(SMU/Geenah Krisht)
Blogging takes up a rather large amount of time in SMU sophomore Claire Kelley’s life. Her job at Susan Posnick Cosmetics revolves around both blogging and social media.
“It sounded perfect for me, and I had been looking for an internship that would allow me to write,” she said. Upon acquiring the job, Kelley has blogged for Maxine Trowbridge’s fashion and event blog, PinkMemo.com, and has begun setting up the new Susan Posnick Cosmetics blog.
Kelley was also assigned several blog posts for her fashion journalism class throughout the semester. “All the assignments are fun and it’s nice to get blogging experience,” she said.
The term “blog” is a shortened version of the word weblog. Blogs are websites in which an individual or a group can produce an online narrative consisting of entries listed usually in chronological order.
Blogs have been around since the 1990s, however they are now more popular than ever. People are not only using blogs to share information such as recipes, news, photographs and style. Blogs are also gaining prominence in the professional world.
“They certainly are a factor in employment,” SMU senior Jonathan Machemehl said. “I use [my blog] to show my knowledge, and to make myself more appealing to perspective employers.”
Machemehl’s blog touches on public relations and digital communications. He is using it to build his personal brand.
“People have niches of what they want to cover. You could simply have a blog that just covers the stock market for the top 10 companies in the world, and guess what? You have an establishment,” Machemehl said.
Students studying business, journalism and advertising are strongly encouraged to create blogs prior to graduating nowadays. Some blogs are even required in class at Southern Methodist University.
“In our class, the blog is about expressing creativity,” SMU professor Willie Baronet said. “Posts can include original works, works by others, drawings, poems, anything. There are several required posts throughout the semester.”
It is only recently that blogs have become so dominant in school and in the work place. Teachers are using blogs to help their students share their ideas to an audience outside of the classroom and connect with others around the world.
Kelsey Cordutsky, an SMU sophomore, was required to make a blog for professor Baronet’s class. She said she felt almost indirectly required to keep her blog even after the conclusion of class.
“Blogs are important in my future career because they give employers more of [me] to look at,” Cordutsky said. “It is a snapshot of who you are, what you like, and most importantly for me, your design aesthetic. It is also a convenient place to upload your resume in one easy place where clients and companies can easily access it.”
Blogging has become an essential part of education because of its timeliness and productivity. Students of this generation are already engaged in social media. Teachers benefit from taking advantage of this and allowing students to utilize their tech-savvy skills.
“I have students in my fashion journalism course blog twice during the semester,” SMU professor Camille Kraeplin said. “We do fashion blog posts-students are supposed to write about a fashion topic, but they can put their own spin [or] voice into the piece. In that way, blogging is different from writing a news feature.”
Blogging is different from writing news features because the blogs can have the writers’ opinion in it. They can be personal, but they can also be professional.
Some employers expect applicants to have a blog that they can present. Many jobs, such as those related to journalism, sports teams and the entertainment industry require that their employees blog regularly.
A study conducted by NYU professor Anindya Ghose showed that blogging within enterprises has positive long-term benefits.
After analyzing bloggers in a Fortune 500 IT consulting and services company, Ghose found that when organizations permit leisurely blogging, writing and sharing of work-related ideas was positively affected and opportunities were created to strengthen networking.
Professor Baronet explained that at the rate technology is changing, all business ought to start blogging. “I think it’s legitimate to expect that some people blog as a part of their jobs, even though they may not have been hired to do that. The speed at which technology and social media is changing demands that sort of thing,” Baronet said.
Cordutsky has learned the importance of having a blog and plans to keep updating it even after classes draw to a close.
“The blog itself just keeps everything in one place. I love blogging because for me it is an outlet and a definite form of expression,” she said.
