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]

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?

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.

If you think you’re stumbled on posts here on Blog Professional, you have because Sticky Blogs is stealing the content from here.  We are in the process of sending Cease and Desist orders.  But want the best part?  The site makes it look like they are helping us.  Rich Benvin has the unmitigated gaul to say Bloggers For Hire is a contributor to the site.

Gee, Jim and I haven’t seen a cheque from them for the ad revenue.  Gee, we weren’t asked if our content could be re-published.

So Rich, just cut it out.  Take the site down.

Like yesterday.

I was bragging a bit about my night last night because I was able to sit and read a book in the quiet of my own home.  It is not normally I can do with 4 kids 7 and under trying to upset my routine in every way possible.  I usually only have time to gobble up the more than 2000 RSS feeds I read everyday, but for some reason I was able to finish those earlier than normal during the day and I found myself with some free time.  A luxury of the highest in my home.  The book I devoured in one evening was “The Road“, by Cormac McCarthy and published through Random House.  The book itself is not the most important part of this post, but the fact that I was able to actually read written words on a page was important.

In blogging we tend to write our posts quickly and in a conversational style that sometimes loses the reader as we sometimes speak to our own minds and the only person it makes sense to is us as the writer.  The reader is left with blank spot where your message was lost.  Conventional style writing, as in authors of fiction writing tend to be very descriptive with use of adjectives and other forms that place us in their minds and we absorb their pictures and the message it brings.  Reading that book last night brought me to an epiphany that I too had begun to fall into a style of wiring that may be too close to home and I may be losing readers.  Sometimes you have to reach out and rattle the chain of the reader and have them understand and see that picture or message in your own mind.  We can all be better bloggers and better at content production with just a little reading.  By the way, I really recommend the book.  It was a gift from my mother-in-law of all things.