Bloggers For Hire

Most businesses, large or small, these days, have a website.  Many businesses paid a lot of money for a professional to design and create their website, in fact.  Those websites are often very beautiful, well-designed, and full of working links that lead to other businesses.  The business owners are quite satisfied with their purchase of a fancy website, and are quite content to leave the website as it is, indefinitely!

The problem with that is simply this:  Google will only crawl over a static website a few times before deciding that the website is dead.  All the strategically-placed keywords in the world won’t help a static website after a few Google crawls.

If a business is going to get its online presence noticed, that business is going to have to set up an ever-changing website, ie a blog.  That blog, in order to attract Google hits and customers, will have to fulfill several criteria:  it has to use the necessary keywords - not only use them, but use them differently with every post; it has to have good, solid, grammatically-correct, properly-spelled writing about current subject matter directly pertaining to the product or service, and it has to change several times a week.  That way, Google will continue to place it high when a potential customer searches for something that is relevant to a keyword in the post.

Some business already have an employee with good writing skills and the knowledge base necessary to put together a good marketing post every few days, but most businesses need to hire a professional.

Jim Turner, here at Bloggers For Hire, knows how to set your business up with the perfect writer.  He’s done it for many businesses, and he can do it for yours.

It’s all up to you, really.  Do you want your business’ online presence to be dead in the water as far as Google is concerned, in spite of that really expensive static website you bought, or do you want your online presence to be fresh and exciting and ever-changing and climbing higher and higher on Google’s first page every month?

Your call.

We have heard the idea behind “Blogging Is Dead…” We have also heard about the death of newspapers and the traditional media journalists that are losing their careers to the “citizen journalists” and those that are doing it as hobbyists. We have seen this in play for 2008, but what does this mean for the future of blogging and the future of journalism? I was reading recently about Ann Handley discussing the fact that companies should be hiring journalists if they want to leverage content in the future on their sites. Here is Ann’s prediction and advice:

“If you are thinking of increasing your content play in 2009, hire a journalist.” ~ Ann Handley

“In 2009, an increasing number of journalists find themselves out of work at traditional newspapers, which continue to struggle with sustaining their business. Good news: the writers find a home as “content producers” and “content managers” on the corporate side, in companies of all shapes and sizes.

People who are trained as journalists are specifically geared to helping companies execute on their 2009 marketing strategy, which is to become trusted sources of information within their specific industries. They can help companies see the wisdom of talking less about the company itself, and more about solutions they can help their customers with. They are wonderfully creative in developing interesting and compelling content.

Advice: If you are thinking of increasing your content play in 2009, hire a journalist.”

This is going to be what I see as 2009 unfolds. I have been gettting many inquiries about our service. Companies are seeing the benefits of outsourcing their content needs. I am not going to address the “Bloggers vs. Journalists” debate that many have bantered about over the past, that is for another post. Suffice it to say, journalists will need to learn the blogging trade, and you bloggers should probably begin to take some of the wisdom we see in journalism and make it part of your arsenal. I myself could use some lessons in journalistic writing.

This is going to be the new look of professional blogging and it really began when the demise of newspapers and other traditional media began to lose readers to the dreaded Internet. Just as the scribes lost their monopoly when the printing press became prolific, so to are traditional media outlets losing their grip on what they held as a monopoly. This is really a career and position that is in its infancy. I am looking to leverage the future of professional blogging and how companies are looking to a better blogger. Journalists are far ahead in the professional blogging game. They already have the tools necessary. When they learn the blogging game, the ability to network, market and build community as bloggers, they will dominate this space.

[Photo via aloshbennett]

One of the blogs that I think every blogger professional or otherwise should be reading is Brian Clark’s Copyblogger. He continually provides great advice for people writing and supplying content on the web. Today’s post is no different. James Chartrand writes the post discussing the fact that your website needs to tell a story. I completely agree with his statements about the old versus the new way we provide content on our websites:

Facts don’t stir emotions and encourage people to take action. Facts don’t sell until people look to rationalize the buying decision they’ve made at an emotional level.

“The role of web writers has changed. Just a few short years ago, the content on most websites was boring and factual, just a profile of monotonous company information.

Today, the content on websites that work looks very different indeed.

Effective web writers are moving away from bland, factual information. Readers won’t settle for that anymore.

It isn’t interesting. It isn’t compelling.

Facts don’t stir emotions and encourage people to take action. Facts don’t sell until people look to rationalize the buying decision they’ve made at an emotional level.

That’s why you need to transform your website into a story.”

This is a good look at what professional bloggers and even those just doing it for pleasure have found to be their best asset and biggest success in providing content on their own blogs. I was able to grow my own following on my blog as a daddy blogger because i let people into my world. i told them a story of what was going on in that world and they came every day to see the next chapter. I then found that when i skipped a day or two, they would quickly begin to email me an ask me “What’s wrong?”, “Are you okay? It was like they had to have the next bit of the story. They came back to hear it like I had a miniseries unfolding before me. They were staying tuned into the story. the same thing can be done for your company. Everyday is a new part of the story.

