WORD MAGIC:
(full story)
Ghost Bloggers: Should I Hire Someone to Blog
for Me? ...
So you have decided that blogging really IS a good idea.
And, you are ready to have a blog on your own website.
The only problem you face is your innate abhorrence of
writing. So you are looking for an easy way out. You
ponder the options and determine that you should hire
someone to do your blog. After all, this will get
you blogging (that really "in" thing to do for your
online marketing) and will make the whole process as
painless as possible, right?WRONG.
Since I am a blog advocate (and a freelance
writer) I’ve had quite a few inquiries lately
about blogging services. I’ve also had web
traffic resulting from the current page one
ranking on Google for blog writing services. At
this writing, I’m in slot four – but Google is a
fickle friend, so I don’t expect to retain that
ranking for long.
Top Questions I Hear About Ghost Blogging
– (along with my rather unpopular answers)
- Do you “ghost write” blogs for
clients?
Yes. I am doing it for one client right
now.
- Do you recommend that other real
estate agents hire someone to do their blogs?
No, not really.
- How can you blog for someone and yet
not recommend ghost blogging for others?
Because I know it’s not a cost effective.
If you have a professional writer doing a
regular blog (2-3 times per week), it’s
going to get expensive. I’ve agreed to blog
for a month for my current client… just
until our next face-to-face meeting. She’s
traveling down to Kentucky in Octobe for a
weekend planning and training session with
me. One of the items we will spend time
discussing is how she can find her voice and
begin blogging on her own.
So, I’m blogging for her to “get the blog
rolling” so it’s not quite so intimidating
for her. A blank blog is pretty hard to
face. And, I’m demonstrating the type of
topics that she needs to consider “blog
material.”
- Will you continue to blog for this
client after October?
No.
- What if I don’t care about the money,
then should I hire someone to blog for me?
No.
The advantages of blogging are many, and
most of those advantages are lost if you
hire someone to blog for you. People read a
blog to determine your knowledge base. If
you aren’t the one writing the blog, you
aren’t giving them a good representation of
what you know about your industry and what
your knowledge can do for them.
People read blogs to get insight into who
you are and what you are all about. Although
blogging isn’t really an “online diary” as
many people believe – it is a chronicle of
who you are based on your own opinions, your
experiences, your knowledge and your
personality. If you hire out the blog, the
reader doesn’t really get to know you… they
get to know the hired blogger.
A good contract content writer can get to
know you well enough to “simulate” your
voice, and can write in a way that their own
voice doesn’t overshadow yours … but it’s
never going to be as sincere, as real, or as
effective as what you will write yourself.
At most, like Plato’s allegory of the
cave, the hired blog will be a shadow of the
real you, an approximation, a flat
representation of who you are, what you
know, and the advantages of working with
you. Wouldn’t you prefer to offer a fully
formed, three-dimensional version of
yourself? You should.
- Do many people hire bloggers now?
Yes. It’s a common practice… and becoming
more common all the time.
- Is hiring a blogger an effective way
to market my site?
Yes and no.
Yes, it will increase the volume of
information on your site, which will help it
to spider better in Google and other search
engines. Yes, a regular blog will refresh
your web content and, as such, make Google
like you better – because Google loves new
content.
But, no. It will not help you to sell
yourself. A hired gun will, most likely,
result in a sterile writing style or one
that represents their own “voice” more than
yours. And no because even an expert will
only be able to take a blog part of the way
to YOUR voice.
- I want a blog, but don’t know where
to begin. If I shouldn’t hire a ghost
blogger, what can I do to get help?
Talk with a writer who knows blogging and
understands the marketing aspects of the
tool. Hire a blog-savvy marketing consultant
to help you create a blog and to get you
started.
I often send my own clients articles,
ideas, links and random thoughts as
“blogging fodder” to help spark quality
blogs in their particular area of
specialization. I work with a couple clients
to help them keep their blog fresh and new…
but they do the actual blogging themselves.
The result? I spend a few hours of
one-on-one time helping them craft a few
blogs, learn to capture items they encounter
daily and blog about them, and I help them
to craft excellent headers and titles and
teach them to pay attention to keywords on
the topics they are covering in their blogs…
Oh, yeah, and I check in on blogs and
harass them if it’s been over a week since a
new entry has been posted.
My clients have the knowledge. They stay on
top of their market. They have the drive. What I
do is help them focus those assets – their own
assets -- into effective blogs and encourage
them to keep a regular blogging schedule.
In no time at all, I have clients sending me
questions to address in my own blogs! “Angela, I
need to know more about the new Microsoft Office
Suite… aren’t you testing the beta? Have you
blogged on that yet? Will you?” or “I need to
buy a new monitor can you give me some
recommendations? Have you done a review lately
on your blog? How about wireless keyboards?
Mice? Would you do a blog?”
I answer a lot of questions in my blogs that
arrive by email or during phone calls with
clients. Creating a blog has created a new way
for clients (and website visitors) to
communicate with me and to tell me what they
need. The number of hits on each blog entry
indicates in statistically measurable terms what
is most popular with my target market – what
types of information is most useful and what I
need to investigate more fully. A blog is a form
of online “organic feedback” on what I need to
do with my business, how to better serve my
visitors, and what concerns my readers most.
I have also had many potential clients call
me because they liked my approach to topics in
my blogs, the way I write articles. They say
that they feel that they “already know me”
because they have been reading my “stuff” for
several months.
Through my blogging and my articles, I’m
relationship building long before my first
direct contact with a new client. By blogging, I
“let them in” and they learn a bit about me and
my approach to business.
By the time someone calls me the first time,
it’s not a cold call and I’m not a stranger. How
could I possibly get that much benefit from
hiring someone else to write for me? I couldn’t.
And neither can you.
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