{"id":65078,"date":"2011-11-29T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.org\/?p=65078"},"modified":"2011-11-29T13:43:21","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T18:43:21","slug":"opportunities-still-strong-for-bloggers-designers-developers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/opportunities-still-strong-for-bloggers-designers-developers\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunities Still Strong for Bloggers, Designers, Developers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Post<\/a>
\nYou are probably much more marketable than you realize.<\/p>\n

Why? Well, for one, you are reading WPMU.org. And while it might be nice to claim special powers on behalf of the site, that\u2019s not what I\u2019m getting at. The reason you\u2019re reading WPMU is probably because you are interested in WordPress, and by extension, that means you are interested in blogging and social media<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I would hazard to guess that there\u2019s nary a soul past puberty who doesn\u2019t know that most economies around the world have been pretty much in the tank the last few years.<\/p>\n

And yet there is a segment out there that continues to stay strong despite the economic downturn \u2013 blogging<\/strong> (and other social media marketing).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blogging Numbers Still Strong<\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to a study by the Center for Marketing and Research at the University of Massachusetts<\/a>, over the past four years, blogging has grown dramatically over four different sectors (Fortune 500 companies, Inc. 500 companies, Charities, and Universities).<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: Fortune 500<\/em> companies are the 500 largest companies in the U.S. according to Fortune magazine. Inc. 500<\/em> companies are 500 of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. according to Inc. magazine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Take a Look at the Numbers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

These numbers represent the percentage of companies\/institutions that have public blogs.<\/p>\n

\"Post<\/a> Some of these numbers are pretty astounding when you look at the big picture.<\/p>\n

Fortune 500 companies obviously lag behind, and this isn\u2019t really much of a surprise. Big ships turn slowly. And though there was only a 1% increase between 2009 and 2010, public blogging for these big corporations has nearly tripled over the last four years.<\/p>\n

The faster, more nimble Inc. 500 companies more than doubled their blogging efforts in the four year time span (an increase of roughly 2.5x). They also showed a respectable jump of 5 percentage points from 2009 to 2010.<\/p>\n

Charities, while basically holding steady from 2009 to 2010, were still strong with a number of 64%.<\/p>\n

But education took the cake with both a doubling of their efforts from 2007 to 2010 and a 15 percentage point jump for the 2009-2010 period.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What Does this Mean?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although this study doesn\u2019t address the actual number of opportunities available for professional bloggers, designers, and developers, simple logic will tell you that they must exist. Whether blogging, designing, and developing are simply part of an employee\u2019s responsibilities, or whether these activities are jobs in their own right–be they in-house or contract work–someone has to be filling these roles.<\/p>\n

Look around at most of your family and friends. Do they know more about blogs and blogging than you do? In a few cases they might, but in general, the answer is probably no. \u2026 Let me take that back. The answer is probably, \u201cAre you joking?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are opportunities out there. And while they may not come knocking at your front door, if you do a little knocking yourself, you may just find that you’re more welcome than you ever guessed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo: Opportunity<\/a> from Bigstockphoto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why you’re much more marketable than you probably realize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84404,"featured_media":65080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[38,639,131],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-65078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-misc","tag-design","tag-blogging","tag-developers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216257,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65078\/revisions\/216257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65078"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=65078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}