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]

Looking over my other blogs and then looking at the stats of my personal Daddy Blog, I realized that I have lost a little of the joy I had in blogging.  The sheer passion for hitting publish and wondering who would read my post and whether they would leave a comment that would spur a discussion.

These are the the joys of blogging that I myself experience when coming up with that perfect anecdotal post or that well thought out piece that I’m proud to publish for all to read.  My Daddy Blog sits dormant like a ship caught on a reef taking on water.  I last updated it in October of 2007.  The anniversary of its birth is coming up on March 1, and I am wondering if I will be putting it out to pasture or if I can make it come back like the Phoenix rising from its ashes.  I’m not sure of the answer just yet.

So what happened to the joy of blogging I was experiencing?  It’s still there on a personal level, but now I am a professional.  I am paid to blog, and help others get paid to blog as well.  It’s now a job and a new career.  I was told once by someone much wiser than myself that I should not make a job of what I enjoy otherwise it will kill the joy.  The context there was working in the golf industry.  I went against the advice and it did kill some of the joy, but I still love golf.  I am wondering if the joy of blogging has had its own wound that makes it a dying hobby.  I suppose time will tell in that regard.  The first thing I must do is update that Daddy Blog and see if the joy comes back.  No, I won’t start in on the metaphor of setting something free, the profound nature of this post is already getting away from me.

How about you?  Are you a professional blogger?  Have you lost the joy of blogging now that its a job or a career?

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.

I was talking to one of my professional bloggers about a project she was working on, and she mentioned matter of fact:

"It is hard for me not to get a sense of ‘ownership’ about my blogs."

Her statement showed me that she carried with her a sense of pride about her work and about her blogging.  She doesn’t own the blog, but does provide her expertise in professionally blogging for the site.  Not every person can claim this about the people working with them.  Many people show up for work each day only to dream of the quitting time whistle.  This made me proud of her for her stance, but then I thought about it, and all of the bloggers I know have this sense of ownership about their work.  Blogging is of course a narcissistic endeavor to begin with, as we all want to see our name in lights or in print so to speak.  We do take pride in being the best in whatever niche, be it knitting blogs, or mommy blogs, or even if we are talking about widgets.  We want to be the best and most authoritative blog available, and this is the nature of the blogging beast.  Yes, I am still proud of my blogger, she is a star player, and the company that she provides her service to is lucky to have her sense of ownership. 

Tags: professional bloggers, blogging, bloggers for hire

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

Due to the fact that I am a card carrying member of the Clan MacLeod, I found Hugh MacLeod quite by mistake a couple years ago. I like Hugh’s style because he tends to push the envelope when it comes to blog marketing. His use of business cards with messages always has me in stitches, but today it was about his take on Kathy Sierra’s post about being professional versus passionate First Hugh’s cartoon today caused my keyboard to be sprayed with a gulp of joe I had just tried to savor.

Kathy eloquently states:

We all have to decide what constitutes “professionalism” for our own business. And my standards might be much lower (or rather different) from yours. One of my favorite exchanges was between Hugh MacLeod and one of his commenters, some time back. Hugh, not known for self-censorship, was told, “Maybe you’d have more clients if you stopped using such inappropriate language.” His response: “If that’s what I’d have to do to win those clients, they aren’t the people I’d want to work with anyway.”

I tell all of my bloggers to use common sense and have an idea of the client they are representing. Many client’s as Kathy notes won’t allow even the most non-inflammatory comments on a blog and others are all about telling it like it is. There can be a fine line between the two, but that line is growing ever more gray as people like Hugh and Kathy get out their erasers.

I’ve had client’s tell me that the launch of their new blog is so cool it will light your hair on fire, or that it is totally awesome! I have yet to reach the milestone of a client telling me that the blog is “F**king cool!” I guess we set our new milestone for 2007.

Hold Fast Hugh!

Tags: Hugh MacLeod, Kathy Sierra, professionalism, pro blogging

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When a problogger wakes up in the morning it is usually looking towards an agenda of things that must be read, culled, completed, posted, confirmed and chatted.  Here is an example, Tris Hussey, an advising partner of One By One Media and Bloggers For Hire, is busy making sure to keep up with a blog post he is doing for Tucows as he blogged the conference live while not in the presenters chair.  Scott Goldblatt my other Technical Partner was not live blogging, but making alterations to templates for clients as we all tried to sit and gather the loads of information that is being shouted from the stage.  These two really helped me throughout the conference and did a wonderful job representing the company as professionals and as friends.  As a team we each have our strengths and more than once we were given kudos for being visionaries and splitting our strengths into a reputable company with a forward vision of marketing online.  I just wanted to say thank you and great job guys!

Tags: professional blogger, Tris Hussey, One By One Media. Bloggers For Hire, Tucows, Blog Business Summit, Scott Goldblatt, Jim Turner

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Usually when you think of shipping you think of shipping contents from one place to another.  Well we here at Bloggers For Hire, when we hear about shipping we think of blogging content.  Our most recent client has hired us to provide professional blogging to create content and help them with their new blogging campaign.  They truly understand the power of blogs and they were not able to staff their blog with a blogger of their own so they turned to us for their needs.  This company has a small staff working around the clock on their business, but did not have a person that knew how to support their blog nor did they have someone that could provide quality content or understand the ins and outs of the blogging world.  This didn’t stop them from their vision of what a blog could do for their marketing efforts.  They hired a professional blogger and began to send their message regarding the freight and shipping business.  Congrats to Freight and Shipping, Inc. as they enter the next big thing in online marketing through the blogosphere.