I have heard a number of companies that start blogs and they go very well the first few weeks of the life of the blog.  You can see the passion and you can see the excitement behind those early posts, and then it starts to wane and they start to fall off in number and even the posts that come out on the published side are not much more than going through the motions.  The problem is the honeymoon is over the the real meat of why they began the blog has left.  So in the immortal words of the Wendy’s lady, “Where’s the beef?”

Mark Thompson has a post over at Search Engine Journal on “10 tips to Supercharge Your Blog’s Content“.  It has some really good points in it especially the one about hiring a blogger.  A blogger can be a great asset to your company when if comes time when the honeymoon is over and the blog begins to lack real content or staying with the analogy, the meat.

The Bloggers For Hire portion of his post states:

For some blogs this may be out of the question. If you simply do not have the funds to pay for professional bloggers, you can probably skip this section. Many of the best bloggers out there are the best for a reason and in return, require you to pay them for their services. However professional bloggers typically have a lot of experience in the industry, so they can add valuable content to your blog that will many times gain a lot of industry recognition.

My advice would be to maybe not find the most influential blogger in the industry, but to find someone with a few years experience that has written for a number of other blogs. You can probably hire these bloggers for $25-$50/post and it can be of very good quality. Also keep in mind the reach they may have socially. Usually these bloggers will promote their content on other sites as well, in turn getting you lots of additional traffic.

SEO firms know that with good quality content comes better SEO results.

Mark is right on the money with the idea behind hiring a blogger.  He has a pretty good handle on the budget and the concepts.  Mark is in the SEO world and those are the companies that understand beefy content most.  SEO firms know that with good quality content comes better SEO results.

Hiring a quality blogger that can take your blog over and give it the attention it needs is crucial.  If you want to talk to us about getting a blogger to take the mundane out of your social media marketing plan, contacts us.  We can help and we know the process and the importance of good quality content.  Consider us your blogging butcher!  We can show you the meat.

I will be living it up in Vegas but at the same time talking about companies hiring bloggers and how blogger can earn money while using their skills as bloggers.
Of course the idea of living it up in Vegas is relative as I am actually working. At the same time I am also revamping the site a little at One By One Media, as we are trying out some new look and feel and upgrading the WordPress application to the new version of 2.7.
I attended the event today and listened to some real rock stars. I have some celebrities I have to follow tomorrow as well that will make me have to bring my A game. I am really looking forward to it. You can even watch the event tomorrow live on their live feed using the Ustream application for their event. You might say I’m in my church away from church.

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]