The age of blogs as some kind of odd, personal exhibition is over. Today, blogging is a respectable way of publishing ideas geared at a specific audience. By voicing your opinion, interviewing experts, or sharing new news, you’re telling your readers that your topic is something you’re passionate about and may even have some authority on. And the longer you blog, the more credibility you gain.
Your original blog content may, therefore, wind up becoming your biggest career asset. I firmly believe that every job seeker should blog, and continue to blog even after getting hired.
But getting started is hard. The biggest obstacle I see from people looking for a job is indecision about what to blog about. Here is a quick exercise to help you figure that out.
Identifying Your Topic
The first step is to brainstorm a list of three potential topics. Remember, your blog topic is like the title of a book. The categories of the posts are like the chapters of the book. So when you look through the following questions, pick answers can be expanded into several sub-topics.
- What is a topic I can talk about for hours without ever getting bored?
- What is something I do that makes me lose track of time when I do it?
- What subject do I tend to have strong opinions about (apart from politics or religion)?
- What have I done for years, and maybe not realize, that I have amassed more experience than most people?
- Do I have a new interpretation of a concept or a new method of doing something that may benefit others? If so, what is that?
- When others come to me for advice, what do they ask? In other words, what can I write about that will resonate with others.
- Are there objects I like to collect and react to, such as funny ads, new products, or something else that relates to my career?
Mindmap Your Blog Topics
Now that you have a list of three possible topics, you need to know which one is going to really sustain you.
1. Take out a blank piece of paper and write down one of your blog ideas right in the middle.
2. Draw a circle around that idea and draw five lines coming out from it. (most blogs have at least five categories)
3. Think about five subtopics, chapters, or categories that may further expand the main topic.
4. Within each of those five subtopics, write down as many possible article titles you can think of.
Think from your reader’s perspective when you do this. A good title is what makes people read the rest of the article.
If you do this exercise for several blog ideas, you’ll notice that some ideas are easier to fill up than others. The blog topic with more ideas for articles in the fewest amount of time is the one you really have a voice about.
For more great advice on how to start and run a blog for your career, check out my new book, JobSearchingwithSocialMediaforDummies.
Guest Bio: Joshua Waldman helps frustrated job seekers leverage social media to find work FAST! He is the founder of CareerEnlightenment.com and the author of the new book, Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies. Sign-up for his newsletter today and get access to his exclusive training videos for free.