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?

I recently ran across a post by Hillel at Jackson Fish Market regarding thoughts on hiring a blogger instead of trying to find a high priced MBA to spend all your money on a marketing campaign. I think the advice given to his friend that wanted to hire someone to handle a marketing campaign was solid advice.

Instead of hiring this person you could hire a “blogger plus”. In other words… you start a blog targeted at your target audience. It’s not about your offering per se… It’s from your company and all about the trials and tribulations of being a member of your target audience and what they spend their time doing. In fact, the best person would be a former member of that audience talking about how hard it is. Someone with personality and excellent communication skills. In addition to furious blogging (I mean 3-5 short posts per day, 5 days a week) they would troll discussion boards and forums targeted at your audience making several relevant posts a week. They could also do podcasting and videoblogging if they had interesting ideas that would best be expressed in those forms. The url should be it’s own, and not a subdomain of your main site. The blog would be “brought to you by Your Company”

This is exactly the pitch we give to many of our companies that approach us for our help in a marketing campaign through the use of professional bloggers.

Tags: Blog Marketing, Hiring Bloggers, Professional Bloggers, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

Jeremy Wright today posted about the idea of whether the industry of professional blogging is paying bloggers enough. Jeremy follows that up with another article that explains his frustration and his idea that the answer is no, we are not paying bloggers enough. Jeremy asks a good question, “Does anyone pay bloggers enough.”

My response is absolutely not! I added to the comments on Jeremy’s post and I am going to reprint it here because this is a very important topic that should be discussed by anyone that is in the professional blog ranks, or companies that are paying bloggers.

Speaking not as a network owner or President, I think that my business too at One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire sometimes gets called out for our payment practices. We pay our bloggers top dollar and usually more than a network and more than they can earn with ads. With that said, our work is farther and fewer between than just the every day advertising earner through adsense or as a network blogger. I do see that we have similar problems with pay and it is a self correcting market at this point. As the need for bloggers increases, it will soon be a better paying position, but as long as we have 67 million of them to choose from and they all are doing it for free and would love to get a little bit for their effort, we will have the problems faced right now about “not paying enough”. If I can get a quality blogger and pay them $500 a month or if I can find the same blogger at $100 a month, which would I choose as a business owner? Bloggers often sell themselves short because they don’t understand the market. For us business owners in this market it makes it tough, so we have to add other value add items like management of the blog, web analytics and other things that bloggers perform as experts, but we cannot charge for these things because there are bloggers out there doing it for free. Sooner or later, as this becomes more of a mainstream position, the ones that stick it out now and offer what others are not offering will benefit from an industry correction, but until then, we have to hold on and do what we can to be profitable and hope it comes soon.

The market for professional bloggers will eventually change. Their will be your major league players and those that are warming up in the minors. Some bloggers will be more able to leverage their ability than others. Some bloggers will have a higher reputation in the industry and will be able to make themselves free agents to the highest bidder. It will be capitalism at its finest. This in turn will cause a ripple affect (or is it effect?) that will make a difference to everyone in the market. As the top players get better pay, the bottom tier bloggers can also ask for more as the market shifts. Are bloggers being paid enough? No. Is this a trend that will continue? No. Bloggers need to gain the confidence that their abilities are requiring top dollar. Companies wanting to have the best of the best will begin paying a premium for those bloggers. this will have the trickle down economics that will benefit everyone.

Tags: Jeremy Wright, Professional Bloggers, Blogger Salaries, Blog Networks, Business Blogging, Bloggers For Hire, One By One Media

Jennifer Slegg has posted about the updated terms of service for using Google Adsense on blogs, and this has many professional bloggers scrambling to make sure their blogs are in compliance with the new rules.  Google updated a number of key areas and Jen has a good compilation with analysis.

It appears that Google will be cracking down on the use of advertisements that uses their style to make the use of multiple ad networks seamless.  After all Google holds the lion share in the marketplace, and they want to keep it that way.  As Jen stated:

"I can completely understand why Google is doing this, they are the leader in this space (and the leader by a very significant amount) and most publishers will stick with AdSense and ensure they are in compliance. I don’t think this is something that YPN or Microsoft ContentAds (when they launch) would have been able to pull off first. But this decision could impact them significantly, because most publishers will use their highest CTR color scheme on AdSense, and use the "different" one on YPN or other ad network."

The war for the use of consumer generated content is one to the death and Google has always wanted to be the leader in this regard.  It will be interesting to see how other ad networks respond to the new rules set forth by Google and how they will try to capture the market share Google seems to want all on its own.  As long as it continues to be the leader in the arena they can just about right their own ticket when making the rules of how to use their ads.  If they begin to slip in performance and payouts to bloggers, they may need to soften their policies but for the moment they are the ad provider with their boot on the necks of all professional bloggers relying on Adsense for their incomes.

It is not clear when and how they will police their terms of service and the new rule changes.  With sweeping changes made to the rules of use and the number of blogs using their service, it may take an army to keep up with the reported abuse as well as their own surfing as they walk their beat and determine if professional bloggers have complied with the changes.

Tags: Jennifer Slegg, JenSense, Google Adsense, Google, Yahoo, Advertising Networks, YPN, Blog Revenue, Professional Bloggers

In my attempt to continue to see examples of disclosed paid content offered by product review companies such as ReviewMe and PayPerPost, I come across a well known professional blogger, and her attempt to be up front about her written post with full disclosure.  Arieanna at Blogging Help makes a first attempt at a ReviewMe.com post of a product or service she has reviewed.

This is not necessarily a product but more of a service or even a single blog post. It’s not necessarily clear to me what she is reviewing.  The review talks about a post she found on a site called Aviva Directory, that gives the reader 21 tips to successfully launch a blog.  She goes through the tips and adds her own wisdom and advice.  In fact, it’s unclear if she is actually promoting the ReviewMe.com advertiser or her own business as a blog consultant at blogging help.

As the advertiser that is paying for the review, I would not be as pleased with this approach.  I am not sure what is the purpose of the Aviva Directory, I’m not sure of their service and frankly I paid for a review that turned out to be a promotion of Arieanna and her own business. She states that it was a link brought to her attention and I’m not sure whether by a third party or the people at ReviewMe.com.  I need a little more background of the company and its service.

To her credit, Arieanna did not provide a link to ReviewMe.com. In her opening, she indicates that this is a ReviewMe.com review, and that it should be objective on her part because she would have written the review whether "paid or not" to write it. (Remind me not to send you in on any high dollar negotiations)  This is a completely different approach than I have previously seen to writing reviews for the company and being paid for your efforts. 

I’m curious if ReviewMe.com will be coming out with standard requirements that must be met in order to be fully paid for the post.  I would say that you would at least have to make clear what the product is and what the company offers.  At this point I’m somewhat confused.  Let us know how it turns out Arieanna and whether Review Me sends full payment or if they have any comment on the post.  I would also like to hear what if anything the people at Aviva Directory think of the review and whether this type of review is what they had in mind when offering to pay a blogger.

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My friend Ben, no he did not pay me to be his friend, submitted a review of a Data Deposit Box.  Yes, I am somehow contributing to the demise of the Internet by linking a ReviewMe.com review.  What I wanted to bring to light was the disclosure of Ben’s choice.  Unlike Darren Barefoot, Ben decided not to go with the "no follow" tag, but was clearly up front about his review and the payment he is receiving from the company.

This is a sponsored post, through the ReviewMe service. I accepted the review opportunity to get a feel for what it’s like, understand their service, and be able to explain my experience to you. It’s the first review request I’ve received, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to get it. But make no mistake, Data Deposit Box paid me to write this (although they have absolutely no say in what I write.)

Since I know Ben and I appreciate his work, I wondered how the review he posted would tip the balance for me to click to see the product.  Actually, I got about half way through his review and it turns out the product is a little geeky for my taste and it lost my interest. No customer earned here.  The good news for the company Ben reviewed is it garnered my attention.  If only for a moment, I saw what Ben had written, and made a decision quickly and without further thought.  I would venture to say Ben has more than a few friends, and I would also gather that they are perhaps a little more geek leaning than am I, but if one or two click to see the product, a PPC or CPA campaign has just been launched. 

I continue to follow the PayPerPost.com model as well as its sister ReviewMe.com as they work their way into the mainstream marketing arena.  Thanks for the disclosure example Ben, and since you got paid for it, you buy coffee next time!

