Are your employees on Twitter?  I mean, are your employees on Twitter as your employees, tweeting about the job, the conditions, the customer service, the problems, etc?  Can your business take a risk like that?

The fact is, customers and potential customers tend to trust a business with a shared online presence.   Unless your business has a lot to hide and has a lot of disgruntled employees, you will find that it is well worth the risk to have your employees on Twitter.

It is also a good thing to occasionally  have an employee tweet about a customer service problem, and then tweet about how the problem was fixed.  A business that puts nothing but positive things about itself online is suspect; nothing is perfect and everybody knows that.  What is this business NOT telling us?  But because of this very thing, the fact that your business admits to an occasional problem but also shares how any problem was taken care of, is actually good for your business.  In fact, it makes your business seem more honest, and full of actual humans, than a business that shares only the good stuff. One of the most frequent customer complaints is the slowness of problem-solving; on Twitter, people will see the swiftness of YOUR company’s problem-solving.

So let your employees tweet as employees of your business.  They’re probably already on there as themselves, saying much the same things they’ll say for you.  On your company website, list your employees who are on Twitter and encourage people to follow them.  If you’re the boss, get a Twitter account and do some tweeting yourself.  People respect a boss who isn’t afraid to talk to them outside of the building.  Let people ask questions and answer them.

Twitter can be your business’ best friend.  Be sure you and your people are using it to your advantage.

I have heard a number of companies that start blogs and they go very well the first few weeks of the life of the blog.  You can see the passion and you can see the excitement behind those early posts, and then it starts to wane and they start to fall off in number and even the posts that come out on the published side are not much more than going through the motions.  The problem is the honeymoon is over the the real meat of why they began the blog has left.  So in the immortal words of the Wendy’s lady, “Where’s the beef?”

Mark Thompson has a post over at Search Engine Journal on “10 tips to Supercharge Your Blog’s Content“.  It has some really good points in it especially the one about hiring a blogger.  A blogger can be a great asset to your company when if comes time when the honeymoon is over and the blog begins to lack real content or staying with the analogy, the meat.

The Bloggers For Hire portion of his post states:

For some blogs this may be out of the question. If you simply do not have the funds to pay for professional bloggers, you can probably skip this section. Many of the best bloggers out there are the best for a reason and in return, require you to pay them for their services. However professional bloggers typically have a lot of experience in the industry, so they can add valuable content to your blog that will many times gain a lot of industry recognition.

My advice would be to maybe not find the most influential blogger in the industry, but to find someone with a few years experience that has written for a number of other blogs. You can probably hire these bloggers for $25-$50/post and it can be of very good quality. Also keep in mind the reach they may have socially. Usually these bloggers will promote their content on other sites as well, in turn getting you lots of additional traffic.

SEO firms know that with good quality content comes better SEO results.

Mark is right on the money with the idea behind hiring a blogger.  He has a pretty good handle on the budget and the concepts.  Mark is in the SEO world and those are the companies that understand beefy content most.  SEO firms know that with good quality content comes better SEO results.

Hiring a quality blogger that can take your blog over and give it the attention it needs is crucial.  If you want to talk to us about getting a blogger to take the mundane out of your social media marketing plan, contacts us.  We can help and we know the process and the importance of good quality content.  Consider us your blogging butcher!  We can show you the meat.

From all of us at Bloggers For Hire, to all of you, please have a safe and happy Memorial Day.

Remember all of those that gave their lives to protect our freedom and provided us with our quality of life.

I am a professional blogger, and this requires a certain amount of discipline and scheduling.  Not necessarily on the part of the clients; mostly, on the part of ME!

My clients know that they can expect a new post from me at approximately 12:05 a.m. on the due date, which varies from client to client.  I post at that time because then, the client’s customers and potential customers are all pretty much assured of a 24-hour-long viewing time for each new post.

My clients also know that they can expect all of my posts to be grammatically correct.  Don’t laugh.  We’ve all seen internet articles that don’t seem to have any ties to basic English grammar and spelling whatsoever.  This is a fatal flaw when it comes to marketing, for many people, particularly professional people, assume that if a client is careless with such simple things as spelling, he/she is probably equally careless with the more serious aspects of his/her business.  In other words, if there’s a misspelled word on the menu or marquee, COUNT YOUR CHANGE.  A business blog is an extension of the PEOPLE of that business, and as such needs to inspire confidence, not criticism or an assumption that nobody working at this place can spell his/her own last name!

