Outsourcing your blogging to a third party, not unlike our service, is a normal business decision.  There are many reasons that a company might want to hire a blogger to do the blogging of their company and we have talked about these reasons in many previous blog posts.  Many companies are taking advantage of this service as we have seen in recent months.  We get contacted numerous times a week to talk to business owners and others to find out what our service does and how it can help businesses with an online or social media presence.  What is rarely thought of and is not often discussed in the process of hiring a blogger is the time it takes a blogger to get into the flow of the philosophy or the core message of the company.  This is often referred to by me as the passion of the business and the time it takes for us to realize that passion is what I call the ramp up period. Let’s use an example of the flower shop on the corner.

Mary owns the flower shop on the corner and has a great location and a decent amount of foot traffic.  Mary has a degree in botany and has made her life’s work the world of plants and flowers.  She loves to do the flower arranging and she specializes in making great bouquets and making plans for events such as weddings and parties.  To say the least flowers are Mary’s life.  She is ultimately passionate about flowers.  Mary has decided that she needs to use social media marketing as a way to gain further exposure and wants to do some hyper-local marketing and encompass a number of ideas into a new online marketing initiative for her business.  Part of that campaign is the implementing of a company blog to talk about the industry, to post photos and discuss projects she has accomplished and her philosophy about being a florist in her hometown.  A great plan to increase her exposure both in the content on her website and a way for her potential customers to get to know her better through that content.  Mary is not a blogger and has no experience writing blog posts and frankly is not the best at the written word. She hates to even answer and write emails in her business.  She decides the best business decision is to outsource her blogging to someone that can do the job efficiently and cost effective and meet the needs of her overall online strategy.

This is where the difficulty comes in as a business owner and the realization that outsourcing your passion is not as easy as outsourcing a specific duty in your marketing plan.  Mary is VERY passionate about flowers and her business.  This passion is obviously needed to be successful and it drives her to be the best at her job and as the business owner.  She wants to impart that passion in the blog, the blog that is outsourced to a third party blogger, but she is not seeing the passion after 5 blog posts.  This is a very common situation.  In some cases the blogger just does not understand the business or the reasons behind the blog. It happens rarely but it does occur.  In this case however, the blogger knows her stuff.  She has done the research on keywords and phrases, has a thorough understanding of the target market and has done everything necessary to move forward with the project. The problem is the blogger does not exude the passion that the owner of the company has for the campaign. This is a tough situation for a business owner.  It’s where they have to be a good owner of the business and be patient.  It takes time for the blogger to ramp up to the passion necessary to make the blog a success. They have to own the blog for a while in order for the success or failure to be realized.  The business owner must trust that the campaign will work and watch the results from a business perspective and leave the passion and emotion out of the work in this case.  It’s a hard thing to do as an owner.  You may not speak like that or do it that way or you may have done it differently. Just ask my mother how I make chicken soup and I guarantee she will say I do it wrong every time.  You must not confuse passion with results.  Let the blogger do their thing.  Once they begin to get into the flow of the blog, they will soon gain a passion for the results and in turn will gain a passion for the business.  It takes time for them to get to that level but it happens.  Let the ramp up period happen naturally.  Don’t stop the car before we get onto the highway!

Flowershop photo via Beloved Flower

Infographic by R.O.I. Media Web Design

Dear Business World:

You do know that a regularly updated business blog tells your customers and potential customers that you’re right on top, cutting edge, of what’s going on in your particular field, right?

You are also, I’m sure, aware that Google will crawl over a static website (one that is never changed) only a few times before it labels  it “dead” and doesn’t figure it into a search any more.

Perhaps you could benefit from a reminder that a constantly updated company blog translates to an up-to-date page of stats, facts, experiences, etc, that will influence people to go with your business or shrug and go elsewhere.

Before you shell out thousands to have an “expert” create a fancy, dancing, colorful company webpage THAT NEVER CHANGES, you really ought to call Jim Turner (303-678-0608) and ask him about about hiring a professional blogger who knows how to make your EVERCHANGING company blog into a genuine, reliable, helpful page that customers know is up-to-date and accurate.

Prices and dates on a static page are usually wrong.  Prices and dates on an ever-changing company blog are accurate.  Think about it.  Your customers and potential customers certainly are.

Spring, summer, and fall are conference seasons for me.  This is because, in addition to being a professional blogger, I’m also a college professor, and in the winter, it’s almost impossible for me to leave town.

That’s right, I have another life besides the one I share with my clients.  Most pro-bloggers have “other lives.”

This is to your advantage, prospective clients and customers.  Because most pro-bloggers have “other lives,” we have first-hand knowledge of your business as it applies to the real world.

I have several clients for whom I write and take care of their social media needs, and no two clients are alike.

I know how to apply each client to each other, and to the world out there, pretty much simultaneously.

My clients’ businesses are extremely precious to them, so I make it a point to learn as much as I can about each business, in as much detail as possible, so I can write and share accurately.  My clients usually give me samples of their products or services, and I use/wear/share/compare these samples, yes, out in the real world I am also an active part of.  So far, I’ve loved every client I’ve ever represented via Bloggers for Hire and One by One Media, and I’ve done my utmost to please them.   These clients have treated me graciously, enthusiastically, and well, and I appreciate that very much.

