How to Find a Blogging Job

debng guest writes on Performancing 22 places to find a blogging job. While a list of job lists is helpful, it is a poor way to find a blog job.

- Everyone else in the online universe knows about these places, and if they didn't, they do now. There are not all that many jobs listed, and a whole lot of people are dreaming that they will simply send off a resume and have someone pay them full time to write blog posts. Your odds of finding a position this way is about as good as your odds of writing the next Technorati 200 blog.

- The list is anemic. A few of the upper items in the list have a few dozen jobs, while half or more of the rest have less than 10, or even none. The last entry is simply "try looking in your newspaper classified", which is really a long, long shot.

- This is an, how shall I say, old media approach to job search. What decade are we living in, exactly?

Do you want to find a blogging job? Guess what? It's actually easy.

Why? Because there are millions of companies who need bloggers and don't know it. Many thousands of these companies are not looking for a blogger, or looking for one but don't know what they want or need. A whole lot of them will hire you as a blogger without you even having to compete for the position.

Before you go off looking for a "blogging position", you should probably know: blogging = marketing. All companies need marketing, and blogging is simply a new wave of targeted marketing that reaches an audience currently overlooked and underfed by traditional marketing. Becoming a blogger means becoming a marketer, and a marketer may be called upon to do a whole lot more than simply write blog posts. That's why I call it "customer engagement".

Here are five real places to find a blogging job:

1. Your blog

If you're not blogging, you're not looking for a blogging job. And if you're not successfully blogging (in any definition of success), you're not going to find one.

Which means that you're a successful blogger: you have some subscribers, some readers, some hits. Want to find a blogging job? Ask for one on your blog.

Put in in a post, in the footer of every post, and on your sidebar. Engage your subscribers and commenters. They already like you, and they will help you find a job. Either they know a place that needs a blogger, or they can send someone a link to you.

2. Your company

If you're already working, your company probably doesn't have a blog. If it does, it probably doesn't have a good enough blog.

Go to your boss, human resources, or whomever, and pitch blogging for the company. If the company already has a blog, ask to post on it, help design it, or get involved in some other way. If you're any good, you'll be blogging part or full time fairly soon.

3. Social networks

Aren't these what social networks are for? Aside from asking your 10,354 friends, most social networking places, especially serious ones, have forums and other places to advertise for a blog position. Say that you're looking on your profile.

4. Friends and family

We used to call these social networks before the online versions. And the word "friend" used to actually mean something before it was co-opted to mean "people you want to annoy regularly".

Let friends and family know that you're looking for a customer engagement position, and ask them for whom to apply in their companies, using them as a reference.

5. Local organizations

Does your church, school, or synagogue have a blog? Ask to make one for them for free or a nominal fee. Not only is it good practice and a good service, it's an item in your portfolio, and happy customers who will help you find other paid positions.

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Don't neglect the 22 places from the Performancing post, as well as any other companies whose "job listings" include a writer, blogger, or similar.

One more trick which can sometimes work: try blogging about a product you love and about which no one else is blogging. The world's first and busiest blog about the Ford Taurus (e.g.) can be a valuable asset to acquire for Ford Motors.

When you find a job, take the time to educate each other as to what exactly the job entails. For some of my positive and negative experiences in these types of conversations, please see my earlier posts.

Yehuda