The following post is work I have researched into and will be giving a lecture on at the 11th Annual Islam Propagation Week of the Ghana Muslim Students' Association(GMSA)-University of Cape Coast Branch.
Blogging offers a lot of benefits to individuals who engage in it. Some of these benefits are:
1. Writing habit improves
Blogging involves writing, then you edit, then you proofread and then you post or publish on the net.
Writing for blogs on a regular basis therefore enhances writing skills and encourages other things like critical thinking, communication and how to defend a point. These attributes coincidentally turn out to be what a university student should possess.
For this reason in some parts of the world, submitting essays on papers to lecturers are becoming out of date. Students are rather mandated to write for their own created blogs.
2. Acquisition of more knowledge
Blogging helps you acquire more knowledge since you regularly research for your blog posts. For instance, if your hobby is mathematics and you blog about it, you will be forced to look for new things in maths to publish and in doing so you are keeping the stuff yourself.
And that is one thing about blogging. When you write a post or call it article for your blog and you come later to realize some people from TUNISIA,US, INDIA, NIGERIA, CUBA or anywhere else have read it, I can assure you you will be forced to write more articles and that is where the acquisition of knowledge starts.
Also, wouldn’t you like to be referenced when say a friend of yours writes an assignment for his/her lecturer because that friend got the required information from your blog? Who here wouldn’t like to see the name of his/her blog on my assignment papers?
It means you are also adding more information to the worldwide bank of knowledge
3. You get exposure
What you blog about can easily be accessed by a lot of people all around the world. For this reason blogging is another way to get famous not only locally but internationally.
TV shows, radio programs, newspapers and even other blogs will grant you interviews when your blog starts to get readership.
Just recently, a woman blogger was granted interview on The One Show on Viasat 1. So you see blogging can give you the exposure you want. Just be good at what you blog about and you will get exposed.
Some bloggers have been given mouth watering job offers because they discuss sports, science, politics, mention them very well on their blogs. Others have become writers and written books because people from elsewhere who read their blogs are happy with their articles and are ready to publish books for them.
In particular those of you who like sports, just get a blog and start to write your side of the stories of the matches you watch. Be good at it and I wouldn’t be surprised to see you on TV stations discussing sports.
4. It’s training to become a journalist
Blogging is journalism and it is a step along the road to becoming a journalist.
Many journalists are bloggers and many bloggers are journalists. An example is Ato Kwamena Dadzie formerly with Joy Fm morning show. He has a blog and is a blogger.
For those of you who want to become journalists, I can promise you having a good blog will make getting a journalist job easier for you. Because only a few Ghanaians blog and at the interview I can assure you you will be happy to have started a blog. Just tell the interviewer you have a blog with about 50 readers and you are unique from the other people at the interview session.
A deputy editor at goal.com by name Share Evans said and I quote “blogging is a step along the road to becoming a journalist. By cutting your teeth writing on things that you are passionate about, a blogger can gain the tools to operate in a newsroom environment effectively.”
Europeans are aware of this and so some schools in Europe make it mandatory for journalism students to maintain a blog as a requirement for their journalism program.
I will make available the rest of this presentation in my next post so watch out.
