guiding, but that's as unstressful as life gets! But I will consider trying this anyway because as times goes on I do get a better and better idea of what to believe and support... after all, I'm only a sophomore in college.

Posted by Luella - on 02/06/2009 @ 01:56PM PT
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So where is the money ?

Communication is great and fun but it does not pay the bills. I am a little driven...

Of course the stuff that I write about has occasional interest.
The Jowey Styxx Blog's

Posted by jowey styxx on 02/06/2009 @ 05:08PM PT
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Some good pointers here.

As a newbie myself on bloggin I spend a lot on time on learning. It important gather as much information as possible.

I do this combined with developing my own blog. As I keep learning I get more professional and found it easier to find a niche that I am comfertable with.

The money want be there in the beginning. You have to establish a trusted blog before yo will start see some income. I use one of the best coaches on blogging out there to learn more about this - Darren Rowse - Problogger. His tips are really helpful if you want to develop your blog and make it stand out.

Social networking is a big thing today to get more attention towards your blog. So participate in various social networks if you want more traffic to your blog.

My blog is getting better and better one article at the time. If I meet some setbacks or adversity then I take some steps back and start over again.

You can meet me at;

EcoMind - The New Beginning
@ecomind

Cheers..

Posted by Are Morch on 02/07/2009 @ 07:25AM PT
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Great post! My boyfriend is a philosopher/aspiring writer and this is definitely useful information!

Posted by Brooke Estin on 02/08/2009 @ 03:25AM PT
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Bloggers are the new philosophers!

Posted by Michelle Barber on 04/01/2009 @ 10:34AM PT
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Author

Nathaniel is the founding Director of the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University, which works annually with hundreds of students in dozens of countries around the world through curricular programs and student project incubation.