Write For Us

10 things to consider when writing a blog for What Matters CIC

Looking to write a blog for us?

At What Matters CIC, we’re committed to creating a community of voices, interested and passionate about sharing their knowledge to help support other young professionals realise their potential.

We believe everyone, regardless of their professional background, has something valuable to offer. We’re interested in receiving blogs from people who want a platform to share their expertise, reflections and learnings about topics that will benefit our network looking to advance their career journeys.

Topics can include but are not limited to:

Networking
Interview tips and tricks
Building confidence and resilience
Creating content online
Developing a personal brand

We want to encourage all young professionals out there to use the mediums of a blog to enhance their career, promote their talent as well as develop their creative writing.

Whether you're a first time blog writer or an experienced one, we’ve put together a 10 step guide to help make the process of writing a blog for us as smooth as possible.

You can find our five-step submission guide below. We hope this will help make the journey of writing your blog as fulfilling as possible.

Blog Guide:

1. Finding a purpose

What is the reason behind wanting to write your blog? Is it to educate, inform, entertain..? Understanding the purpose behind your blog will be a huge help when putting your blog together. This will also influence the tone, style and format of your blog so it’s definitely worth taking into consideration during the planning process.

2. Your perspective

As the writer of the blog, your perspective is crucial in constructing a blog that feels authentic to yourself whilst being relatable to the reader. Why are you the right person to write this blog? This will enable you to hone in on your perspective, thoughts and insights into developing the narrative of your blog.

3. Topic

Having a clear topic for your blog is a must. As mentioned above, there’s a range of topics you can choose from so the idea is picking a topic that you’re passionate about which will also appeal to the audience. Once you’ve settled on your topic, you can then start drafting the points you want to make as part of your blog and crack on with writing!

4. Audience

Blogging is a personal form of writing, so having a personal connection with your topic will also help you to connect with your audience. Think about who would be most interested in reading your blog: is it people from a certain industry, demographic or location? This will help you to write a compelling piece that will engage with your audience more effectively.

5. Format and Style

6. Headline

It almost goes without saying, but a catchy headline will help grab your audience’s attention and boost your page views. Sometimes coming up with the headline can be more challenging than writing the blog!

We suggest coming up with a few potential headline ideas and picking one that encapsulates most effectively what your blog is about.

7. Hook

Similar to the heading, having a solid hook will help keep your audience’s interest sustained. A successful blog post will hook readers with an issue or a problem that is first mentioned in the headline. Once you get into the blog, the body of work should be set up to promise a reader more by putting forward your point of view.

If it helps, you can imagine your blog being an essay in which you pose an argument and put forward persuasive points to get the reader to agree with you.

8. Reseach and Solution

If you’ve got all the information you need to start writing your blog, then great! If not, this is where research can be really beneficial.

There are different ways you can research your topic depending on what works for you e.g articles, journals, magazines, website, podcasts, surveys and lots more.

We only ask that if you do use an external source, please credit it in your work. You can add a source list at the end of your piece.

9. Structure

Keeping a simple structure to your blog will help with outlining the order of your points. We suggest sticking to an introduction, main body and conclusion. You can then break these sections further if needed.

However, don’t be afraid to experiment with how you want to outline your ideas and thoughts on the page. The most important thing to consider is the journey you want to take the reader on and how it will help them navigate your thought process.

10. Proofread and Edit

Being faced with a blank page can be daunting however, with the guidance of the above points, hopefully this will make it easier for your ideas to flow. Sometimes the best thing is to just go for it!

Once you have written your first draft, we recommend proofreading and editing your work more than once. If it helps, you can ask a friend, colleague or a family member to proofread it for you.

When editing your work consider if you need to cut points out or provide more context to others. Changing the format of your blog can also help to reinforce what points you want to make.

Your writing is a way of promoting your personal brand and values so first impressions count. Making sure you're using correct grammar, punctuation and spelling all contribute to a successful blog.

Submitting your work:

1. Express your interest

If you’ve decided to write a blog for us, we would love to hear from you. You can express your interest by simply filling in this quick form.

2. Follow up

A member of the team will be in touch via email to book an informal catch up. This will be a great opportunity to share ideas, ask questions as well as get any tailored support you need with writing your blog.

We will also set a flexible deadline for submitting your first draft.

3. Sending us your draft

We can’t wait to receive your blog! After submitting your work, we will take 1-2 weeks to get back to you with any feedback and recommendations for edits.

We also ask at this stage to send us any pictures, links or social media profiles you would like us to add to your blog page.

4. Making final edits

We will ask you to send us your revised draft 2 weeks after we send feedback. If after this there are still edits to be made, we will ask for one final revision, to be sent to us within 1 week of getting back to you.

5. Publication and promotion

Congrats - you’ve reached the final stage. We will let you know when your blog will be published on our website.

We can also promote your blog on LinkedIn and our Instagram and tag your social media profile(s). This is entirely optional - if you would prefer us not to do this, please do let us know.

Thank you for choosing to write a blog for What Matters cic. We hope you will be open to writing more blogs for us in the future.