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7 Surprising Skills Blogging is Teaching You

Posted By Guest Blogger 11th of July 2013 Miscellaneous Blog Tips 0 Comments

This is a guest contribution from Kelly Teng, Digital Outreach Specialist at Switched on Media.

Blogging can take you on a whirlwind journey. It can have you running around at events, losing sleep, and sitting in front of your computer for hours and hours (and hours…). The end result is a great blog with stellar posts, and a myriad of experiences that you get to embark on and incredible people you get to meet.

However, your experiences and the amount of time you invest don’t just make for a great blog – in fact, your blogging benefits you in ways that you may not even realise.

Here are a few surprising skills that you acquire as a byproduct of blogging. You may discover some hidden talents you never thought you had (party tricks not included).

The gift of words

All right, perhaps this isn’t a surprising skill: blogging has you writing almost every day, so it’s almost a no-brainer that you’ll become proficient at it over time!

When you blog, you have to think up creative and interesting ways to convey your content to your readers, and also you have to articulate your thoughts clearly and express yourself well. Although you may not notice it, your writing has improved. Don’t believe me? Take a look at your first few posts and compare them to what you are writing now.

Blogging is also useful to help you find and establish your own personal tone of voice and style of writing. Whether your words are motivational, inspirational, dry and sarcastic, funny, or apathetic, you’ll slowly uncover a style that will stick with you and your blog for years to come.

Time management

Us humans are notorious for complaining about having so much to do in so little time. We struggle to find time for work and looking after our families, let alone looking after ourselves and doing the things we want to do.

Blogging is almost like a crash-course in time management. You have to manage your regular job (if you have one), your family, writing, answering emails, scheduling posts, and formatting and designing your blog. You have to coordinate taking photos for a post with making lunch or dinner for your kids. You have to be as punctual as possible with your posts and comment responses; if you don’t, your readership stays stagnant or falters. You have to check and reply to emails quickly as well, because often opportunity can come knocking, get impatient, and leave.

It starts to get overwhelming, but then you adjust and figure out better ways to manage your time. Your blog is teaching you how to be more efficient and effective, and to get as much out of every day as you can.

A little bit of design

When you started out, you probably selected a default Blogspot, WordPress or Tumblr theme for your blog. However, you have probably found that as your readership grows, you begin looking for a new theme or revamp your site with a customised feel (maybe it’s even in alignment to your tone of voice). You also have probably jazzed up your photos with text, borders, and colour balanced them on Photoshop to make them look better as well.

Without even realising it, your blog has helped turn you into a bit of a designer. From choosing a colour palette to redesigning your layout and editing your images, you now have more design experience than much of the adult population – without even trying.

Relationship creation and maintenance

Brands and bloggers are working together more now than ever. Many bloggers get approached by brands on a daily basis for reviews, giveaways, advertisements and guest posts; for those that haven’t yet, it’s only a matter of time.

The more you interact with brands and advertisers, the more adept you become at creating and maintaining business relationships. You learn how to reach diplomatic solutions and establish partnerships with stakeholders, and to work in a way that is mutually beneficial for you, your readers, and your stakeholders (be it a brand, client, or customer).

Through working with brands, you can also learn how to become a brand storyteller and a creative as well, by talking about products or companies in a new and exciting way that fits your audience.

Diplomacy to rival U.N. delegates

…and speaking of diplomatic solutions, blogging also helps you build your diplomacy skills.

There are always going to be readers who will be unhappy when you change something, or trolls who have nothing better to do but to try and upset people. Unfortunately, these are a byproduct of sharing a piece of your life with the world; however, another byproduct is the chance to build your diplomacy and establish best business practices.

Every unhappy reader you manage to quell and every troll you manage effectively contributes to your ability to diffuse a situation well – and this will come in handy often in day-to-day life, as well as in business. For extra tips to enhance your skills, have a read of Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people.

Content creation and management

The key to a successful blog is content – there’s no getting around it. As a blogger, you become a curator of content much like an editor of a magazine or newspaper. You plan and schedule posts, and must think about newsworthy and unique content that is relevant to your readership demographics. If your blog accepts sponsored posts, you often have to carefully plan it so it is spaced out along with regular content.

You learn how to create useful and original content, and how to create a balance of editorial and sponsorship. In essence, you have the skills of an editor, which makes sense – after all, you are the editor of your own publication.

Social media strategy and community management

This is perhaps one of the most coveted skills in today’s technologically saturated environment. With more and more businesses and people going online, experience with social media strategy and community management is a vital asset to have on your side.

As a blogger, you talk to your readership base through social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, and you engage with them and share your life through Instagram and Pinterest. You plan content in advance sometimes, and learn how to acquire more followers and post content that is relevant, informative, and interesting.

Through blogging, you have acquired the skills needed to manage a community online and strategies to foster stronger engagement and create effective content on social channels.

Did you ever realise you were becoming so talented? What other skills do you think your blogging has taught you?

Kelly Teng is a Digital Outreach Specialist at Switched on Media with a penchant for all things internet-related. Check out her other insights and musings here, or follow her on Twitter at @tellykeng.

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Comments
  1. Hi Kelly

    You are so right. Blogging is a multi-tasking, multi-talented pursuit. The only other one I would add to this list, is perseverance and grit, especially when you are starting out. You really staying power to hang in there through all those weeks when your traffic is bumping along the bottom and your posts are being read by a mere handful of people.

    Andrew

  2. Hi Kelly,

    Great post! I’d like to add “becoming a subject matter expert” to that list. When you start writing about something you’re passionate about, you constantly evolve your knowledge as you learn to formulate complex facts in layman’s terms.

