Who Knows You
They say success is all about who you know but I’d argue—especially in our loosely connected world—it’s all about who knows you.
One path to success—and I believe there are many—is to put content out there to gain an audience. Some of them are easy to do, some are harder.
Here’s a quick list of ideas:
- Blog posts
- Magazine articles
- YouTube vids
- Twitch streaming
- CodePen
- Books
- Speaking
- Meetups
- Side projects
Early on in my career, I made a concerted effort to get my name (and content) onto sites beyond my own blog. I asked to write for Digital Web and A List Apart and 24Ways. I asked a publisher to write a book. I asked to speak at conferences.
Each of those things led to more and more exposure to the point where I had an audience to leverage into other things. It is this formula that I’ve seen others in our industry use very well. They’ve been able to leverage their work into getting better jobs or other opportunities.
You don’t need to be an expert.
You just need to share your experience.
You might be reluctant to share your experience because you feel you aren’t an expert. In reality, sharing your experience of starting out with something can be useful to those also just starting out and it can be useful to those who have previous experience and are trying to make things easier for those jumping in.
As a result of putting yourself out there in this way, people learn who you are. It’s like advertising or marketing. The more you put yourself out there, the more people see it, the more people are likely to remember you.
Overnight
Don’t expect success to come overnight. You may have spent hours on that well-crafted blog post but that doesn’t instantly translate into thousands of visitors. You may consider your content to be better than someone else’s content that is getting more attention. It very well might be better. But I believe there is a misconception that more work equals more success and that more success means you must be a better/smarter person—neither of which is true.
I started blogging heavily in 2003 but it wasn’t until I experimented with fixed positioning in 2005 that I started to gain some traction. I co-authored books in 2007. I wrote for A List Apart in 2009. SMACSS in 2011. There was a lot of content and projects launched in between all of that.
Not My Success
Not everybody buys into this path. Not everybody can. Not everybody has the time nor the inclination to crank out content in their spare time like this. Like I said at the beginning, there are multiple paths and this is but one.
As a white male in Western society, I recognize that I come from a place of privilege. I have received very little criticism and push back. Whereas, I’ve seen women and people of colour receive much worse, making it harder for them to put themselves out there.
The times, they are a changing
This blog post has been sitting in my drafts since 2018. I’d like to say it was well before the enshitification of social media services but one could argue they’ve not been good for a long time before that. Do you prop up services that you don’t align with morally to build and maintain an audience to boost your own career? There’s only so many bills that get paid with righteousness. I am not here to judge you.
I closed my Twitter account but would I have been more likely to stay on if I was still trying to sell my book? Maybe.
I enjoyed reading Doing Good Better and perhaps is relevant to how we think of what it means to operate in these ambiguous situations. I also think of The Good Place and how they tried to measure what’s good and what’s bad and wow, nobody was good enough for the good place.
Pendulum Swing
As many services prove themselves to be terrible stewards of decency, the pendulum appears to be swinging to a more grassroots, build-and-manage-your-own platform. (That could just be that many of the people I follow are from an era that started out doing just that. Is that reflective of a larger movement? Time will tell.)
As a return to blogging builds momentum, link often, provide credit, and encourage others to do the same. We can also use more collaboration and fun in our worlds.
Three people that I’ve enjoyed following are Jason Lengstorf, Lynn Fisher, and Ana Tudor.
Forge a Path
Whatever path you decide, considering the job and political market at this time, may we all find hope and success.