Spring, summer, and fall are conference seasons for me.  This is because, in addition to being a professional blogger, I’m also a college professor, and in the winter, it’s almost impossible for me to leave town.

That’s right, I have another life besides the one I share with my clients.  Most pro-bloggers have “other lives.”

This is to your advantage, prospective clients and customers.  Because most pro-bloggers have “other lives,” we have first-hand knowledge of your business as it applies to the real world.

I have several clients for whom I write and take care of their social media needs, and no two clients are alike.

I know how to apply each client to each other, and to the world out there, pretty much simultaneously.

My clients’ businesses are extremely precious to them, so I make it a point to learn as much as I can about each business, in as much detail as possible, so I can write and share accurately.  My clients usually give me samples of their products or services, and I use/wear/share/compare these samples, yes, out in the real world I am also an active part of.  So far, I’ve loved every client I’ve ever represented via Bloggers for Hire and One by One Media, and I’ve done my utmost to please them.   These clients have treated me graciously, enthusiastically, and well, and I appreciate that very much.

They make me proud to represent them online.

That’s the thing, you see.  As a business, you WANT someone who also has a presence out in the real world, with contacts, experiences, and daily “things they do.”

As a business, you want your blogger and social media representative to be knowledgeable and active, in real-world settings.  A monk in a cell might love your product, but will he know how to let the world know?

I’m proud to be trusted with blogs and social media responsibilities for my very, very important clients.  I do all that’s in my power for them.

That’s how we roll at Bloggers For Hire and One by One Media.

Are your employees on Twitter?  I mean, are your employees on Twitter as your employees, tweeting about the job, the conditions, the customer service, the problems, etc?  Can your business take a risk like that?

The fact is, customers and potential customers tend to trust a business with a shared online presence.   Unless your business has a lot to hide and has a lot of disgruntled employees, you will find that it is well worth the risk to have your employees on Twitter.

It is also a good thing to occasionally  have an employee tweet about a customer service problem, and then tweet about how the problem was fixed.  A business that puts nothing but positive things about itself online is suspect; nothing is perfect and everybody knows that.  What is this business NOT telling us?  But because of this very thing, the fact that your business admits to an occasional problem but also shares how any problem was taken care of, is actually good for your business.  In fact, it makes your business seem more honest, and full of actual humans, than a business that shares only the good stuff. One of the most frequent customer complaints is the slowness of problem-solving; on Twitter, people will see the swiftness of YOUR company’s problem-solving.

So let your employees tweet as employees of your business.  They’re probably already on there as themselves, saying much the same things they’ll say for you.  On your company website, list your employees who are on Twitter and encourage people to follow them.  If you’re the boss, get a Twitter account and do some tweeting yourself.  People respect a boss who isn’t afraid to talk to them outside of the building.  Let people ask questions and answer them.

Twitter can be your business’ best friend.  Be sure you and your people are using it to your advantage.

Most small businesses, and by “small” I am speaking of cottage industry businesses – people who make fudge in their kitchens and jewelry in their dens – as well as a business with employees, that is simply small, with a product or service that is advertised almost entirely by word of mouth or a blog, produce some of the best, most carefully made, most creative things on the market today.  Gorgeous, affordable one-of-a-kind jewelry, baby clothes, wooden toys, costumes, tailored clothing, foods, webpages. . . these individualized things are all over the place, but how does a person FIND them?  What’s the best way to SELL them?

What big factory can even BEGIN to compete – workmanship-wise – with a skilled jeweler, or cook, or inventor, or designer who puts a great deal of HIMSELF/HERSELF into each one-of-a-kind product?  Quantity doesn’t beat out quality, not now, not ever.

The problem is, how do these small-time entrepreneurs get the word out about their products or services?  Newspaper and magazine ads are prohibitively expensive, radio and television ads aren’t always appropriate and are costly as well.  Ditto for catalogues.

The best way to advertise anything these days, in my humble opinion, is by putting your business online and making sure a blog is part of your web design.

Many businesses pay a lot of money to have a fancy web page, but the fact is, Google will only crawl over a static page a few times.  It’s the BLOGS that get the attention from Google, because blogs change daily, and each time Google crawls over it, the blog will be perceived as something new, thus guaranteeing another crawl tomorrow.

Each business has key words which help customers find its web page, and those key words must be placed differently with each post.  It doesn’t take long before Google will start sending searchers to a particular web page each time a certain key word is typed into a search page.

