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.

I am a professional blogger with four clients who couldn’t BE more different from each other.  Every night I sit in front of my computer and write for each of them, and in doing so I have learned more than I learned in all four years of high school and probably half of graduate school.

If you had asked me two years ago about the difference between LTL and FTL, I would not have known what you were talking about.  Two years ago, I did not understand  what a wireless RSS feed could do for your living room decor or for your business’s front window.  A year ago, I would not have believed that a trash bag or tablecloth could keep your garden pristine without the use of pesticides, and that all you needed to keep your children safe from insects inside your house was a particular brand of trash bag.  Just a few months ago, I knew that the combination of Diet Coke and Mentos created a spectacular geyser effect, but I could not have explained to anyone WHY.

The thing is, in order to become a successful pro blogger, a writer must not only become interested in the product or business, he/she must also become knowledgeable about it, and even these two alone are not enough.

To be a truly successful pro blogger, a writer must take some ownership of the product/business.  A writer must believe his/her own blogposts and become a loyal user or advocate of the product/business.

If my house caught fire tonight, I would make sure my family was safe first, but the very next thing I’d walk through the flames to save would be my wireless digital picture frame.  Why?  Because it is the repository of my family’s history.

If I had to move anything large, heavy, or awkward, I wouldn’t bother with the Yellow Pages.  I’d call Freight & Shipping, Inc.,because they are, plainly and simply, the best.

Why do I spend a little more than I used to on Repell-em trash bags and tablecloths?  Because I understand exactly what they do and it’s exactly what I need for my family’s safety and convenience.

Why do I advocate Steve Spangler’s methods and products and constantly recommend him, and them, to other teachers and parents?  Because I know exactly what he’s doing and why, and he is fantastic.

I am a loyal employee of One by One Media and Bloggers For Hire, yes.  But I also consider myself a loyal employee of the four businesses for which I write, and you’ll hear nothing negative about any of them from me.

Pro-blogging, done right, is an enlightening and educating experience.  Jim Turner taught me everything I know about it, and he taught me well.  I’ve been writing for Jim for over two years now, and enjoying it more with each passing day.

I also realize now just exactly why and how any business these days desperately needs a blog.  Holy cow, the difference between a business with a blog and a business with nothing but a fantastic, expensive, well-done STATIC website is absolutely unbelieveably huge.  I won’t reveal all of my secrets, but if anyone wants to know maybe a few of them, go ahead and email me via One by One Media.  Better still?  Contact Jim and tell him you want to hire me.  I will do for you what I’ve done for my other clients, and that’s a promise.

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}

I have been telling lots of bloggers that they too can become professionals and be paid a wage for their blogging.  As a hobbyist blogger, what is it that you are doing to be a blogger?  Are you just putting words on a page and hoping people will show up?  Believe it or not, many companies are doing just that, putting a blog on their site and waiting to get rich off the process.  If you are a blogger and you believe in that doctrine I am the first to call you out.  There is no quick way to stardom as it relates to blogging.  Putting words on a page are a part to the overall picture but I can scrape content and call it good.  That is not the case when wanting to be successful.

Bloggers are a special breed.  They know how to be successful as a community builder and as a marketer, advertiser and PR person for their blog.  They wear all those hats and more.  They are in effect, the CEO, CFO, CTO and all other C level employees of their blogs.  This is invaluable to companies.  A person that knows social media and can implement that knowledge into a use that benefits the blog, the company and its future.  This is a skill that cannot be passed down to the communication department, the PR department, or to that intern in the mail room with a MySpace account.  A blogger or a professional blogger must wear many hats.  I call them social media managers as they wear any hats and have many functions.  What do you consider your job description as a professional blogger?

While Tris is doing the Office 2.0 gig in San Francisco in a couple of weeks, I’ll be in the Windy (Flooded) City of Chicago in September.  If you are going to be near Chicago or if you want to come out and hear some great speakers, and participate in a wonderful conference about business blogging, join me at the Blog Business Summit 2007.

Many people want to know how they can get a job as a professional blogger or get a job earning a wage at doing what they do every day anyway for free.  Easy, come out and meet me in Chicago and I’ll get you on our rolls to be in line for the next company that wants to get into the world of business blogging.  If you are a company and you have no idea how to start into the world of online social media and need someone to manage your company’s online presence, why not hire a blogger to do the work for you?  We can help you get set up with a person to help manage your blog and online social media campaign.  We specialize in getting companies into the world of blogging.

