Though My Food Job Rocks started as a podcast and the skillset in setting up and publishing a podcast has benefitted me, I found writing to be something that also has helped me traverse through the industrial ladder.
Writing class was my least favorite subject in grade school. I think the biggest trauma I’ve had with it is that English writers would force you to write an argumentative piece and since I didn’t get why we had to argue, I didn’t do too well. Also, my grammar and spelling sucked. Every time I look back at an article on this website, I see a couple of cringy typos.
But regardless, I started writing about food industry advice because there was no one doing it. For one, no one really explained Food Science in a way that wasn’t sterile and boring and I got frustrated when people kept on asking me “what is food science?” So I first made a podcast about it, then I made an article. Now two years later when you type in food science, you get a My Food Job Rocks article as a featured snippet.
People really appreciated the advice when it comes to very specific general questions about the food industry. More popular articles like “Actual Questions from Actual Companies” (thanks Veronica for this one), Resume Tips, Cover Letter Tips, (since I got a new job, more of this series very soon). Sometimes I write about my personal life just to destress but it feels nice when people sympathize with you.
What Writing Also Improves
Billionaires like Richard Branson and Warren Buffet say that communication is vital to succeeding in the workplace. If you’d like to improve on this skill, I suggest you write more in 2020.
Writing has helped me improve in public speaking and private speaking because it allows me to regurgitate my thoughts onto paper. This allows a new perspective on writing stories and gives me the confidence to talk about it when I’m approached about it.
Though we usually tell our Origin Stories all the time, writing adds a layer of confidence as you’ve solidified your story onto words and perhaps even shared it with people.
When I publish a story I’m opening up to the world and most of the world ignores it but those who don’t, and read and comment on the article, really matter to me.
Planting Seeds
Renee Dunn visited me in Austin Texas and we sat down for coffee. Of course, we talked about the struggles of entrepreneurship, but we also mentioned content marketing. One of this type of content marketing is blogging. A successful article is really hard to create.
But blogging is like planting seeds. About 50% of the articles of My Food Job Rocks get single-digit views. Mainly because they suck. The best articles are informative, the worst are me talking about my personal life because no one wants to hear that. But it’s there.
I have a variety of topics ranging from entrepreneurial to creative. Sometimes I get interested in a subject like Myers Briggs and write about it.
I’m terrible at farming but I did grow some hot peppers and okra from scratch once in Phoenix. It’s really hard. You have to spray and pray the seeds, find the sprout, nurture the sprout and then take care of it to watch it grow. Blogging is like planting seeds. You not only don’t know what seeds will sprout but when they’ll sprout. It might take a couple of years before you see the benefits.
The most popular article on My Food Job Rocks has nothing to do with food science, but rather a Myers Briggs analysis. It’s also a specific type of Myers Briggs subtype, but it gets around 100-200 views a day.
However, the second most popular article is “What Is Food Science? A Beginner’s Guide”.Which gets about 20-60 views a day.
These articles took about two years for them to be recognized and it’s all thanks to the magical algorithm known as Google that allows it to be found.
When you type in Food Science, you get our article about Food Science. Most of the things you type that’s food-career-related, my ugly blog has an article about it. It’s a wonderful feeling that this little blog can help people learn more about food science.
Blogging is the long game that may yield nothing but I describe it as planting seeds. A novice gardener will probably end up with nothing planted. The more you practice and do your research on the skillset, the more likely your next crop will sprout. There’s a lot of nuances and a lot of tricks when writing.
People will generally forget about your tweet and status update because it gets consumed by the endless flood of content but if you dig a channel for your own little garden, then they will admire the beauty of being surrounded by your own content that might last forever.
Impact of Archiving Your Writing
I choose to invest in a blog because I think the skillset is useful (building a website, paying for a domain and optimizing it) but actually putting content on a blog has become an archivable powerhouse because people can now search for your stuff.
There are people who write some damn good stuff on LinkedIn but LinkedIn has a terrible archiving tool. Not only that but it only allows 1300 words. Instagram and Facebook are better at archiving but the content isn’t as impactful as LinkedIn because the focus of the audience doesn’t want to hear about you failing something that will eventually lead to them buying your stuff.
You definitively don’t have to archive your writing via a blog platform. There are plenty of people who get a lot of engagement by being a stand-up guy on LinkedIn. For me, blogging is a minimal investment for maximum gain, and I don’t have to stress about getting likes. When someone is impacted by my writing and tell me at a conference, that’s enough of a return of investment for me.
Your Bad Stuff Doesn’t Matter, because Bad is Subjective
My grammar still sucks and my sentence structure isn’t always correct, but that doesn’t really matter. There is so much content on the web that it, unfortunately, doesn’t matter if your writing is proper or not. In fact, you can say the lack of writing etiquette shows authenticity and realness. People quote twitter articles with misspelled words all the time.
If there was one skill set that can help you improve your life with minimal effort, it’s writing. This doesn’t have to be a blog, it can be journaling or even a LinkedIn status. I use blogging because I have more to say and I want people to listen but it’s not always the best medium to practice writing.
Most of your writing will suck but you should publish it anyway because it still might resonate with some people.
What does matter is that the good stuff is shared. One example is Kevin Kelly’s concept of 1000 True Fans. I’ve never heard of Kevin Kelly until this article but apparently, he’s really famous and writes a ton. Every marketer and amateur blogger I know quotes his stuff. Keep in mind, this article is more than a decade old.
So when you write, and when you blog, it can last forever You never know when it will catch on, but you only need one article that catches on to feel like your writing matters.