It’s also important that a business’s blog be well-written, and contain interesting, relevant content.  All the great key words in the world can’t compensate for a poorly-written blog.   Yes, spelling and grammar DO count, in a business blog.

It behooves any business, the huge booming ones and the small ones, to hire a blogger to write the blog.  A good blogger knows how to use key words strategically, and a good blogger knows how to put together content that holds a reader’s attention while giving the reader the information he/she needs.

A good blogger will increase your business.  A good blogger will make sure Google recognizes your business’s name and all of its key words.  A good blogger will bring hits to your site.

You can get a good blogger right here at Bloggers 4 Hire.  Jim Turner will see to that.  He’s the best.

Valerie Miller of LVBusiness Press has an excellent article on Review Journal.com about how businesses are discovering the marketing power of blogging.

Gone are the days when big and small businesses dismissed the idea of a web log (blog) as insignificant and as having no “pull” or influence on a client or customer.  Bloggers for Hire has long known what incredible and lasting power a blog can have on a business.

Remember, the Google or Yahoo or MSN or Dogpile robotics will “see” a post only as many times as it changes.  A static website, while it might be a real looker and cost a fortune, doesn’t change, and those keywords will be in the same place every time the robots crawl over it.  After a few crawls, a static website will be seen as spam or dead space.  With a blog, however, a company’s keywords will move all over the page, causing the browsers to label it “fresh” every single day.  This is what makes a company’s page move UP in a brower search, and those keywords must change daily.

Big and small businesses pay out a hefty chunk of cash each month for regular advertising, but no magazine, newspaper, or television ad can begin to have the audience that a good, well-written, interesting blog can attract.  Businesses would save an awful lot of money by simply hiring a blogger!  (The really good, or really terrible, video ads usually end up on YouTube eventually, anyway!  Boring print ads are simply ignored. Bottom line:  money wasted.)

Savvy businesspeople are realizing more and more that their companies NEED a blog, and a blog requires a blogger.  Occasionally, the business will already have an employee who understands the blogging business but more often than not, a business will need to hire someone to do their blogging for them.  That’s where Bloggers for Hire can step in and save the day!

Blogging is a winner in many ways, both for the blogger and for the business.  A blogger will charge far less than a magazine or newspaper, resulting in tons of money saved while getting tons of money in new business.  The blogger is usually a stay-at-home parent, student, or someone who wants a part-time job, and he/she is happy to get a low hourly rate,  or a standard fee per post,  in return for writing in their pajamas at midnight.  Bloggers for Hire takes good care of its bloggers, while also helping businesses save a lot of money.

Bloggers also know and understand how to use other forms of social media, such as FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.  Many people who would NEVER buy a product based on an old-school print ad will be the first in line at the store after reading that a fellow blogger used it and liked it.  Social Media is a hotbed of subtle advertisements, based mostly on someone’s personal use of something.

Bloggers for Hire understands social media and blogging, and we hire bloggers who know how to promote a business or product using keywords and internet references.  Our bloggers are tech-savvy and are not only good with words; they also know how to make the proper connections for your product or business.

A business with a blog is a business that is telling its customers, “We want you to feel like a part of our company.  We want to share our thoughts and feelings with you, so you’ll know us inside and out.”  A business with a blog is tellings its customers that it has no secrets, and that it wants its customers to feel confident enough to share their opinions with the CEO, as well as their own personal friends.  And, of course, a good CEO will read the blog and occasionally make an appearance on it.

When people comment on a business blog, their comments will be acknowledged and answered, or forwarded to someone who knows the answer.

How many people will read a Press Release?  Not very many.  How many people will read about a real person who tried a product and liked it and lists the reasons why, along with a few things that need improvement?  Millions.  Put those opinions on a FaceBook post as well, with a few links and some shared keywords, and you’ve got something sensational.

Smart businesspeople have a blog.  The smartest of all, ask Bloggers for HIre to write it for them.

Oh, and it’s not just businesses with a product, or big businesses, that are well served with a blog; it’s the small businesses, as well.  A business that wants some attention, no matter what its size or goals, will do well to have a blog.  These days, that’s the best and fastest way to get customers to take notice of you.

A good blog and a good blogger can help that small business become a big business, and it won’t take all that long, either.

If you are interested in attracting customers to your business, contact Bloggers for Hire. We’ll do that for you.  In the meantime, read Miller’s article, either on the Review Journal or LVBusiness Press.