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Professional BloggingA professional blogger is, simply put, someone who makes money off their blogging. Looking farther into blogging as a career, however, means realizing your internet presence is your job, and every blog post, tweet, or Facebook update can net your more views, more money, and more opportunities. Professional bloggers make money either by being paid through an institution or company to blog (or take over social media as a whole) for them, by being paid to review products, or simply getting paid through use of advertisements on the blog placed there either through advertising programs or through sponsorship.
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Needed Skills
The skills needed to be a professional blogger vary depending on whether you are aiming to be a professional on your own, or through working on a corporate blog. With corporate blogging, a degree (or masters), writing experience (and clips), and social media expertise is always going to help--as with any job in writing, recommendations and proof you can work hard, write well, and follow deadlines are always going to help. Even if you're not going for corporate blogger the following skills will help you become a respected blogger:
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Needed Education
Education is less important than the ability to market yourself and garner an audience when it comes to blogging. However, if applying to a corporate blogging job a bachelors or masters degree in a writing-related subject will always help.
Day in a Life
As with most things when it comes to working as a professional blogger, the day in the life of a blogger can vary wildly. A self-employed "mommy" blogger's day will be vastly different than the day of a corporate blogger, or a blogger who reviews technology. Most blogger's days will involve checking their blog for comments, maintaining their social media presence elsewhere, replying to other blogger's posts within their blog network in order to maintain relationships, and working on their next blog posts.
What does working on one's next blog post entail? Depending on what type of blogging one does, it can involve:
What does working on one's next blog post entail? Depending on what type of blogging one does, it can involve:
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Sample Work
Coca-Cola Conversations is an off-site blog run by Coca-Cola, and is an example of a corporate blog:
While it may not be the most exciting reading material in the world, this 1957 Coca-Cola Export Corporation study on bottle washing was written by none other than Roberto Goizueta. While Goizueta later became Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company, his career with Coca-Cola business began in 1954, when he was employed by the technical department of a wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company, Cia. Embotelladora Coca-Cola, S.A., in Havana, Cuba.
In 1961, he was transferred to Nassau, the Bahamas, as area chemist in the Caribbean Area Office of The Coca-Cola Export Corporation. In 1963, he was named staff assistant to the senior vice president for Latin America.
Mr. Goizueta was transferred to the Company's Atlanta headquarters in 1964 on special assignment with the Technical Research and Development Department. In 1965, he was named assistant to the vice president, Technical Research and Development, and in 1966 he was elected vice president.
I was grateful when one of our retired employees from the Technical office found this document while cleaning out his house and gave me the copy of the report this week. He said that even 50 years later, the study was considered to be the most thorough written on the topic and that the attention to detail that would mark Roberto Goizueta's later career was already fully evident. ^TR
-- "Throwback Thursday - Roberto C. Goizueta Study"
Fearful Adventurer began as a personal blog and manifested in a book deal:
How many pickles can one person eat?
A lot. That is the answer.
Everyone has their own unique ways of dealing with the free-falling sensation of losing control.
My sister quilts.
My mother cooks.
I eat pickles.
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As mentioned in my last post, I’ve taken some time off from being a Normal Person to recover from burnout; to wear a robe all day without apologising, to eat dill pickles from the jar. I won’t go into all the detailed specifics of why this had to happen—not here, not now—but I will tell you that I simply pushed for too hard for too long, and my mind decided to force my body into supine position for a while.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been an over-achiever. One of the first books I bought was a bulky nonfiction hardcover, ordered through the mail for $80 when I was eleven years old. At that age, $80 would’ve been about a year’s worth of allowance money plus a metric ton of American pennies salvaged from the couch folds, in amongst stale McDonald’s fries, dead skin, and dried dog vomit.
-- "Getting out of a pickle"
Salary Expectations
The salary for a professional blogger can vary wildly. On average, professional bloggers make $24,086. Corporate bloggers make slightly more, their salary averaging out at $33,577. (Technorati, "State of the Blogosphere" 2011; no more recent surveys have been released.)
Suggested Job Search
Blogging as a professional can go two ways: Either you start your own blog and go about the potentially long process of making money off it, or you can find a corporate blogging job. Corporate blogging jobs can be found through regular job search websites or the following places:
