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]

I have been getting ready for attending the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas this week and have suddenly been bombarded with new calls and emails from companies looking to hire a professional blogger.  Seems word got out that we help companies hire bloggers to help them with the social media needs.  Either that or a few years of hard work have finally paid off.  Nonetheless, if you have called or emailed me and I haven’t been able to get back to you and discuss your needs, please be patient and I will make sure you get a call or return email as soon as I have a moment or two to put together.

I am actually typing this post using Windows Live Writer as I zip through the clouds at 37,000 feet.  The application allows me to save a local draft and once I find that wifi connection or get to the Internet access I need I can post as much as I want.  Well that is if this battery will give me just a little more life.

Those of you that are looking to be hired as a blogger and have contacted me or called, I too will be getting back to you as soon as I can.  Seems they don’t allow me to call yo back while whisking through the clouds.  Those of you that would like to get on our windshield for opportunities to blog, please feel free to contact me via email or use the number on the contact page.  I will try to get to you as soon as i am able.  After all, there are plenty of companies out there looking for your services.

I was reading Felix Salmon’s article about Gawker Media and how Nick Denton is continuing the blog lord scheme of paying his bloggers based on performance.  It appears that Denton only cares about the almighty page view.  I know what Denton faces when he looks for results.  I too have that same problem as clients want to see their return on investment.  Denton sees the check the blogger gets for a salary and then matches that against the number of page views that blogger has generated.  The salary is the investment for the page view. The page view is what the advertiser is investing in as they pay Denton.

I face the same problems each month as I send out my invoices.  The client is paying a monthly contract for the blogger.  They look to me to drive traffic, raise readership of the blog and ultimately that has to turn into sales or customers.  It is not unlike the problem Denton faces.  His clients are advertisers and the return on investment is page views.  This is a very basic understanding of professional bloggers and I don’t discount the other benefits of generating quality content for companies.  This is a basic difficulty I face when dealing with the clients and their idea of our service.  I must continue to educate companies as to why  a blogger provides more than words on a page.

Bloggers are doing their jobs by providing quality content and other outreach to gather readers.  Not all blogs are easy to create large page views and create large communities of readers.  A blog that has thousands of readers a day because they talk about celebrity gossip and the latest crotch shot of Britney Spears, is not as difficult to get readers as portable toilet company that is talking about the latest breakthrough in environmentally safe chemicals and toilet paper.  The problem is that portable toilet company expects the world to be as interested in toilet paper as they are in the latest celebrity in rehab and crotch shots.

I always discuss this with companies and how they expect the blog to perform for them and their expectation of their return on investment.  They want to see thousands of people a day lining up to read what the blogger wrote.  They then equate that to some magic way of selling the reader on their service or product.  Readers equate to buyers in their mind.  This is not always the case but that is the expectation.  They figure the blogger salary into their Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).  In order to justify paying a blogger or hiring a blogger, they use this formula.  What they don’t understand is blogger is no different than any other employee in their arsenal.  They have to have employees that perform certain tasks.  They have not bought into the idea that a blogger is necessary.  Until companies become comfortable with that doctrine, I continue to try to justify the expense every month I send an invoice.  Blogger salaries are part of a marketing budget and not part of a budget for employee salaries.  Until that crosses over bloggers are always going to be judged by the “what have you done for me lately” idea.  They need to understand that 50 readers a day that are sold 50% of the time is better than 5,000 readers a day that purchase only 1% of the time. 

[photo via UC Merced]

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 thir 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?

This is one of the very first questions I’m asked as a person that regularly contracts bloggers for companies seeking their talent.  My first response to them is usually along the lines of “never enough”.  It varies obviously from contract to contract and from the amount of work involved in each contract.  Many bloggers are merely word puppets putting up post after post of keyword rich posts to make the client happy that they are finally reaching page one of that search engine.  Some are full blown researchers, managers, magicians and poets, and they charge and are paid more for that talent.  I had to make this post today because of something that Mike Arrington wrote in his comment to one of his own postings about a blogger leaving his employ.

#6 - we start all of our writers out at $250k, but of course there is a bonus on top of that. plus stock, health care, 401k and a company car. each writer also gets an administrative assistant. and a cat.

Mike you had me buying into the idea of trying to get a job at TechCrunch right up to the last item.  That was the deal breaker.  Of course, if that was the real salary, I think they would have a line of people a mile long waiting for the chance.  The thing is, that is a salary professional bloggers and bloggers here at Bloggers For Hire will probably not see anytime in the near or for that matter distant future.

Tris and I want to welcome the attendees that are here today listening to the presentation of Hiring Bloggers and Bloggers for Hire. This session is all about how hire a blogger and how to become a blogger for hire. We were told specifically that we were in no way supposed to make this a sales pitch from the stage so we will do all that we can to not make this what has been known as presentation conference spam. We won’t call the session “Bloggers For Hire” perhaps but we might better change the title to Hiring a Social Media Manager or Becoming a Social Media Manager.

Technorati Tags: Bloggers For Hire, Hiring A Blogger

It has been a very busy time here at Bloggers For Hire as we have been working hard on getting some blogging campaigns underway for clients.  These companies show the type of diversity we have in the work that we perform and each company had a special request when filling their needs.

Our first company I wanted to showcase was a long time client and forward thinker as it relates to blogging and business.  Omar Solis has always appreciated the hard work it takes to be a blogger and looks to Bloggers For Hire for help and assistance.  This week we launch the content for Fronteras.org.  This blog was a difficult proposition as it requires a blogger that can be bi-lingual and understand the issues related to immigration. 

Our next company is another client that understands the power of blogging and how it can increase sales and traffic to a site.  David Krug, and Log Homes Journal has joined on as a client of Bloggers For Hire and the blogger here will be discussing items related to the log home industry and other issues related to home ownership of log homes.

Finally, our last client is a completely new campaign and a very exciting one because of what they are going to allow us to do with their site, the blog and its campaign and goal.  Conventions.net is a company launched today with a brand new website and One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire will be the voice for the company behind Convention Insider.  I myself will take on the responsibilities of blogging and the best part is I get to discuss the ins and outs of that experience here on Bloggers For Hire.  You can follow along in real time as I chronicle the experience of being a professional blogger and running a blogging campaign for a client. I would like to personally thank Randy Goldberg the vision behind Conventions.net for the opportunity to share the experience with you here on our company blog.

Be sure to subscribe here and there for great examples of companies that understand the power of blogging and have given us the opportunity to represent them in their venture. As you can see we can fulfill a very diverse base of companies.

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.

I have been following a small debate in forums and other online social meeting places and have been trying to keep track of the ongoing dialogue of outsourcing bloggers.  Basically, when people begin to talk about outsourcing, the discussion drifts to paying people very small wages for work performed that would normally be higher priced if kept within a company.  More specifically, outsourcing has been tied to very poor economy countries such as India and Philippines and others.  In fact, outsourcing is what we here at Bloggers For Hire are doing on a daily basis.  We make it affordable for companies to have a full time blogger and a social media manager.

I ran across an interesting interview of my friend Jeremy Wright, CEO of b5media, that I thought I would pass along to our readers here.  One question and answer I really thought hit it out of the park was:

Should corporates hire people exclusively for the purpose of blogging?

That is certainly a direction some corporations are starting to go ? whether it?s Blogger Relations team members that exist as part of marketing, or Social Media professionals who work in sales or corporate communications.

On the other side, some companies are simply training their sales/ marketing/ PR/ communications teams on blogging principles so that they can engage in the activities themselves (instead of having dedicated folk).

Ultimately, the best mix will depend on each company?s corporate culture and whether an individual champion for blogging would work best or a properly trained team would.

Jeremy Wright is certainly a guy that would know how to answer that question, he has been in the blogging world more than most. 

Check out the interview, as I think Jeremy is always spot on.

We have seen companies both large and small trying to understand the “blogging principals” as Jeremy refers to and we have helped them by allowing them to test the water a little and have a temporary employee of sorts, sit behind the keyboard and allow them to see how it works in real time and in real life.  It is a unique opportunity to be able to pilot a program for your company and to see how the world of blogging could impact your company’s communication, PR and advertising areas. 

Outsourcing is becoming more popular as we all begin to live more in the virtual world.  Companies are able to hire a person that doesn’t need to spend all day in a cubicle farm but perhaps a couple hours in the evening or morning providing good quality content and a voice for their company blog.  This person can also be hired for much less than a full time employee with the accompanying price of benefits and taxes and all the other things that come with employing a blogger.

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.