[photo via bcmom]

As you can imagine I try to keep my finger on the pulse of hiring practices for hiring the best of the best bloggers, and seeing how others view this process makes me even sharper at the practice. I was reading over at WInning The Web about their thoughts on how to hire a blogger for your website. They come up with 9 areas that work for them:

1. Use the Problogger job board

2. Write a clear description to pique interest

3. Make them prove themselves

4. Promote on other sites as well

5. Followup to gauge interest

6. Hire writers to try them out

7. Lay out specific terms and instructions

8. Provide ongoing training

9. Assessment time

I’ll let you read through their descriptions. These are good points and its a post that does lay out the process by which you as a business owner could go about hiring a blogger for your site or company. In this particular instance, I think this relates more to the idea of hiring bloggers for the business model of the blog being the “company” instead of the company having a blog that needs a blogger. Nonetheless, the advice is still pretty good to follow, and something that we do here at Bloggers For Hire as part of our vetting process. You can eliminate the worry behind these 9 steps and just give us a call. We offer a different approach, we do all the work for you.

I am often asked by many clients and companies that I consult with about blogging, “Do I link out to my competition?” In a word, absolutely. I want to keep in that fashion with today’s post. There are just some blog posts that need to be brought to the attention of readers, and my competition (more like a colleague or partner in crime) has written such a blog post that needs to be read by you my readers. Chris Brogan writes today about “40 Ways To Deliver Killer Blog Content.” Being as it is, and Chris’ regional dialect, I would have guessed he would have called it “Wicked Blog Content”, but I digress. Chris talks about getting a jump on your New Year’s Resolution:

This is your chance to get out there and kick ass. ~ Chris Brogan

“You can make your New Year’s resolution almost a full month early. Here’s what you can commit to for 2009: you’re going to have a killer blog. You’re going to write the kind of blog people post, tweet, link, and even print to stick up on their office wall. Your blog in 2009 is going to be the kind of blog that people use to power their own change. This is your chance to get out there and kick ass.”

Chris is right of course. Now is the time to get ready for the 2009 year of new business. Many companies are just now gearing dow for the year and ending 2008 budgets and plans, but are also looking ahead to 2009 and new programs and campaigns. If you are a blogger that is producing ‘Killer Content” then you too can be ahead of the game when companies go looking for that perfect blogger or social media evangelist.

If you are a blogger you should pay attention to this post and learn the 40 ways to deliver “Killer Content.” As a company looking to hire a blogger, you should and can expect your professional blogger to bring to the table this type of expertise.

I will be in Miami next week speaking on a panel put together by Rick Calvert of Blog World Expo, and Chris Brogan will be on the panel with Rick and I. I am looking forward to spending a little time with Chris and picking his brain a little more on what I still think should be how to produce “wicked cool content.”

[photo via abnelphoto.com]

Some of the things that is an important part of being a professional blogger or being a blogger that companies want to hire is your online portfolio or what they can find of your work. You need to build your online presence that can be found by potential employers or companies looking to hire your services. I ran across that very chance to increase your resume. My friend Peter is calling for articles for Website Magazine:

“If you are a Web professional who has mastered SEO, SEM, analytics, Web design, Web development, e-commerce or affiliate marketing, and are interested in being published in the most widely distributed print publication on Web success, send an email with a brief descirption of your idea(s) for an article to editors@websitemagazine.com or contact WM online now.”

Get yourself published in some of these places and you might get that job over someone that is not as “experienced”.

That is me over there on the left. I’m the one grinning about being in a room full of my peers.

I have been following Hugh MacLeod for quite some time and he continues to come up with gems like this one above. I am pretty sure I need to make this a business card.

If you don’t want to hire a blogger here, make sure to look up one of the other people pictured in the strip above. I know they can help you with your needs.

Today has been a typical Monday for me.  I have had a few companies that were on board with blogging for their businesses, pull back and cancel contracts. Yes, I have now had the “it’s not you… it’s me” speech given to me twice in as many days.  This is not good news for a small company like mine, and especially for the bloggers that I have contracts with it means for a tough holiday season.  I always hated breaking up, especially when they were breaking up with me!

I can see a pattern to something that is beginning to make me think that the economy is hitting even the professional blogging industry.  In some respects there has been an increase in companies seeking ways to help reduce their marketing, advertising and other online marketing budgets through the use of outsourcing bloggers.  This helps them reduce the spending they have in those areas yet increase their productivity.  This has kept my phone and email smoking of late from those companies in that camp. In other areas, like for instance in the larger companies with larger budgets, I’m seeing the opposite.  It’s time to shed the ballast is their minds.  What is considered ballast?  Anything that is not nailed down.   Employees and departments that were once hiring professional bloggers in the field are tightening their belts and putting their noses to the grindstone. It is time to protect them and their own.  Department heads are having to do with 10 what they used to do with 15 people.  What was once considered a luxury of having money to pay someone to blog, department heads are now having to do for themselves, or worse yet, not at all.

Businesses in this economy are going back to what has worked for them in the past. Blogging is too young to pass that test.