Tags: ReviewMe.com, Data Deposit Box, Darren Barefoot, PPC, CPA, PayPerPost.com, Blog Marketing, Blog Advertising

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As I indicated in a comment in a post  I read today over at Kian’s blog,  I had to make my own sound in the echosphere. Yeah, I called an "echosphere" for a reason because Kian is experiencing something I have also experienced and continue to deal with like the feeling of having my eyes pried open with toothpicks and forced to watch I Love Lucy 24/7. I can only read Scoble’s take on a topic, or Winer’s thoughts about this and that, and what Doc told me today, so many times before I start to think about jumping out my office window.  In this case only 3 feet off the ground but nonetheless, totally whacked.

**Please note that I am completely  hypocritical in that statement 1. because I am envious of their traffic readership, and 2. the reason they are so easy to link to is because all I have to do is Google there last names, or in Doc’s case the word "Doc" and I get a first page search response.  This is a result of the echo chamber I complain of and using blogs to my preached point about SEO.**

With that said, let me explain the blogging echo chamber dilemma.  Blogs are real time.  As fast as something can be typed and the publish button pushed, words can be transmitted to readers all over the world.  When you have people that are gurus as I have mentioned above, everyone is excited to report what exciting thing they read today over at this popular blog.  If they are excited to report it, and you are also excited, and both of you blog it and make me click to go read it, you can see where you get caught up in that echo chamber or the "blogging fissure" (my phrase).

Now throw into that recipe a dash of RSS.  Many of these gurus and leaders in their respective industries, all like to get their message read and have many vehicles to publish within.  I’m going to single out specifically a site I have had this problem with, not necessarily to pick a fight but because they may actually read this and take it as feedback. WebProNews is the vehicle of which I speak.  I have nearly every single author or columnist they have in their stable in my feed reader.  Meaning I can read what Scoble (I’m not picking on you Robert it’s just your name’s easy to type and to remember) said in my feeds in the morning with coffee.  I really don’t need to read that same article in the afternoon published word for word on WPN.  I’m afraid it does not end there.  For whatever reason, Bloglines (my main feed reader) picks up this feed again and again, publishing the same feed again, with possibly a new feed thrown in once they have cut and pasted an article from another WPN author. This can go on throughout the day, causing a dozen "unread" feeds.  I’m sorry, it still does not end there.  Now throw in that bowl and fold, the fact that I have search feeds with search strings I follow related to the industry, and for clients, and for metrics.  Due to having these feeds, a search tag may be related to "Business Blogging", which means that every article that is tagged business blogging ends up sent to me as "new content".  In reality it was that same Scoble article I read in the morning.  We professional bloggers that like to stay on the lunatic fringe of blog consulting, blog marketing and blog advertising (oh man this is a keyword feast!) have now read 20 articles written by 50 different authors, sent to us 5 times, and thrown on our windshield again by our own need for information.  You can see how the echo chamber is suddenly a recipe of disaster.

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A classic example of a service we provide as professional bloggers.  A very influential blogger is asking for recommendations for a new office chair.  As I read through the post and the comments I began to wonder whether someone at Herman Miller or any of its competitors was reading the same thing.  Do they know what is going on and the conversation that is taking place?  I ran off to the Herman Miller site to see what I could find.  The first thing that was obvious, is they did not have a blog.  Okay perhaps I am somewhat biased in that respect, but nonetheless, they should have one. 

They have a media page with some contacts, but what about their company news?  Okay, they seem to have a form I have to spend time to fill out and then they have all of this information about me I was not wanting to give.  A nice RSS feed for their press releases would be a dynamite addition without of course having a blog to discuss news. I searched their site hoping to find a blog mention.  Actually, they offered to allow me to speak to a human which I add in the plus column.

Technorati produced over 5,000 posts about the "Aeron Chair", and "Herman Miller" produced a whopping 10K+ in results.  This is just scratching the surface of what I could gather given the proper time and motivation.  I’ll keep an eye on Darren’s post to see if perhaps a Herman Miller employee or a PR representative might make comment.  Perhaps a competitor will show up to provide their input.  In any respect, this is a good case study for businesses thinking about what might be happening in the blogosphere.  It just so happens we do offer this Collaborative Intelligence™ to our clients.  If you happen to find this and are from Herman Miller, kudos to you.  If not, perhaps we need to talk to you about your Collaborative Intelligence™ campaign.

