Robert Scoble, aka “scobleizer,” has written an excellent article on how someone who’s been laid off should leverage social networking. Scoble strongly recommends that every laid off or unemployed job seeker establish a blog. Of course, being a blogger is how Scoble became scobleizer, and, given what he’s accomplished blogging, he’s probably right.
Blogs are not that hard to create, but they are harder to keep “alive.”
So, how do you become a blogger?
Free Blogs
There are at least 2 excellent places that will host your blog for free.
1.) Blogger.com - Owned and run by Google, Blogger.com blogs are free and easy to set up. Just register, and start blogging. Your blog’s URL will look like this – [you].blogspot.com
2.) WordPress.com – Brought to us by the same people who create the WordPress blogging software. The free functionality is fine, and additional bells and whistles can be purchased with a “premium” account. Your blog’s URL will look like this – [you].wordpress.com
Which ever free blog you use will probably be your partner for a long time, so choose the one with which you are the most comfortable.
Do’s & Don’ts
- Do name your blog carefully. You can name it after yourself for personal branding (not a bad idea – look at Scoble) or after your topic (cab driving, to use scobleizer’s example) for quicker traffic generation.
If you are still employed, be careful about establishing a personal blog. Your employer may correctly assume that it is part of a personal marketing campaign, interpret that as a job search, and be very unhappy with you. SO, better to name the blog after the topic, and play down your personal identity. Definitely DO link to your personal e-mail address so that anyone interested in contacting you can do it.
- Do think of your blog as personal marketing/personal branding as well as an information sharing service. On scobleizer, Scoble has some very specific recommendations for creating your blog content.
- Don’t create more than one blog, even though you can do it cheaply, unless you create completely different blogs – different in both subject and content. Start with one – if you can keep it “live” and enjoy creating it, then you can branch out.
Why “completely different”? Because search engines hate “duplicate content” – the same article on two different Web pages. Duplicate content takes up more space in their databases of Web content than necessary, and it can mess up the search results they provide to their visitors, making them look dumb. So it’s an added expense that may hurt their reputations.
- Don’t “borrow” content from someone else’s Website or blog, unless they’ve given you permission.
Why not?
1.) It’s bad manners and bad for your online reputation.
2.) It’s copyright infringement – every page of every Website, including your blog, is protected by international copyright law, regardless of what you have heard (ask an attorney).The result if someone finds you have stolen their content is that your blog may be taken down – it’s the law (U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, and the European Union Copyright Directive of 2001).
3.) AND, it’s DUPLICATE CONTENT – so it won’t do you any good and it will hurt the site you borrow from.
Good luck with your job search!
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cool. blogging for a job!