If you want to come to the show and participate in the conference, please do, and use our special code to get into the conference at a special discounted rate. When registering, please use the code P65CHI and you will get an instant savings! Once you get to the conference, look me up, I’ll be the one that is having lots of fun and talking to lots of different people about the exciting world of professional blogging.

Being a professional blogger is far more than being just a blog writer.  When professional blogging, it is required that a blogger be a technologist, a social media manager, a reader,a marketer, and a networker.  You have to have a little knowledge about PR in addition to all the other duties. 

Many of our clients that have hired us to blog for them, have an expectation that the blogger will be doing more than just writing good quality content on the company.  They want the blogger to participate in the conversations going on in places like Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and all the other places where people go to socialize.  This requires the blogger to know how to use these tools and know how to communicate by using these applications.

If you are a company hiring a blogger, please take the time to ask if they are well versed in the social mediasphere.  Sure they have a great writing style, and good grasp of English, spelling and grammar, but do they know how to set up a group in Facebook?  These are tools all bloggers need to know to be successful.

When hiring a blogger, there are many things that a company should ask about the blogger, the blogger’s background and other questions you would normally ask of an employee about to join your company.

Being a blogger is a cool new profession.  Companies are hiring bloggers at a fever pitch since the new angle to online marketing advertising and public relations is through social media.  If you want to be a professional blogger, now is a great time to get a job.  If you want to be a pro blogger and work for yourself, there are a few cons to pro blogging as this article states.

I especially like the idea that:

There is something about problogging that requires a strange personality. One that can deal with being alone for long periods of time, and yet that same person also has to be able to network, and be interesting to be around. This type of personality is rare, and also a bit odd, and so that is why it is in the con?s column of being a problogger.

I for one have far too many people (little ones) around to sometimes get any pro blogging done, but I like the idea that you have to be a little schizophrenic. 

They call him their Community Evangelist.  After only a year of experience, Mario Sundar has now taken over the position as a professional blogger with LinkedIn.  One year sounds like a very short period of time to become the lead blogger for a company such as LinkedIn, but in real world time, one year is basically a veteran.  Mario was brought into the blogosphere by another blogging evangelist and a blogger I have been reading for a long time, Jeremiah Owyang.  Jeremiah is also a lead blog evangelist for PodTech.  Jeremiah states:

What’s his mission? watch his video
I informally interviewed Mario on video, you can watch as he explains his purpose as a Customer Evangelist, Congrats Mario and congratulations LinkedIn, you’ll now have a better connection with customers, communicate more effectively and continue to put a human face on your company, you couldn’t have picked anyone more friendly and genuine than Mario.

Perhaps not more friendly, but they could have picked someone more Genuine [okay I agree that was shameless, but I couldn't resist].  I can see this position becoming more of a regular job for the likes of the early adopters, especially in the tech area and the other areas of companies that have a better handle on online marketing and advertising.  Once the position becomes tested over time, it will become certainly more mainstream.  Now is the time to practice your craft of blogging, so that more opportunities can be found by veteran bloggers!  Good Luck Mario, and thanks for preaching the blogging gospel Jeremiah.

Tags: Community Evangelist, Professional Blogger, Mario Sundar, Jeremiah Owyang, PodTech, Genuine, online marketing, online advertising, hiring bloggers, business blogging, LinkedIn

At the SXSW conference in Austin recently, I was at a bar [yeah yeah where else would I be?] and ran into a new blog friend Eric Skiff from ClipMarks.  Eric and I chatted a while, and he whipped out his Mac and began to show me this cool blog application that his company provides.  I’m always skeptic first and will always tout something if it’s easy.  I am of course the Caveman of the Blogosphere. After watching Eric for a few minutes show this really cool app, I was definitely sold.  Anything that can make a bloggers life easier is for me. 

When I returned home to Colorado, I quickly emailed Eric and wanted to get a demo to show all of my professional bloggers so they could check it out and use it if they wanted.  He was working on a demo video and he finally finished and sent me the embed and now I want to share it with everyone!

Tags: SXSW, Eric Skiff, ClipMarks, Mac, Blogging Tools, Professional Bloggers, Bolg Applications

One of our star bloggers was asking me about putting his typing speed on his resume.  As is the case with all of our bloggers, they seem to have a better handle on the social media than most, so he not only made it part of his resume, he decided to show the typing test in real time on You Tube!  This is the look of a true professional blogger at work.

Crazy as that seems, once you start multi-tasking and putting in time with IM, Skype, email, blogging, and the rest of the social media, it doesn’t seem like we can type fast enough.

Tags: Professional Blogging, Professional Blogger, Typing, Social Media, You Tube