Tags: professional blogger, problogger.net, Darren Rowse, Blog Marketing, RSS, Herman Miller, office chairs, Technorati, PR, Collaborative Intelligence

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As I sipped my morning coffee and ran quickly through my morning ritual of reading RSS feeds, email and my mandatory blog reading, I ran across a post by Mike Manuel of WebProNews. It was early yet so I made sure to again read the article to make sure I had reads the content correctly. After determining that I had not imagined that I read something I hadn’t, I decided that I needed to respond diligently to the remarks made and to debate Mike’s wisdom. Mike’s post is sweet and to the point which is what I like in blog posts when I have a thousand articles to skim in a day.

Small business owners, a tip:

Some blowhard bloggers will have you believe that blogging is the best way to buddy up with the search engines and boost your business on the web.

Please-don’t-buy-it.

The ratio of time invested to return in awareness and sales just doesn’t net out in your favor, at least not for most owners.

Instead, invest your energy and effort in local search services and recommendation engines. These will have an immediate and measurable return for your business online. To do this, simply encourage your customers to share their experiences with your business with local search engines like Yahoo! Local or Google Local.

Customer comments, ratings, reviews, and recommendations are increasingly the first results people see when they do location-based searches. They’re also, arguably, the most influential…

[Disclosure: Yahoo! is a client of mine]

Thanks for the brevity Mike and my counterpoint will be as equally brief.

Obviously if Mike has Yahoo as a client, he is an expert in his field and probably has a lot of experience and know how, and I would in no way question his ability to advise people like Yahoo. My advice is to ignore Mike’s article and disregard its discussion of small businesses staying regional. I want to make sure that Mike is credited with adding that blogging does not net a “return on awareness” for most owners. I’m not sure which “owners” mike refers to but I disagree with his reasoning, but agree that a very small percentage of businesses would not see a benefit of blogging if they were spending a large portion of their advertising budget to garner attention.

I suppose I’m one of the “blowhards” Mike refers to and I suppose it stands to reason that I am a proponent of small businesses blogging, one because that is how I feed my kids, but also because I strongly believe in blogs as a tool to stay ahead of your competition. I don’t see where blogging might help the local dog grooming shop in your town, as their client’s would probably not travel outside the local area to have Rex of FiFi groomed. Understood. Where I disagree is the local travel agent that relies heavily on Mom and Pop Downtown to stop by and book their cruise for that retirement celebration. Yeah this agent services her local clients, but this agent can also benefit from providing travel services to people all over the country. If I’m in Cleveland and the agent is in the small town of Estes Park, Colorado and I want to travel to see an Elk, I might not book that with the local agent in my suburb of Parma, Ohio, but I might get online with my computer and Google travel to Estes Park. As a result of the power of blogs and their ability to produce stellar organic results, my small local travel agency found a new client. The return on awareness? I’m not sure at that moment I really care Mike, but the cost of blogging was paid for when I captured the attention of that potential customer and made a sale. I wasn’t just a local vendor but I was now a national agency. Limiting the vision of small business also limits its ability to compete as a small business on the large business scale.

Mike Manuel also blogs at Marketing Guerilla.

Tags: Mike Manuel, WebProNews, Google Local, Yahoo Local, small business blogging, SEO, SEM

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Not that we couldn’t tell how important social networks were by the amount of money being shelled out for these types of networks, but as far as their popularity, it looks like they are garnering all the attention.  According to the online competitive intelligence service called Hitwise, 1 in 20 of all web visits in the month of September were to social networks.  It is indicated and reported by Marketing Vox that this is nearly more than double the share of traffic at this time last year.

How important is it for companies to realize that the future of business lies in the bosom of the Internet?

Some 2.4 percent of September visits to websites in the Shopping & Classifieds category came directly from MySpace, an increase of 83 percent from March 2006. Sites in other industry categories receiving increased traffic from MySpace in that period were Telecommunications, Banks and Financial Institutions, and Travel.

The Marketing Vox article quotes LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise:

"The use of social networking, photo hosting, and online video websites represent a significant shift in online user behavior…"

If you haven’t been hit over the head by us online strategists, with an online marketing strategy to keep up with the consumer use of the web, it may be too late.  These social networks are snapping up all the early adopters and these people will influence the way the people that follow will use their time, money, and how they play and work.  It’s time to start your strategy for your company to hop on the wave.  It’s not too late, but why wait until you have to play catch up to the rest of your competition?

Tags: Hitwise, Marketing Vox, Social Networks, Web 2.0, Online Marketing, Business Blogging, Competitive Intelligence

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