They make me proud to represent them online.

That’s the thing, you see.  As a business, you WANT someone who also has a presence out in the real world, with contacts, experiences, and daily “things they do.”

As a business, you want your blogger and social media representative to be knowledgeable and active, in real-world settings.  A monk in a cell might love your product, but will he know how to let the world know?

I’m proud to be trusted with blogs and social media responsibilities for my very, very important clients.  I do all that’s in my power for them.

That’s how we roll at Bloggers For Hire and One by One Media.

The dreaded three letter word that marketers wrestle with each month in their reports, the same three letters that advertisers are shying away from and of course those in social media are shouting from the mountain tops–ROI.  Better known as return on investment.  There are variations of ROI, but for the most part it means for every dollar I spend, how much comes back to me in revenue?  Revenue in this particular post means money, or sales or whatever you use to measure your success in business, but for the most part we all like to make money.  I don’t intend this to be a discussion about what the return is or what the investment is or what the dollars are, I want to keep it simple.  When you pay me, you usually pay in money, and that is what you want the number to include when I tell you what to expect for ROI.

I was spurred to write this post today because of a post written by Jay Baer over at Convince & Convert called “Calculate Your Blogging ROI in 9 Steps“.  This is an awesome post and I suggest you bookmark it if you are looking for reasons to implement a blog into your social media campaign.  If you are a CMO, you may want to add this as a line item in your reporting to the CEO and the Board.  I am not going to go over the entire 9 steps that Jay has covered, but I want to concentrate on the first step and that being the expense of the blog or what he refers to as the “Blogging Expense Calculation”.

“Creating and sustaining a good blog for yourself or your company is a highly labor-intensive proposition. The people (maybe you) working on the blog could be doing something else that helps the company make money, save money, or both.” ~ Jay Bear

Jay sets forth a calculation of 3 blog posts a week and for the numbers he uses,  and makes the time of completion at 3 hours.  This is pretty long I think for a blog post, but for some good research, good links and a decent image, it may take about that long to complete the task. He also adds tracking and some other things into the mix, but I think for the most part Jay has written enough blog posts to know what he is talking about in this instance.  His number for the labor costs are what I want to highlight for our purposes.  he shows the final cost to be $2037 by paying your existing employees to complete a month of blogging.  The costs of blogging can be larger or smaller based on the amount of posts and the length of the post and other factors.  These numbers however are fixed, and we know the costs associated.  It is up to you or your social media manager to come up with the benefits and the revenue derived from the blog itself, but Jay offers his own example. Our number does not include benefits, therefore you can assume our number to be lower which should increase your ROI percentage.

We want to help you with your fixed costs here at Bloggers For Hire.  We have been successful because we offer an alternative to the costs you see by having your own employees perform all of the blogging duties associated with a properly run company blog.  We put a professional blogger in that role.  We are a fixed cost each month and that can lend you the sense of security needed to weigh that against the benefits of the blog itself.  I talk a number of times all over the country about how blogs increase the sales funnel, help with SEO and drive traffic to a company website among other benefits.  I can discuss those with you as well and help you with your needs.  Reduce your costs going in to business blogging and then you can decide for yourself if blogging can help you with your ROI.  I think Jay makes a good case and I know I can make a good case for you having your own blog.  Get started as soon as today.

Social media is magic.  Use it wisely or you’ll scare everybody away.

I’m going to assume that you’re all on Twitter, and tweeting away REGULARLY and at least daily, right?  Because if you’re NOT already on Twitter, we’ll need to start there, and not where I’d planned to start. . . . .

Ahem.  Everyone’s on Twitter, right?  Okay.

First item on everyone’s agenda:  Get rid of that obnoxious, robotic, automated DM that some people send to all new followers.  It’s horrendous.  Ditto for any popups you’ve got on any of your pages – people hate them.  Some people claim popups are good for business, but you’re driving away more people than you might think.  Me, for instance.

Next item: Be sure your Twitter account is attached to your Facebook account!  What does that do for you?  It cross-posts everything you put on Twitter to your Facebook status!

You DO have a Facebook account, right?  It was just a hypothetical question, of course.

Because, you know, if you DON’T use Twitter and Facebook and ideally use them together, you’re really missing out on a lot of attention.  In fact, these days, many customers, clients, friends, and potentials might not ever find you because Twitter and Facebook are where people look for other people nowadays.

Magazine sales are way down, and newspapers have shrunken to the size of a middle school newsletter, and any marketing done on them costs money.  Why not take advantage of Twitter and Facebook and all the perks they offer?

And while I’m lecturing you, PLEASE remember that any kind of marketing you do that doesn’t involve conversation is nothing but annoying.  You want to friend people, not pimp them.  In, among, and around telling us what you can do for us, let us see you and your kids and your dog, and keep us posted about your Aunt Matilda’s stroke.