It is the “not at all” that most concerns me in the immediate future.  Businesses in this economy are going back to what has worked for them in the past. Blogging is too young to pass that test.  Those things that have garnered them the attention online, and something that has shown a definite return on investment are what they are doing.  Why?  In their minds blogging is still too early to give credit to and until they can show its benefit it will be put on the shelf.  They are going back to what was working when they had to have it, what was needed to survive, what they cold prove was a benefit.  When times are tough, we always fall back on what worked before.  We go back to the well that was producing.  In this case, we are going to see a bump in the areas of pay-per-click campaigns or those things that have “metrics”.  Google will be where people go for their marketing and advertising.  Their last Adsense campaign seemed to increase their revenues, and when they were questioned by the powers above they could show hard numbers on conversions as click-thrus and those crunching the numbers were able to give it value.  Blogging is too much like business voodoo when it comes to showing the CFO why you are spending that precious dollar on a blog post.  They cannot see what possible benefit can come from someone reading about your mission statement, or about your company’s latest cool news item.  They want to see a pie chart for every dollar spent.  Blogging is just not the right fit for that type of thinking.  SEO professionals will again be relied upon to work their tricks, but as some have revealed, that wand may also be out of magic.  It is too early to tell what will happen in the professional blogging industry.  As I stated before, business is still good and many companies are still looking to hire bloggers to do the work they themselves cannot.  I for one hope that is the continuing trend, otherwise I need to get that Twitterers For Hire URL nailed down.

I recently attended an invitation only conference or business meeting here in Boulder just last month, and was able to meet a new colleague in the social media marketing area.  This person is doing very cool things and not just in business, but also because he jumps out of perfectly good airplanes!  I am speaking about Peter Shankman.

Peter has been in the public relations industry for a while now and he has done some really cool things, like write a book.  His site describes him perfectly as I remember him from the conference:

…when you harness the power of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and make it work to your advantage.

“PR Week Magazine has described Peter as “redefining the art of networking,” and Investor’s Business Daily has called him “crazy, but effective.”  Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you harness the power of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and make it work to your advantage.  An entrepreneur, author, speaker, and ingenious worldwide connector, Peter is recognized nationally and globally for radically new ways of thinking about social media, PR, marketing, advertising, creativity, and just about everything else, as well.”

It is his latest project that has everyone including his competition standing up to take notice.  The phrase that gets the attention for his new project is “Everyone Is An Expert At Something.”  Peter does not lie, as I think I can be an expert in at least two or three things in this world such as procrastination or daydreaming, but his premise is right on the money.  I sell the idea to companies all the time.  There is an expert blogger out there for just about any business.  Go ahead and challenge me.  I can’t think of a business that doesn’t have at least one person that is passionate about it.  The thing that can be a problem is how do they get the information for their blog posts after they run out of their own expertise? 

HARO could be seen as the perfect matchmaker.

One way is to go out and get the information.  Peter’s business allows for that very concept in Help A Reporter Out. HARO, as it is known, is a site that can allow for reporters, journalists and yes in some cases even us lowly bloggers, to get information from experts in any field.  It does one of the things that Peter does so well but on a much larger scale, it puts people together that need each other.  HARO could be seen as the perfect matchmaker.  It’s easy to sign up for the service if you are looking for or are wanting to loan your own expertise.  Take the time, and you may be the next expert quoted in the New York Times, or perhaps even one of your favorite blogs!

[Peter Shankman photo via Shankman.com, Reporter Notebook photo via sskennel]

One of the things that I seem to continually tell my bloggers is to make sure they are interviewing people in their genre.  I am constantly reminding them that they can do some great things with their blog just by making the time to ask a few questions of the experts in their fields.  For example, if your blog is about parenting, make sure you contact someone in the industry, like mommies and daddies.  Perhaps get a few interviews on the same topic to present more than one point of view.  My friend Wendy Piersall, CEO of Sparkplugging, (pictured right at Blog World Expo being interviewed herself at the Blog Talk Radio booth) was all about the interviews while at Blog World Expo.  She interviewed everyone she came in contact with and got them on her digital Flip camera to view later.  She had lots of fodder that she could choose from.

One of the things this accomplishes is to provide you loads of content when you are caught staring at your computer screen wondering what you might possibly post about before the day is done.  I wish I had a few interviews left myself.

Interviews also accomplish another very cool thing for your blog, it helps you get noticed.  You get noticed not because you are talking to an expert in the field, although that is a great way to get noticed, but because that person will go out and let everyone he or she knows that they have been interviewed.  They may link to your blog post to let their readers know about the interview, or they may mention you on Twitter, or perhaps they will give someone the link at a cocktail party.  The ultimate goal is another reader, and even another person that is exposed to your blog and may subscribe to your feed or may return later to see what else you may have written.

Interviewing people is a great skill to learn.  Don’t be afraid to ask for that short Q&A, or that on-camera interview.  People love to be seen as someone that might have something important to say.  It can mean more readers for your blog and more links.  Nothing can be wrong with those benefits.  Now if I could just get Wendy to think what I have to say is important!

[photo via Wendy Piersall]