I have been getting a number of calls and emails recently from a large number of companies that are wanting to hire a blogger to get that needed content on their website, but a few savvy companies are also asking about community outreach.  Community outreach is a part of the professional blogger’s repertoire.  Bloggers for many years have known that when you are a blogger part of your job is to build your readers, to increase the subscribers to your site, and to provide a way to grow your community.  You must go out and seek out new people to know you are there and to come and join your discussion.

This is the mistake that many bloggers make when they come to me and tell me that they want to be a professional blogger.  They are great at copy and great at the written word, but that is where the skills end.  One of the things I like to see in my bloggers is not just that they can generate quality content and provide those needed words on the page, but I like to see how they interact with their readers.  I also like to see how they interact within their communities or in their niche.  Are they commenting on other sites, joining in threads in forums, microblogging on the sites like Twitter or otherwise doing more than their standard blog post? These are the important questions I like to have answers for when I respond to potential clients about their inquiries about the bloggers networking abilities and their skills.

If the potential customer or client has not asked those important questions themselves, I also like to educate them on these realities.  Bloggers are more than just writers.  You are not paying for their prose alone or the fact that they understand grammar and spelling, but you are also paying for that special skill known only to the most prolific bloggers and those that have influence–they participate.

[Photo courtesy of Andyrob}

As a professional blogger sometimes it requires that you have a very thick skin.  A large portion of blogging is of course the written word.  This written word is your voice it is the style of your writing and it defines you as a blogger.  I have been putting bloggers together with companies for a while now and one of the toughest parts of that is matching a company and their mission and message with a blogger that fits with the personality of the blog.  Some bloggers are great technical writers and do a great job with describing technical terms and processes.  Other bloggers are pithy and have great sense of style and humor.  Companies sometimes are demanding both.  As you can see it’s tough to put the proper voice of the blogger with the company blog.  It’s not to dissimilar from matchmaking.  Not every match is one made in heaven.

As a person that manages many bloggers it is very rewarding to tell a blogger that a company has chosen their voice and blogging style to head up their blog campaign.  It is equally devastating for me to tell a blogger that the company has decided to go in a different direction with the voice of the blog.  Bloggers tend to take ownership of a blog and adopt it making it their very own, and to tell them they have to turn that over to another is a difficult process.  This is why it is necessary to be a thick skinned individual.  Business is business to the company and they see it from a different perspective from their end, no matter how attached a blogger has become to the blog.  This is not something that happens often but it does occasionally happen so bloggers need to be prepared.  For now, I need to go to a blogger and make the “It’s not you it’s me” speech.

[photo via  DeclanTM]