How to Leverage Your Blog into Career Opportunities

By Wendy Piersall

One of the five common business models that most successful mom bloggers use to earn their revenue is to leverage their blog into a career opportunity. As more and more companies realize the value that mom bloggers bring to the table, many moms are getting outright job offers from companies that want an employee who is on the inside of the mom-blogging community.

These offers can range from regular corporate jobs to flexible work-at-home positions that offer stable income with great work-life balance.

If you are hoping to find a job because of your blog, your most effective content will be resourceful and insightful articles that showcase your knowledge and expertise. You’ll want to find a good balance between sharing personal information and professionalism.

Your influence in the mom-blogging community will be a true asset for a potential employer, so you’ll want to nurture your online relationships and be a resource to your fellow bloggers as well. Because the goal of this blog is to get hired, you want to get as much brand experience under your belt as possible to build your résumé. It’s important for you to develop your online connections into offline relationships.

So you want to get out to as many blogging and industry events and conferences as your schedule allows. This is your best opportunity to get in front of brand representatives and impress them with your expertise. You also want to pursue any freelance or consulting opportunities you can find, because often temporary work leads to permanent positions.

The most important way to promote this kind of blog is through social media. Potential employers will most likely need you to handle their social marketing initiatives, so you need to be well established on Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Foursquare or Groupon, especially if the employer is involved in marketing at a local level.

Any experience with Facebook pages, Twitter parties, or coordinating other social media marketing projects will be proof that you can turn your online marketing knowledge into actual campaigns. Writing for larger publications will also help to build your credentials and get your name in front of a larger audience.

To summarize the recommended ways to be successful finding a job with your blog:

Write resourceful blog posts that showcase your expertise.
Get out to blogging and industry conferences to network with potential employers.
Demonstrate your social media marketing experience by developing and participating in successful marketing campaigns.
Nurture your relationships with the blogging community by being active on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
Work on finding freelance or temporary work with clients because they may lead to full-time work.

Amber Watson-Tardiff is a great example of this scenario. She was able to take her experience in the legal field and as a mom blogger and get hired as the Content and PR Director for Legal Marketing Maven. She now works at home making a very respectable full-time income.