One might assume that a hired blogger would not feel any ownership or pride in his/her assignment, but this couldn’t be further from the truth!  The trust and confidence placed in me by Jim Turner and by each of the business owners who have put their faith in my ability to write for and about them means a lot to me, and I would not let any of them down for any reason.  I believe in all of my clients, and I can tell you all quite truthfully that my family has been privileged to sample and become devoted fans of almost every business’ product or services that  I’ve ever blogged for.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to load a few more new pictures onto my digital picture frame, change the 100% recyclable, insect-free trash bags in the kitchen and bathrooms, get a few more helpful hints from the new Humana blog, e-mail Jim about looking into a new trade-show display, investigate the logistics of moving two pianos across town, compare prices for a new king-size bed,  look into some digital signage possibilities, lay out some hands-on science project materials for my class, and make a peanut butter and pepper jelly sandwich before I turn in.

To paraphrase the Hair Club:   I not only write for these businesses; I’m also a customer!

A very loyal, very satisfied customer.  I don’t think I could write well for any business I didn’t personally like.

I hope that attitude shows in my writing for each and every one of my very awesome clients.

Do you need a writer for your business?  You’re on the right page, then.  Bloggers 4 Hire matches writers with businesses that need a writer.

Perhaps you would do me the honor of considering me for that position?

It’s not always about your written words.  Many bloggers write beautiful prose and inspire with their written words.  I have often been persuaded to try a product just because the way it was explained to me in a blog post.  That in itself is a powerful tool in being a professional blogger.

“…anyone can write.”

The problem is, anyone can write.  Now before you go off and start slinging arrows at me, I’m the first to say I am not the writer in the cool kids group, this is what is told to me by C level employees of companies.  They can find anyone to write, they want people of influence and large networks that can rally the troops.

In other words, they want to get people that are well respected and have large followings to be their professional blogger.  I joked about this earlier on Twitter, when I sent a tweet stating that many companies open an email introduction with “how many of the top 100 bloggers on Technorati can you get to link to me and write about my company?”  Of course, there is also this line taken directly from a recent email, “How soon can you get me featured on TechCrunch?”

“…with good content comes good customers…”

Companies want your reach and your influence.  They are caught up in the metrics of numbers of followers, page views and mass broadcasting. If you have 10,000 followers you can send your blog post link to, they are suddenly interested.  It is usually not about the content.  I have been on the pulpit sending out the message that with good content comes good customers, but it is not the rallying cry heard from those that are hiring the bloggers.  My advice to those looking to get into the world of professionally blogging for companies is to increase your reach.  Be an influencer in the genre in which you write.  it will help you get to the real work which is blogging for a living.

The power of social media was tested and found alive and well over the holiday weekend, as One by One Media and Bloggers 4 Hire CEO Jim Turner hosted a 24-hour telethon to help the people of Haiti.

Jim, AKA Genuine, is the man behind the telethon. He was aided and abetted by Chris Noble of WhatGives.com, and Jim used his 24 hours wisely and well, interviewing many concerned people and emphasizing over and over to all of us that the inspiration for his telethon was an image of  a little Haitian girl, alone, frightened, hungry, and thirsty, amidst the rubble; the image had pierced him to the heart and would probably haunt him forever.  This vision convinced Jim that he needed to DO SOMETHING, and he DID do something, something wonderful!

Jim’s telethon raised a lot of dollars for Haiti.  The Twitter hashtag @HART (Haitian Assistance Relief Telethon) quickly took over the MLK holiday Twitter posts, sending more and more people to view and/or listen to the telethon and phone in with their contributions and concern.

One by One Media and Bloggers 4 Hire’s CEO was already well-known for his generous heart and his love of children and family, but his telethon not only proved it over again; it also convinced hundreds of others to open their hearts and wallets, as well.

The power of social media is mighty; it’s easy to get a mind-fix that these catastrophes usually happen far away to people we don’t know, but the fact is, we’re all in this together. Today, it’s someone else who needs help; tomorrow, it could be us, right here. WhatGives.com posted a list of many ways to contribute, including how to do so with a cell phone!  On Twitter, people read the thoughts and comments of other kind-hearted people – all linked with the #HART hashtag so they were easy to find – and decided to do likewise.  #HART made it easy to find a means to give, and Jim’s constant and intense outpourings, during the telethon,  of love and good will made it almost impossible to say “no.”

