(Crystal A. Proxmire)
Blogging for business was the topic of an enrichment class earlier this month at the Ferndale Career Center. Job seekers, entrepreneurs and those considering the places they already work got together to talk about how posting online content can help them with their goals.
Ron Marshall of the Ferndale Career Center led the group, along with founder of the Motown Writers Network Sylvia Hubbard, and Ferndale 115 News editor and publisher Crystal A. Proxmire. Each shared their views of how Internet blogging is changing the face of business.
Hubbard said that someone starts an online blog once every three seconds. Blogs are defined on www.dictionary.com as “an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called,” although the term is now being applied to any chronological collection of content posting. There are personal blogs, business blogs, news blogs, educational blogs and blogs on any subject.
She explained that an online blog like WordPress or Blogspot work a lot like a filing cabinet for your online content. Imagine your blog is the file cabinet, and the drawers are different topics. Any time you put up a new blog, it automatically gets filed for you – by date and by topic. So it does all the filing for you. So you acquire a whole cabinet full of information that others can access. You become a resource.” She added that many websites are created with blogging software then designed to look like regular websites. “It’s just like if you took a picture and hung it on the front of the filing cabinet. People that go to the site just see the picture, but the file cabinet is still there.”
Hubbard said that she is able to earn her living with a combination of freelance writing, blogging for others, and revenue from click-though advertising on her blogs. The Motown Writers Network can be found at: http://motownwriters.com.
Proxmire shared her experiences in the online news business, including the challenge of getting people to understand the difference between online news and print news, and the difference between online news and blogging. “It’s a changing industry,” she said. “And people are still trying to figure out how to make it profitable, and how to differentiate between what is news and what isn’t. I started out with an online newspaper in 2005, but people weren’t ready to get online news yet. I had to explain it over and over. Now people are starting to accept the idea.”
Attendees came from various backgrounds and experiences. One woman was there because she wanted to learn how to run a blog for her husband’s legal practice. Another was there because she wanted to learn how blogging might help her in the music industry, and another was hoping that blogging might help her as she searches for her dream job. After learning the basics of blogging, the group discussed ways of making blogging work for them.
Some of the things bloggers should know, according to Marshall, are:
~Know your needs.
~Know your level of expertise.
~Know your platform.
~Know your schedule.
~Know your users.
~Know yourself!
Those who took the class left with many ideas and revitalized inspiration in their own work, or the work they wanted to do. The Ferndale Career Center provides classes nearly daily for job seekers, entrepreneurs and the general public on a range of employment enhancing topics. Classes include Networking Your Way to Interview Success, Developing Your Professional Brand, and Multimedia for Professionals – and many more. Check them out on Facebook and look for their latest calendar.
Link to November 2010 calendar:
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