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FROM: NOV-DEC 2008 ISSUE | BY MINDY ABRAMOWITZ
Blogging can contribute to the success of your career plan. It is easy to start a blog – most blog service providers supply templates and one-click publishing that even the most inexperienced blogger will find intuitive to use. Try Blogger.com, Livejournal.com, WordPress.com, or one of a wide variety of others to define your presence online. You can determine the look and feel of your virtual presentation by customizing a template to suit your taste. Most importantly, you can shape your reputation and the information others can discover about you. For example, you can cultivate your status as a communicator, a creative thinker, and an expert in a particular area.
As Neil McIntyre put it in his article published in the February 2007 edition of The Bottom Line: “Blogs are all about having more personal and meaningful conversations with an audience about a topic. When you’re an accountant or accounting firm, blogs are a way to reach people interested in your expertise, whether they’re fellow accountants interested in discussing the profession or potential clients looking for an accountant with an aptitude for technology and an ability to stay on top of the trends.”
Why Blog?
If you’ve got something to say about accounting or, even better, a specific area of competency within the industry, having a blog will help establish your name online, and in a profession such as public accounting, getting your name out there is important for your career. Personal public relations should involve offline networking as well as an online component. Blogging will allow you to meet like-minded accountants from around the world and gain useful contacts.
And let’s not underestimate the value of a blog in an employment search. While it cannot replace a solid educational and professional background, an insightful, honest blog can supplement your resume to set you apart from other applicants and put you on a potential employer’s radar.
What to Blog About
Accountants and other business professionals are blogging everywhere and about everything. The Exuberant Accountant, a CPA in Pennsylvania, reviews books and writes about leadership, mentoring, and employee engagement. He draws on his enthusiasm for major league baseball to create real-life analogies to illustrate his points. Energized Accounting is a blog maintained by an accountant in Toronto with expertise in business software. His blog discusses techniques and approaches to getting the most out of accounting systems. The Bottom Line’s blog covers everything the Canadian print publication does and more: news, trends, and technology from an accounting or financial management perspective.
Many accounting firms use blogs to market their services, and the range of accounting- and business-related topics is endless. It is up to you to find your niche and declare your interests.
Beyond Self-Promotion
Blogging grants you access to an audience and lets you position yourself as an expert in your chosen topic. It also represents a channel through which to forge relationships and to give and receive feedback. Thanks to their informal nature, blogs operate in much the same way conversations do. Mention another blog and you can be sure the author will know about it and will likely respond to your post. Publish an idea and if it elicits interest, readers will comment and other bloggers might refer to your work. Comment on someone else’s blog and you will initiate an exchange. Ultimately, blogs can create communities of people who are thinking and talking about the same issues and topics. They can also help you to make contact with leaders and thinkers you admire. When you say something in a blog, it can be heard all over the blogosphere.
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