Let the good that we do come back to us. And even if it doesn’t, let’s do it anyway.

On Twitter, the hashtag #HART is still going strong.  Social media can unite people and “spread the word” faster than lightning, and Jim Turner and his heart-felt telethon was a way to unite us all even faster, aiming at a common goal: to help others.

You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. — John Wooden

You’re right, John Wooden.  Thank you, Jim Turner.  Truly, you are a Genuine kind of guy.

From all of us at Bloggers For Hire to all of you, Happy New Year! 

We sincerely hope that 2010 is your best year yet!

Many companies are out there looking for bloggers.  This is a prime example and these come into us here at Bloggers For Hire on a weekly basis. 

Jason Calacanis is looking for a blogger at This Week In Startups and describes the listing:

"…looking for someone to do a blog post every day or two"

"…looking for someone to do a blog post every day or two for the www.thisweekinstartups.com blog to "keep the conversation moving" between shows. For example, we now have 40 or so companies that have been on the show, I’d like to cover them in between episodes in a wrap up post (i.e. LocalBacon did this, WordPress announced this, etc). Also, maybe a pre-post about an upcoming guests (i.e. Sky Dayton preview)."

I’m curious how Jason will interview for this position and would love to talk to him about what he is looking for in a blogger.  Every company that approaches us has a laundry list of what they think makes a good blogger.  What characteristics do you think makes the perfect blogger?  Companies have a different philosophy than of course the bloggers themselves. I think I will follow this up with some of the things companies have asked in the past and what they describe as their needs and wants, which should give bloggers a better idea about what companies want.  Pay and salary for a blogger is the next biggest discrepancy.

Tags: Bloggers, Professional Bloggers, Blogging Help Wanted, Blog Jobs, This Week In Startups, Jason Calacanis, Bloggers For Hire

Many companies contact us to handle their content and we specialize in providing content to companies and their blogs.  It has been shouted from the mountain tops that "Content is King."  This is something I have been known to say and others have preached this from the very beginning.  I stand behind the statement and believe it carries with it the proper message.  The problem with the statement, is it gives an incomplete message for the power of blogging and social media.

The true secret sauce of blogging and other tools of social media is truly the engagement of the reader, the participant, and the receiver of the message.  You can shout at someone in the crowd and get their attention with your message and your company mission statement.  Google allows them to even seek it out and hear it on a one to one basis.  The magic ends there however and the true meaning of your message is not necessarily "heard".  To get the most of what you need from the content, you need a potential customer or a potential reader, or other person to interact with you.  You need them to comment on your content, to agree or disagree with it, to question its truth or to carry that message and content on to their own community. This is the true secret sauce that everyone is trying for in the area of social media.

I have seen too often that our own customer comes to us and hires us to provide them with a number of blog posts per week, a set number of words, in the proper categories with the proper key words and phrases added into the blog post.  This is all they want and they later want to know why the great content didn’t change their world.  It is because they didn’t add the "secret sauce" to the recipe for success.  Content is definitely king, but sprinkle a little sauce over the content, and you will have something that will make your company really cook!

Tags: Blogging, Professional Bloggers, Bloggers For Hire, Content, Conversations, Social Media, Social Networking

I wanted to just chime in on a post I was reading by Peter Kim and instead of hijacking his comment section I thought I would just jot down the thought I had when his post entitled "Should you be paid to participate in social media?" made me shout, "YES!"

"I would venture to guess that with 250 million people on Facebook there might be a few people talking about their jobs and where they work."

I know Peter was talking about your employees, but in our case we provide the person to handle your social media needs and therefore, we like to get paid.  It’s part of our business plan right under what we do.  This does make me think about social media as a service.  Many employees are doing what we outsource.  This is probably not a good post to be jotting down now that I think about it, but I wonder how many employees are participating in social media yet are not only not getting paid for it, but their employees have no idea that it is even taking place?  I have been saying this is the year of listening and I wonder how many employers are out there listening and stumble upon one of their own out and about evangelizing for the company? I would venture to guess that with 250 million people on Facebook there might be a few people talking about their jobs and where they work.  Is that on the clock time?  This is what spurred me to think of this post.  We get paid to post on various social networking sites on behalf of companies as their social media evangelist.  They may be getting this service free from their own.  How about your employees are they talking about you?  This appears to be another sub-heading in the year of listening thesis I seem to be writing in my head.

Tags: Peter Kim, Social Media, Pay For Blogging, Social Media Salary