Some personal bloggers publish posts that give details about their job search. And with the clever use of search engine optimization, links and tags, these bloggers gain the attention of hiring managers in their field.
Other bloggers create their own jobs.
In Brooklyn, New York, for example, a borough wide group of bloggers calling themselves the Brooklyn Blogade joins together on a regular basis to share their ideas on what topics to cover, how to write a good blog post, blog technology, techniques for driving Web traffic to a blog such as RSS feeds, ways to monetize a blog and the use of marketing, branding and promotion tools.
One blogger, for example, Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, has successfully promoted her blog by writing meaningful, newsy content. In addition, she frequently hosts neighborhood blogging events and has become known all over New York as a blogging expert. Early in 2010, she moved a step up the professional blogging ladder by moving her site to a new ad-friendly platform.
Another well-known (not to say notorious) New York blogger, Jake Dobkin, the publisher and co-founder of local news blog Gothamist, runs a site that covers the metro area so broadly and so well that he and his partner Jen Chung have hired a team of 15 editors and advertisers are coming to them, asking for ad space on the site.
"There's no secret to running a successful blog," Dobkin said at a recent Brooklyn blog event known as Blogfest. "You just create a lot of content, day after day, year after year."
Finally, David Leite's James Beard Award-winning food site, Leite's Culinaria, started out as a blog and has gone on to become an amazingly "sticky" website full of reviews, recipes, videos, podcasts and articles written by a large stable of writers.
"When you write a blog, you need to know what your brand is," Leite recently told a classroom full of aspiring food writers. "Mine is witty, sassy, welcoming and personal. Write a tagline for yourself. Decide what your brand is, what you represent and who you stand for. And once you find your niche, you have to stay there."