    John

  3. Love this post, Kelly. Thanks for highlighting all the great aspects of blogging. Even the ones that are challenging are making us better people in general.

  4. The most important skill we get through blogging is we become leader in our niche by influencing others to develop opinion on our niche on the basis of our views in our blog contents and be inspired by the trends and tendencies we promote in a specific niche. In short if one really want to be a THOUGHT LEADER he can easily become by becoming a successful blogger.

  5. This is a good post and it states everything a blogger should have in order to create the best article that fits your niche. It is perseverance and the continuity to provide good info to readers that fuels a good blog. I’d like the idea of time this is a great post

  6. Great post and thinking about it, so true. I am fairly new to blogging, had one for a while, but did not take it that seriously until a couple of months ago and since then I have noticed how I am incorporating better time management, using Social media and understanding it better and I have been looking at content curation and research to make my posts more relevant for readers. I have also got to add patience to the list too as I was very impatient, though I have now learned my lesson.

  7. blogger important skill is admin power to challenge to solve problem and teaching power for visitors . thank you good Article thanks for sharing

  8. This is an excellent post Kelly, and it’s actually something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I knew that blogging was helping me become a better writer, but now that I look at all of the intricacies of running a blog, I’m realizing that I’m reaping many more benefits than just writing ability.

    Again, thanks for the post.

    Jake Johnson

  9. Very inspirational post which is making me proud to be a blogger. Thank you, Kelly, for this wonderful insight. Apart of the above mentioned points, blogging helps you to become a perfect online marketer which leads your way to become your own boss, enjoy your own life and do the job which you love and don’t get exhausted doing for a long long time, as someone had said, “You dont have to work a single day in your life, if you enjoy your work”.
    Blogging creates the door of new innovations as we will be searching about what new to post in our blog most of the time. Putting monetary part in secondary option, blogging lets us help people who are in need on the basis of our specialization and authority in particular niche by delivering value as a solution to their problem.

  10. Really inspired post, as a bloggger, they are the things that you gotta do. Becoming a blogger like you said can train you from non-talented to talented person.

  11. Darren you are absolutely right. Bloggers are developing editor skills. Now you got me thinking of The Chief in the Spiderman comics who is always looking for the next Spiderman scoop.

  12. The biggest things I’ve learned from blogging is time management and how to better communicate what I’m thinking in an easy to understand way…

  13. Interesting. And very true as well. By creating blogs, I was able to learn the standard functions of WordPress themes and plugins, making it easy to modify them for my own needs. I also agree with increasing the vocabulary, it has worked great, especially when keeping up to date with the latest blogs and actually taking time to read posts.

  14. Very good contribution Kelly, l have noticed l developed these skills as a blogger in my small blogging career the last two years. i think the most important skill is to create unique content that people will love and want to duplicate. What do you think? Which is the most important blogging skill a savvy blogger should have?

  15. Another great post. Blogging teach me how to build relationship with others. I also help me to improve my writing skills. Thanks for the share.

  16. You forgot programming skills (at least a bit of scripting), project/product management for owners of multiple blogs, photography and photo or video editing, HR (for those who hire virtual assistance, marketting, keyword research and SEO expertise. I’m sure I’m missing a few more

  17. I write about “Civil Engineering” in my blog. A great thing happens through blogging is that I’ve been able to create connections with some great professionals in my niche. Which inspires me most.

  18. True story. Because of all that, blogging is amazing. It helps people grow :)

  19. What a fun breakdown Kelly!

    Blogging teaches me discipline above all else. Being disciplined was easy during my job days; now with everything being on me I have to get after it each and every day, no excuses.

    This is not easy at times but by taking breaks and revisiting my dreams I can more easily connect with emotions which drive me, and push me to remain disciplined despite whatever feelings arise in me.

    Smart post, thanks!

    Ryan

  20. I like the idea that I am the editor of my own publication. I did notice improvement in my writing as well as my style. I conveyed my thought easier now than when I started my blog. It seems more like I’m trying too hard in the beginning.

    I also noticed I’m a lot more organized. I learned to PRIORITIZE. Time management also comes to work here. It is also therapeutic, kind of like writing a journal. You get to evaluate yourself. Thanks! :)

  21. Time to update the resume!!

  22. Great Post Kelly ,Blogging teach us for growing the people its also improve my writing skills and as well as our creativity its a platform where we shares our creativity with others .Thanks for wonderful Posting

  23. You are right, blogging has taught me how to write effectively even out side the blogosphere.

  24. Blogging is teaching many things, not only 7 – but Your choice of Seven is quite good :) I’m learning even other languages cause im from poland and im reading blogs made in english, cause i love them :) like this one ! Thank You Darren for all the job that you have done, and sorry for my mistakes in post writing.

  25. It’s a well written article. I’d say, since I spend so much time behind the computer because I keep a few blogs, I started to run on a regular basis to get myself off the computer and it’s going very, very well. When I run I sorta get into a meditative state which allows me to come up with new creative ideas. I’m really loving it.

  26. So true. I love the skillset blogging gives you. There’s nothing more satisfying then touching up a website design I find. I also find myself re-reading my work and smiling alot. At least I’m pleasing myself! ;)

  27. After starting blogging this work has taught me many things. Nowadays, becoming a blogger will change you from non-talented to talented person.

  28. Hi Kelly,

    We definitely learn more than we realize with blogging. My goal has been with content marketing so my focus has been on how to be a better content writer and there’s probably no better way to learn than with daily blogging.

    The other big thing is time management. OMG, having a blog requires wearing many hats so how you manage your time is huge.

    Liz

  29. Totally agree with this.

    Time management and relationship creations and maintenance are qualities of a good blogger and these qualities really help in day to day life.

    Thanks.

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