The Most Defensible Thing You Can Do for Your Career: Build an Audience

The Most Defensible Thing You Can Do for Your Career: Build an Audience.

We talk of a practical case for sharing your work often with those outside of your company.

Tell me if this has ever happened to you: A well-known person in your field loses their job with impressive company X. Deep, deep inside you feel a vague sense of guilty satisfaction. They weren’t that talented anyway, you tell yourself. This will clear room for more up-and-coming talent, you say. But then weeks later when you’ve already mentally moved on, you read that well-known person has landed on their feet, yet again, with a new job at impressive company Y. No schadenfreude for you.

So what is that well-known person’s secret? It’s not (always) talent. No, the thing that keeps creative people employed and in full control of their destiny isn’t some hidden genius. It is the ability to build and serve an audience. Cynically, it’s much harder to quietly let someone go if their 4,000 Twitter followers will hear about it. But practically for those of us whose who operate behind the scenes or aren’t the “face” of our department or company, an audience is the best job insurance possible.

Consider the plight of the person hiring creative talent. Or the person hiring anyone, really. They have a marketing campaign for a client meant to build customers. Or maybe they are responsible for a team that does not have a ton of headcount to work with. While the job market is risky, those doing the hiring are risk averse—VERY risk averse.

While the job market is risky, those doing the hiring are risk averse—VERY risk averse.

The known commodity is always safer. People are more likely to hire their friends or people they’ve worked with before. This, of course, is the genesis for the well-trodden aphorism, “It’s not what you know but it’s who you know.” Well, those job candidates with an audience experience this “known commodity bonus” but at a significant multiplier. Now it’s not the just the hiring manager that knows about the creative with an audience. It’s others in the industry. Other known commodities know about this known commodity.

This is why building an audience is job insurance. There’s a reason the creative crowd flocks to Medium and Twitter. The “premium” for this job insurance isn’t money. It’s being transparent in your process, having resolute beliefs, and sharing these both with the world and doing so regularly. Usually, though not always, this means writing. But it can also mean capturing email addresses of those who like your work. Or posting case studies of everything you work on or directing people to follow you on a specific network.

I don’t know the industry you work in. But what I do know is that your industry needs your voice. More people than those in the room with you each day deserve to see your take on things that matter. Especially if you find yourself complaining the “thought leaders” are the same tired faces getting all of the notice?

Greatest thoughts by Sean Blanda is a writer based in New York City and is the former Editor-in-Chief and Director of 99U