You’re starting up your new business blog. Fantastic. Okay, who is going to write it? If your jaw is open and you’re giving the screen a blank stare, you might be thinking … “Well not me for sure!” Why not? Okay, I can guess why not. It’s more than a little daunting at first. Yikes, lots of people are going to read this. What if I make a fool of myself? I don’t really “get” this blogging thing yet, so maybe we can find someone. Good thinking. First, let’s take some of the pressure off. How about hire a professional blogger to help kick start your blog for you?
I got to thinking about this after I saw Chris Garrett’s post on the Performancing blog. Here’s a good quote:
If you really want to attract bloggers to come work with you then it is important to think about exactly what you are trying to achieve. “Attract” is the important word here. Bloggers will not beat down your door in American Idol stylee, you need to make your offer attractive. Source: Attracting Bloggers | Performancing.com
So besides money, what will make your offer attractive? Here are the things I think about:
- Flexibility. I really don’t like to have to post on a schedule. Blog writing is a little different, sometimes a day or two will go by and there isn’t anything going on relevant to the topic. Letting your bloggers post their quota (3-5 posts a week is standard) over the course of the week is easier.
- Editorial control. Within guidelines, just let your blogger write. Yeah this might be a bit scary, but that’s why you have guidelines for topics, linking, tags, categories. I know I don’t like to have my work reviewed before it’s posted and reviewing means you have to read it. For a timely post, well a day late might just lose the punch you were looking for.
- Buy in from the company and company bloggers. The idea for hiring a pro blogger to kick-start you blog is that it’s a kick start. It’s meant to let you see how a pro does it so you can work on posting but not worry that a week passes between your first “Hello world” post and your second. If you’re serious about blogging, then people in your company should start blogging too.
- I blog as me. I will not pretend that I work for a company that I’m only contracted to blog for. I write as me. Think of your pro blogger as a freelance writer. Someone supplying great content for your blog, not a faux company insider.
Now if you want to hire a blogger as an employee, well the last point is mute, but don’t forget to set clear goals and expectations for the blog. Success rarely happens overnight (I blogged for almost a year before I was “discovered” after Blog Business Summit Jan 2005).
When I started as a pro blogger years ago (yes, I was one of the first), we were making up a lot of the rules as we went, but those four points are ones that I have learned are the key ones to a successful pro blogging relationship.
tags: professional blogging
Or you can check out this new site:
http://jobs.problogger.net/
Comment by Jonathon — August 25, 2006 @ 3:13 am
I feel if you are starting off as a company and Goals you set for your self bigger in relative terms n require more than a single person, than only its good to hire a Professional blogger. Otherwise, Do it yourself! ; be very simple, always be truthful to your visitors, learn from your mistakes, avoid criticizing others, Don’t worry about that you will make a fool out of yourself as lots of people are reading your blog….Just be yourself and you will learn with time!
Comment by Amit Dixit — August 27, 2006 @ 7:00 am
Jonathon, thanks for the link to Darren’s site. Darren is a great guy (and friend) and his site(s) are great resources for all bloggers.
Amit, You have good points, but what I’ve found is that while a lot of internet oriented businesses don’t mind jumping on the blogging bandwagon, other businesses have a lot of fear and trepidation about doing blogging. Having a problogger help kick start the blog and mentor the company bloggers is a good solution.
Comment by Tris Hussey — August 28, 2006 @ 2:39 pm
One of our biggest problems when starting to sell corporate blogs was finding people inside the corporation who could and would write effectively on their blogs.
It became clear that every proposal that failed did so because the companies got stuck on what executive, director, tech guy, marketing, pr flack or recruiter was actually going to take the time to write the darn thing.
We decided to take the road less traveled and start training our own people to write compelling content for our clients.
The major difference is too many blog consultants feel a business blog has to talk about the company instead of the industry. Hiring part-time bloggers to research good stories and return them to the company blog is a great way to get around the problem of who should be writing, and quite frankly, the quality of the copy is much better.
I don’t suggest that companies should entirely outsource the function, but writing is one of those skills that everyone thinks they can do, but few can do well.
When we put out a call for part-time bloggers, we got a lot of responses from people who had the talent, the writing ability, and were just looking for some spare cash. Now we have a pool of people, which takes away one of the major objections companies have about starting a blog.
Personally, I see far too many business blogs that have no point. It’s good to see them trying, but I think business blogs have a higher standard of quality to match than personal ones.
For our first example, check out the Wetjello blog at http://www.wetjello.com/blog
Comment by Jim Durbin — September 1, 2006 @ 5:13 pm