In this article, I will be writing the top 5 reasons why I blog and elaborate further on each point. Everyone has a purpose when it comes to blogging. Find your purpose and measure your impact!
Skip to the #My Top 5 Reasons if you are not interested in "How I started blogging"!
Article Outline
- How I started blogging
- My Top 5 Reasons
- Elaboration
- Conclusion
How I Started Blogging
A little about myself and how I started blogging. I am a first-year software engineering student, web developer, and I guess I have a thing or two for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning.
Back in High school, I never liked writing, especially essays. It was never fun back then. Writing was JUST homework, a burden, troublesome, and I even got called out by my teacher saying that she almost vomited as I squeezed 18 idioms in an essay when the requirement was just 5. It might be the way our education system works. Everything you do in school is just for an A+. I couldn't find my passion in it, but I still needed that A+ tho😅.
After graduating and enrolling in university, I was lost and intimidated. The tech industry is so vast, and there is so much to explore! I wanted to prepare myself to be industry-ready as soon as possible. Therefore, apart from the university syllabus, I tried finding my niche. I tried many things and was particularly attracted by web technologies. As time passed, I realized the reason I liked building websites. It is the ability to see my progress and my growth! It was rewarding since day one as I see bits by bits of my website built, and eventually a complete website. This concept applies to blogging now too! I get to measure the impact I made with my articles one after another. Readers acknowledged my content and gave me constructive feedback!
If you told me that I would start blogging during college, I would probably think you are out of your mind! Me? More writing?? Pfffft😂. Now I realized writing is fundamental for a tech student and as a developer in the future. Therefore, I dedicated myself to step out of the comfort zone and put in the effort to write my first article!
I wanted to start with something closer to my experience. Something I wished someone told me when I first ventured into tech. Therefore, I wrote my very first article on the 21st of March Titled "13 Tips For Freshman Pursuing Tech". I wrote it based on what I have experienced, regretted, and wished to know. I wanted it to reach out to more students out there, so I shared it with my local developer community on Facebook, and it blew up! 300+ views in 3 days and got approached to be featured in another blogging platform! As my first article, it was shocking to get such a great response!
So, I continued writing as I loved the impact I brought on so many peoples! One after another, and eventually, I found the aim of my content and my way to impact others! I mainly write about students in tech, web development, and might consider AI/ML in the future. Now that you are all caught up, let us look at my #TOP 5 Reasons why I blog!
My Top 5 Reasons
- The Impact
- Building a community
- Personal branding
- Network
- improve writing skills
Elaborations
I will be elaborating each point from number 5 to number 1 below!
#5 Improve writing skills
If you read my story above, writing was not my passion back in high school. Thus, there is certainly much more room for me to improve! During my free or commute time, I would listen to podcasts and read other articles to expand my vocabulary and fix my grammar. These had helped me tremendously to express myself through writing.
Writing articles grants me the ability to start thinking from others' perspectives and tell my story. It requires me to put in the effort and brainpower to think of topics to write about. I can consistently create content that impacts others while training my muscle memory to write. This will help me in the future to be more fluent and sophisticated.
#4 Network
Blogging has brought me wonders. It allowed me to network with local developers and meet mentors. It also allowed me to collaborate with others, and gain positive feedback from other students! I get to share my articles and start discussions based on my articles. Those discussions helped me improve my blog and also ignites the conversation with others!
Many started to approach me on LinkedIn or Facebook, which did not happen before I started blogging! I can see my effort bringing me opportunities, and it is very rewarding for me in this context.
#3 Personal Branding
I have attended enough workshops to know the importance of personal branding. It is how people see you and your values to whatever you said you provide. YOU have to believe and be confident to deliver the value you intend to give. Therefore, I tried to build my blog's brand around helping tech students in general.
From the analytics of Hashnode, my articles related to tech students gained over 50% of my total views! It gave me the authority to write about articles that I feel would benefit students. I generally share my articles with my local developer group that has techies from students to Founders of local tech companies. I created a poll to understand the topics students were curious about. I then promised to deliver articles for that poll. I did write this article which was the number 1 choice of that poll and got over 600 views within two weeks! Thus, I have started building a brand around my blog revolving around a specific audience to deliver valuable resources and insights that one might not intentionally search for. My audiences are students, and if you are a student reading this, my point exactly.
#2 Building a community
After having several discussions and seeing the impact of the articles I wrote, I decided to create my community! I started building my community on discord and got my first 100 members in less than two weeks!
The community members were mainly from my local developer group as they knew my content and the articles I shared with the group. The community focuses on creating a safe place for students to learn. It also provides a platform for developers to share their experience, and for employers to give opportunities. I get to communicate with my community easier, share resources and articles with them. I also improved my online presence, build my brand, and expand my network again! I hope that this initiative would turn into something in the future that could benefit all of my community members.
Join our community in discord here! Do note that the majority of the members are from Malaysia, but the server is open to all! Feel free to join and engage with our community😄
#1 The Impact
Ever since I started writing, I have discovered my objective. I wanted to write what I learned; I wanted to write articles that would benefit students; I wanted to write things I wished I knew earlier. Slowly, I became more confident and structured in my writing.
Students started to share my articles in their university group. Some approached me personally to say how the articles benefited them. Not to brag, but these little things put a smile on my face and keep me motivated😄! I get to create a positive impact on my targeted audience. I get to go to sleep and be excited to publish my article at the break of daylight. I am always hoping to benefit anyone that stumbled upon my article. Even if It only reaches out to one person.
Conclusion
To recap, the top 5 reasons I blog are the impact, building a community, personal branding, network, and improve writing skills. Everybody has a different objective and approach when it comes to writing. Until you find your purpose, it is hard to determine what content to write and who is your target audience.
I started to appreciate writers and content creators more! I know the effort needed to even write a short article that requires only two minutes to read. To all writers out there, keep writing! And for those that are scared to start writing, just do it! You never know what doors you might open. Make it your day one, not one day.
Thank you for reading 😄
This is solely based on my point of view. Find your purpose to write, and you will have the most amazing time creating your own content. If you enjoyed reading my article, consider subscribing to my newsletter! Hit the follow button and boost this article by reacting to it! Check out my other articles too!
That is all from me! Stay safe and enjoy your life!
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