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

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

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

One of the blogs I frequent is Podtech.net. I go here often not only because I want to make sure my partner, Tris Hussey, doesn’t screw up as their professional blogger, but because I get to see some pretty cool stuff about businesses on the Scoble Show.

One such video I was sure would be a total snoozer turned out to be pretty cool. One of the cool things about these shows is sometimes Robert talks to guys just like me that are passionate about what they do and their service. I get to see them as I should see myself. I’m the founder here at Bloggers For Hire, and I can see some similarities between this man and his business and mine. I liked his line about, "there has to be a better way" of selling online. I said that same thing to myself when I started Bloggers For Hire. There has to be a better way for companies to do this blogging thing. That’s how our seed was planted and it has grown and blossomed quite well at this point. Now if I could only get Robert to sit down with me and do a session like this!

There were a few times on my trip to Seattle recently that made those days of hard work all worth it. What hard work? That’s another story, when my wife’s not reading. I can honestly say that the life of a billionaire is not the hard work it is described by those poor souls required to live the life of the rich and famous. How do I know this? I was given a small glimpse, a mere tasting, of what it is like to have more money that you can spend in a lifetime.

Robert Scoble has posted his video on the Scoble Show about the trip aptly named “Grapes On A Plane”, put on by the hard working conference experts at the Blog Business Summit. I was not invited because I’m a famous blogger the likes of which Robert describes, but because I happened to be at the right place at the right time and my plane was leaving and nobody really wanted to drive the three hour trip to Seattle’s airport early in the morning after a night of wine tasting. Actually, Bloggers Fore Hire was a sponsor of the event, meaning they let us show up and pay for some drinks. Actually I stand behind the money well spent comments I made. These people know how to treat a sponsor!

If you want to see how the other half, although that is a misnomer because “half” implies there are as many billionaires as poor people like me, go to The Scoble Show and download the podcast. Robert said there were no edits to the video. I’m sure there was one edit when it came to seeing the bill for the evening of fun. I think my expense account may have been stretched had I picked up the tab.

I want to thank again the wonderful hosts at Greenpoint Technologies for their hospitality in allowing me to experience what I probably won’t get to experience again. If I do they are on the must call list to outfit my own private jet! Jon Buccola, CEO of Greenpoint (Jon, you still need that blog!) and Matt Mullenweg (soon to be billionaire) the founder of Wordpress let me sit an enjoy the comforts of style while enjoying their company on the trip home.

I’m the one that looks like I don’t belong! (Jim, Jon, Matt)

Robin Leach photo via corporateartists.com

Tags: Robert Scoble, The Scoble Show, Blog Business Summit, Greenpoint Technologies, Jon Buccoloa, Matt Mullenweg, Jim Turner, Grapes On A Plane

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When I was a young child I was diagnosed with ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder.  The doctors and specialists wanted to put me on Ritalin, but my mother stood firm, no child of hers would be taking drugs.  She would manage my disorder and make me a overcome the problem.  She allowed me to be enrolled in a special class of others with the same problem and by the end of the school year I think we had clearly trained our second grade teacher in the ways of ADD.  She could not hold her attention to her classroom duties long enough between recess sessions.  I guess I should someday apologize to that poor woman.  My point is not to discuss the issues of ADD or to discuss how to overcome the disorder.  I know after 30+ years I still….oh look something shiny…where was I?  Oh yes, keeping your reader’s attention.

When I recently attended the Blog Business Summit, John Furrier of Podtech mentioned a quip about the length of podcasts:

"You should do ‘Stair Master podcasts’ as a rule"

What I hope he meant rather than exercise while listening to podcasts, is to keep it short and to the point.  You only have so much time to get your message across then your audience begins to drift and they begin to want to move on to the next shiny thing.  The same goes for posting an article or item on your blogs.  If I want to read War and Peace, I will make sure to run to the nearest bookstore, but then again the last time I did that I had to stop and look at the swimsuit calendars…see what happens?  When you are blogging and posting items stay within these simple rules:

Keep it simple: Nobody likes to have to work, that’s why they don’t call it play.

