Blogs

Blogging Creates Medium For New Voices

Whether it's for your new business, your flegling non-profit or other grassroots organization, blogging creates a medium for new voices. Do you have a voice for the new conversation?

Dog barking into the telephone
Originally uploaded by State Library and
Archives of Florida

Some reasons blogs are beneficial:

• Inexpensive compared to more traditional mediums like TV/radio/newspapers
• Target audiences interested in your brand, product or service with keywords related to your business or organization

Throughout the world, blogs are introducing new voices, like Tatyana Yumasheva, daughter of late former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, so why not your business or organization.

Hire a Blogger for Tons of Blogging Ideas

Why hire a blogger to blog for your business? How about access to tons of ideas for your business blog each week?

an exercise in ideas on post it notes
Originally uploaded by dan paluska

While gurus recommend adding a blog to your marketing chores, many business owners simply do not have the time or resources to devote to one more task outside operating their business and serving their customers.

As we've noted before, a good professional blogger maintains the flow of ideas that draws others to your business.

Isreali blogger Yonatan Maisel has posted a great list of "50 Topics to Write About in Your Business Blog."

A professional blogger can be a great partner to help you make it happen.

Hire a Blogger for Your News Organization

Should you hire a blogger for your news organization?

It's time to realize what participants in this November 2008 Professional Blogger-Journalist Association inaugural convention already have.

Your audience is moving to the Internet but capturing their attention will take more than the clunky Website version of your paper product that up until now you've been happy to settle for.

Some in the traditional news media remain skeptical of the role bloggers play, like this unnamed man from New England Cable News. But others realize bloggers bring:

• Passion for their topics
• Understanding of the Internet and development of niche markets and
• Audience dedicated to their unique perspective that cannot be ignored.

For more on how bloggers will fit into the expanding definition of media and more specifically news, see two very different perspectives from Internet marketer Chris Pirillo and Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Bloggers Maintain Flow of Ideas

Whether you hire a blogger to blog for your business, brand, product service, organization or cause, or take on the roll yourself, realize that the main function of bloggers is to maintain the flow of ideas.

go with the flow...
Originally uploaded by muha...

This is why blogs that function merely as regularly updated Websites with endless sales pitches, offers and come-ons fair so poorly when it comes to sustained growth.

Instead, an excellent blog should:

• Comment on trends and news in your field
• Express your company's personality
• Build a community in your niche
• Show your expertise to the world

All four of these are important parts of building your brand and the best bloggers spend a great deal of time and a variety of tools to create the right blog for you.

For more on how professional bloggers keep the content fresh, read "Blogging Ideas: Keeping the River Flowing" from Better Closer.

Can Blogging Create a Sustainable Business

Can blogging create a sustainable business?

Creating A Blog For Your Biz
Originally uploaded by Robert Sanzalone

Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com takes on this question and looks at realistic ways that blogging can work as a business in his post "Is Professional Blogging a Sustainable Business Model."

The reality is that there are at least two kinds of business blogging:

• Blogging for an existing business. This is either an online or bricks and mortar business that uses blogging as an effective way to boost brand and market for increased sales
• Blogging as a business. Launching a blog in a niche and building a business model including advertising and perhaps affiliate programs and e-commerce around it

In both cases, as Yaro points out, you can decide to either hire a blogger to blog for your business or do the work yourself.

Treat a blog like any other business. Plan, focus on growth and be ready to make the necessary investment when necessary.

Dominate Social Media with Blogs

Whether you hire a blogger to blog for your business or do it yourself, blogs can be an important tool to dominate social media.

As the real Estate Marketing SEO Blog indicates, figuring out how to dominate social media has to do you with a few simple ideas.

In the video on this page, Lennie Appelquist of FreeMarket Media Group explains how blogs remain the simplest, most effective way of social marketing for small business.

Looking to the SEO Blog, we could say blogs will:

• Find the conversation by creating a community around relevant keywords related to your product, service, industry or brand
• Get in front of the conversation by publishing relevant articles targeted at that community
• Enter the conversation through comments on your blog and by tracking down who's visiting and linking to you.

Hiring a Blogger Makes Sense for Everyone

Hiring a blogger makes sense for both the owner of a company or Website and for professional bloggers, says Wayne Hurlbert at WebProNews.

And Hurlbert believes this is a trend that will likely be carried at least into the forseeable future, he writes:

Writing blog posts for other blogs is truly a win-win situation for everyone involved...The professional blogger gets paid to post, and the blog owner has postings magically appear at predetermined intervals. This is especially true for the growing number of company business blogs that appear almost daily.

In the video above, professional blogger Chris Schaeffer explains the professional blogger's potential role in business marketing including social media like Twitter and how the job description is beginning to include reputation management.

Stats: Blogging, Social Media Critical to Business

If you're running a business today you need a social media presence that probably includes blogging and at least some other type of presence on the big social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Blog Viewers by Time of Day
Originally uploaded by edkohler

Though obviously promoting their own services, SysComm International presents some pretty convincing figures based on UK users that are probably not that different than those in the US and elsewhere.

Citing Experian Hitwise UK, the Website suggests social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube are catching up with search engines in popularity with users.

This increased popularity also implies an increased use of social networking over organic search to locate things of interest online but interestingly the Website also notes:

Research also indicates that most of these networks are sending the traffic to other content driven Websites.

Hiring a blogger to blog for your business or having one of your employees do it can be an effective way of getting the best of both worlds leveraging both social networking sites and search engines.

Ghost Blogging For Your Business Or Brand

If you're seeking ghost blogging for your business or brand be aware that there can be some controversy over the issue.

Slide - Ghost Blogging, Tweeting,
Content Production - Ethical? Does It Matter?
Originally uploaded by Bruce Clay, Inc

Despite the fact that blogs have long since evolved beyond their online diary infancy, some people still feel they should be a personal statement. Never mind the fact that hiring others to do your copy is common in the offline world.

In the end it comes down to this. Do you have the time and inclination to write a blog on top of everything else you've got to do, plus fool with keywords and online marketing? If not, hire a blogger.

For more on the issue from two different perspectives, read "So who else do you write blogs for? Err, we can’t tell you…" from Nikki Plinkerton and "Don’t just hire a blogger, BE the blogger! (A community manifesto for 2008)" from Zack Exley.

Professional Blogging Services Without SEO? Really?

SEEO Search Engine Evolutionary Optimization,, originally uploaded by Search Engine People Blog.

Can you provide professional blogging services without providing SEO? Really? Now I won't be naming names in this blog post and I won't be linking to any sites.

Partially, this is because I don't want to run down anyone else's services but it's also because I don't want to direct anyone looking to hire a blogger toward someone whose services I question.

The other day, however, I ran across a site offering what it called "basic blogging" services and then a seperate service called "blogging for SEO". The price of the first service was already pretty high. And the cost of the second was even higher.

I'm just not sure what kind of service blogging without SEO really is. (It's really just copywriting online.) Now, I'm not going to suggest every blogger should be providing an SEO service, but they should at least be using keywords in title, text and tags to attract organic search.

And they should be doing anthing else they can (using links, anchor text, interviews etc.) to boost your page rank and traffic on the Net.

Be careful when hiring a professional blogger and try to get one that understands what's needed to get your business or brand noticed on the Web, not simply a copywriter who calls themselves a blogger because they're posting their material online.