Nate Riggs: Social Business Strategies; communication, social web strategies, & passion in Columbus, Ohio.

At Denison University, students in Dr. Erika Pryor‘s Comm 239 class are learning about building an online presence.

I was grateful to have the chance to speak with them about human branding, the art of blogging, and how better communication tools can create leverage in the professional world.  While driving home, I began to feel, however, that I didn’t really accomplish what I set out to do.  Part of my goal in talking to the students was to be a cheerleader.  I wanted to advocate for the adoption of tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs in hopes that each will help give them a head start.

For a long time now, I’ve firmly believed that all students should be taught how to blog in the classroom.  I believe that things like Boolean searching, professional social networking and basic HTML should be a required within college curriculum.

People like Dr. Pryor and Shane Haggerty are paving the way for new standards in education, while people like Nedda Ahmed invest their personal social web outposts in serving and educating students.

But I felt like I was off today, and didn’t quite get the job done.  Since blogging was one of the topics, I’ll just follow up with the class here.  Sound good?  Here we go…  (Thanks for today, Comm 239!)

24 Reasons Why Students Should Start Blogging Today

• You have absolutely nothing to lose. Learning to write an active blog is much better than the alternative – doing nothing.
• You need practice writing.  We all do.  As students who will enter the workforce soon, you will be judged, in large part, by your ability to communicate your ideas in writing.  Practice makes perfect.
• Resumes are dead.  You need more than a resume to get a job.  Being an active blogger means that you will always have fresh work to show.
• Over the next few years, there will be tons of companies hiring young people who can demonstrate that they are proficient in blogging and using social network technology.
• Find a place you’d like to work?  It’s easy to get their attention by requesting to interview someone from management for a blog post you’re writing.
• Links to blog posts make for great interview follow-up emails.
• Writing an active blog (2-5 posts weekly) shows that you are proactive.  It shows effort and initiative.  It’s a statement that you are committed to producing something of value.
• Search engines love blog posts.  The more you get indexed, the better your chances of getting found become.
• Blogging is fun, once you find your niche.
• You can use a blog to create ethical will.  Artie Isaac can teach you more about that.
• You can use a blog to get people to hire you for whatever it is that you do.
• Your blog makes for a great “hub” for all your other social outposts.  It gives people a single reference point that allows them to connect with you everywhere.
• You can start your blog for free.  Tumblr.  WordPress.  Blogger.  Oh my.
• A blog is a great place to work on refining your personal identity and voice (a.k.a your brand YOU).
• There’s an audience for every topic. A blog helps you find them.
• By starting a blog, you learn how to operate a Content Management System.  That’s a valuable skill to have in back pocket.
• A blog could give you the opportunity to learn how to understand Google Analytics.  That’s a really valuable skill to have in your back pocket.
• Good, proactive bloggers usually get to meet interesting people because they blog (once they blog well).
• Your blog is a searchable reference database of the things you think about as you grow and change.  That’s helpful when you work on “Know Thyself.”
• There’s a reason why I remember the names of students like Marie Elizabeth, Bryan Fraker and Hannah DeMilta (update: and Forrest Kobayashi).  Any guess as to what that reason might be?
• Having a blog gives people like Dr. Pryor and myself somewhere to link to when we talk about you.  Potential employers might click on those links someday.
• If you blog about it (i.e. write it down), you have a better chance of remembering the story when you need it later.  (If you’re like me, you have to write it down to even have any chance of remembering it later.  Thus, nateriggs.com.)
• Blogging can help reconnect you with past relationships that faded over time.  Sometimes, those relationships can change everything.
• Having a blog will differentiate you from the other students who aren’t blogging. Differentiation gets noticed and creates a competitive advantage.  Enough said.

And now a plea to my blogger friends who read this.  What have I missed?

Why do you blog?  Why do you think it’s important?  What else do students need to know about blogging?

(comic credit: Avinash Kaushik)

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