Need a professional blogger?

As a long-time award-winning columnist (over 20 years) and blogger, this piece caught my eye.

The professional blogger gets paid to post and the blog owner has postings magically appear at predetermined intervals.

I could probably handle a couple of clients, especially if they were away from the hi-tech area, which is where I tend to write.

Please form an orderly queue....

Comments

[City Hippy]

This is perhaps the most interesting development surrounding the devolution of online content initiated by blogging.

However, as independent editorial is what gives a blog credibility there is conflict ahead for those businesses who talk rather than listen.

As a green lifestyle writer/blogger I know that companies in my space tend to either have everything or nothing to hide.

The former group are afraid of having open conversations with their customers. I think that mirrors all sectors.

Those with everything to hide will either not blog (madness!) or will blag blog/flog/splog etc i.e. their blogs will be contrived, pr-focused, corporate-controlled, one-way blogs. Generally this will be brand suicide. Better not to blog at all.

Question is who will bother reading a blog of what will essentially be press releases? Especially when your competitor is engaging, open and having a two-way conversation with your customers. Where will your audience be? Where they are being listened to as opposed to spoken to. Where would you be?

Those with nothing to hide will blog and the blogger (internal e.g. CEO or external e.g. pro blogger) will be free (to varying degrees) to create an open and honest conversation to draw people to the company.

This is the rule of conversational gravity: the more dense and engaging the conversation the more people will be attracted to it. Two examples of pro blogs (marketing focused as opposed to direct revenue ie ads etc) with good conversational gravity:

http://avc.blogs.com/ - run by Fred Wilson who heads up Union Square Ventures - primary investor behind del.icio.us

http://www.greenthinkers.org/blog/ - run by the purveyor of the Envirolet Waterless Toilet etc.

Question is how can a regular business, probably based on the old model of push marketing, as opposed to the blog-induced pull-marketing, engage in the two-way conversation that is a blog?

Not sure that all will make the leap to be honest. On the other hand, many will. Survival of the Bloggest indeed! C'est la vie...

Namaste

Al

[David Tebbutt]

Absolutely correct.

All I'm offering is an ability to write better than the person who wants to blog.

Frankly, if they write like they talk, they'd probably be fine. Depending on their verbosity. Some people need a filter.

It's possible a mini podcast and a transcription would do the trick.

In which case they don't need a professional blogger.

[City Hippy]

Agreed...and that is why editors and indeed publishers have more value than ever.

In a world of information overload, where attention is the new currency, filtering has never been more important.

Businesses that engage with their audience, sorry, customers, silly me, in positive helpful ways will succeed.

Even in the context of podcasting and vlogging, anyone can write and produce for any medium nowadays but not everyone can write and produce well.

Professional Blogging is here to stay for sure. Hurrah!

[Dennis Howlett]

I'm caught betewen a rock and a hard place on this one. Personally, I'd prefer that 'personal' touch. I've seen it done and it comes off. The biggest challenge for non-professional writers is resilience. Without it, depiste great intentions, nothing much will change. There are several ways around this.

For instance, in my field, everyone's interested in tax -we're accountants (ahem). Parts of what happens over a year, anyone can do. Other things, not everyone. The trick is keeping the stuff where you can add differentiated value. The remainder can be done by a pro.

That way, the content doesn't go stale, the firm still looks good.