People in general would much rather give their business to a friend than to a stranger in a suit who knows (and cares) nothing about them except what’s in their wallets.

And if you can’t do this yourself, and find yourself paraphrasing Dr. McCoy on “Star Trek” and saying things like “Dammit, Jim, I’m a businessperson, not a writer!” then you definitely need to contact Jim – Jim Turner, that is – and have him set you up with a writer.

Preferably me.

Some of the best social media I’ve seen has not been on the internet.  It’s been encounters in real life that made me hurry home to look up a business on the internet.

A casual encounter in the mall, or in a doctor’s waiting room, or while standing in a four-mile-long slow-moving line in WalMart, and someone who started out as a total stranger can turn into a valuable business colleague.

A few friendly words are exchanged.  Then a few business cards are traded, and like kids on a playground who discover another source for baseball cards,  a relationship of sorts has begun.

We must always remember that first impressions are of vital importance.  If that rude, uncaring person in the elevator turns out to be the business rep you’ve got an appointment with, you are not going to be able to rid yourself of the image of the rude bum in the elevator.  Whatever this person says or does now will always be secondary in your mind; real life trumps all.

Therefore, let us all be and stay aware of how our actions and words can make or break a relationship, be it business or personal.

We here at Bloggers for Hire will strive to put your best foot forward for you, so when your clients and potential clients seek you out online, they will find exactly what you hope they’ll find.

I’ve posted before about the importance of having your business on Twitter; now, it’s time to talk to you about how important it is for your business to be on Facebook, as well.

When customers and potential customers search for a business now, they almost always end up on Facebook.  More often than not, Twitter will refer them to Facebook!

Even with a simple Google search, Twitter and Facebook are wayyyy up at the top of the list of links!

If your business isn’t on Facebook, you’re losing out on a lot of customer interest, and that might be a huge understatement.  With the majority of the planet’s population on Facebook now, it’s only natural that they do the majority of their searching – for anything and everything – right on the site where they spend most of their time.

You can even set up your Twitter account to immediately cross-post to Facebook!  You can set up your blog to immediately cross-post to both Twitter AND Facebook!  These days, it’s impractical NOT to!

I am one of Jim Turner’s writers, and as such, I do a lot of writing for various businesses.  I become very attached to “my” businesses, and it’s extremely important to me to do a better than merely “good” job for them.  I want to do a GREAT job for them.

This is one reason why I go to so many conferences.  At each conference, I learn something, and often many things, that will enable me to do a better job for my businesses.

No one conference can do it all.  Some conferences specialize in networking; others focus on the tech aspect.  Some are more “social” than anything else.  Some are mostly opportunities for brands to connect to people.  At all of  “my” conferences, I focus mainly on social media and connections, which, to me, are the most important of all.  Remember, though, that the Bloggers For Hire writers all write about different things and perform all kinds of services for their businesses; it’s just that social media and connections are what I focus on, for mine.  After all, nobody can possibly know everything about anything!  However, I strive daily to learn more and more about things I can do for my clients.

I got back from BlogWorld on Sunday night, and already my email is full of messages about social media and connections, and other aspects of this business.  Does this mean that the conference was a success for me?  Darn right it does.  I will answer each and every one of those emails, even the ones that don’t really concern what I do.  It might even be that one of those emails will inspire me to do even more for my businesses!

That’s the thing about Bloggers for Hire, you see.  Jim tries to match each business with a writer who can best serve that business.  I’ve had as many as nine clients at once, each one uniquely special to me.  I’ve learned more while researching and writing for these companies than I learned in all the years of grad school, in fact.  Remember: it’s not possible to write knowledgeably about a business, or anything else, unless one knows a considerable lot about that business, or anything else.

I would venture to say that all of Jim’s writers feel the same way about their clients.  I know I feel as if I am an employee of my businesses, and as such I try my absolute level best to give them the best posts I can.  When my clients profit because of my contribution, it’s a matter of great pride and thankfulness to me.

As for Blogworld, last weekend in Vegas. . . . it was the best conference yet.  I met some of the most awesome, knowledgeable people, learned an amazing lot of useful, fascinating things, and had a fantastic time.

I sincerely hope I can use all of my new knowledge for YOUR business.

I just got back from BlogIndiana, and I can’t wait to use some of the skills I learned on my clients’ blogs!

Many of the Bloggers For Hire writers attend writing/blogging/social media conferences faithfully; I am one of those and I love it!  Conferences help me hone my skills and keep up with the many new things that any internet business simply must keep track of.  I believe that to fully appreciate the honing of one’s skills by attending conferences, we simply must attend more than one kind of conference.

In other words, we attend some conferences for certain reasons, and we attend other conferences for other reasons.  Often, these reasons overlap, and just as often, they do not.  I don’t expect my every professional need to be satisfied by every conference; I, like everyone else,  need more than one, to wit, a combo of conferences.

In the long run, however, by attending various types of conferences for various reasons, I have learned far more than I ever learned in graduate school.

The best thing about conferences by far is that the more things I learn, the more efficient and useful I can be to my clients.  I hope one of them is you.