Keep it short:  If you go on too long, you may lose that reader and a lost reader might be a reader never to return.

Make it informative:  People don’t want to have wasted their time reading something only to get to the end to find out you have not allowed them to learn something or to get informed.

Make it fun:  We all receive those funny emails we forward. Perhaps your post will be forwarded if you make your reader smile.

Make it controversial:  I don’t often go this route because I hate to get into flame wars with people because it takes to much time.  When people get into a heated discussion their attention is captured.

Send them away with your blog in mind:  Link them to another post they might enjoy as they feed their attention, or merely create something shiny or distracting that…

Did you guys know that Reese Witherspoon and Britney Spears are about to be on the singles list?

Tags: ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, Blog Business Summit, BBS06, John Furrier, Podtech, Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears

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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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I attended a session lead by Chris Pirillo and Andru Edwards, although Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble, Dave Taylor and others seemed to capture the discussion. This stands to reason because these bloggers are the leaders in Entreprenurial Blogging and Maximizing Ad Revenues on blogs, and in fact the name of the session. There was passionate discussion about monetizing blogs, as it always seems to be when discussing money, but one of the things became clear to me as I filtered what was being said versus what was being answered versus what has been tried versus what has worked in the realm of making money blogging. Those bloggers that have already made their riches are those that are now about to get richer. I don’t mean this as a derogatory statement, but it was clear that statements such as "the new medium is podcasting, videocasting and RSS" for the next money making battleground, but the early adopter bloggers that were the first to ride the wave, are now the early adopters about to ride the wave of the new medium online. The blogosphere is now clogged and jammed with bloggers and content and that leverage has been used up and exhausted. Those that are now beginning to blog must work twice as hard or worse, than the ones that were visionaries. As they looked back on old times, there was a hint to the crowd that, "Sorry, you are too late, but thanks for stopping by and listening to our success. This may be a cynical look, and of course it does reek of some sour grapes on my part, but those of us that are willing to work hard and to be focused in our vision, there is still a chance for us to reach for some of the table scraps of the aristocracy of the blog kings and queens. UPDATE:  I wanted clarify about the session and the panel that was directing the dicussion.  Chris and Andru were the leaders of the discussion, but Jason, Dave Taylor and Jason Weisberger of FM were attendees to the session that had a passionate voice about earning money from blogs and they are certainly leaders in the industry.  This is a session that should be a whole day of discussion and ideas and workings of blogs and how to monetize blogs, make money and the entreprenurial spirit of these  leaders.

Tags: Chris Pirrillo, Andru Edwards, Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble, Dave Taylor, Entreprenurial Blogging, Ad Revenues, podcasting, videocasting, RSS, Jason Weisberger, FM Media

The Apple iPod has brought a great number of advancments to the world of portable music, but more importantly it has also brought to light recently the popularity and capability of a new form of blogging - the Podcast. With iTunes 5, Apple Computer brought Podcasting into the public’s eye with its support for this now popular feature.

This brought a boon to bloggers, as now the traditional all-text blog had a voice - a real voice. Now bloggers could share their views with a whole new audience, who months ago would have known nothing about Podcasting. More importantly, this format was portable, so now bloggers were no longer tied to the computer screen and the internet connection.

But now, with the recent release of the 5th generation of the iPod, in what some people are calling the Video iPod, there is another chance to reach your audience. Princeton University has launched vodcasts.

According to University Channel Executive Director Donna Liu:

Podcasts and vodcasts take advantage of "the Internet’s potential for distribution to a bigger audience for fantastic content not [previously] going anywhere,".

The Wilson School launched the University Channel this summer in an effort to grant widespread access to academic events for a broad audience. Liu said she first added podcasting because "commercial media doesn’t put out full-length presentations" of interesting lectures and speeches, using only short clips during news broadcasts instead

With Vodcasts (and Podcasts) comes an amazing new medium for promoting yourself and your thoughts, and gaining an even greater audience for blog. Just remember to smile for the camera!

Technorati Tags: Podcasting and Vodcasting

Scott Goldblatt also write daily at his personal blog The Parental Olympian