Bloggers for Hire: An Emerging Profession with Jim Turner
Denise Wakeman: Hi, this is Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad.
Patsi Krakoff: And this is Patsi Krakoff.
Denise: You're listening to "Blogging and Beyond" the show about how to leverage the Internet to Attract, Sell and Profit. For the next 30 minutes, we're going to bring you the best expert information on how to use the Internet to build your business.
During our show today, we're talking about blogging as a paid profession and we're speaking with Jim Turner of OneByOneMedia.com and BloggersForHire.com.
Patsi: That's right, Denise. I can hardly wait to hear what Jim has to say about this. It's an emerging category of bloggers for hire. It's always nice to know we can go out and get a 'real job' right?
Denise: I think what we do is pretty real, but...
Patsi: I know!
Denise: Why don't you go ahead and introduce Jim?
Patsi: For sure! Jim Turner is the leader of the One by One Media team. It was his vision that began the business in 2004. Jim is a well respected professional blogger, mentoring others to become professional bloggers and leading companies through successful online campaigns.
Jim is a leader in the new industry of social media and business blogging. He is very well connected in advertising, public relations, marketing and other business circles. Jim has experience in management and leadership and is taking those skills to the social media arena, making companies successful as they enter the Web 2.0 business space. Welcome, Jim.
Jim Turner: Thanks for having me.
Denise: So Jim, why don't we start at the top?
Jim: Sure.
Denise: What is a professional blogger?
Jim: A professional blogger is just as it sounds a person that gets paid to do their craft, which is blogging. Of course, it's kind of a new area and it's a new profession that not everyone is really up on yet.
I started professionally blogging back in late 2004. We started the One by One Media Company back in 2004. What we were trying to do was tell companies how they could best leverage the new idea of getting into blogging and making it a part of their marketing plan and their advertising plan.
Many of the people that I was consulting all said the same thing, "Jim, we'd love have a blog, but for whatever reason we either didn't have the man power, we don't the resources and we don't have the knowledge."
So, I eliminated the excuses and started Bloggers for Hire.
Denise: So you were actually being paid to blog for these consulting clients?
Jim: Yes, for companies that wanted to get into the blogging world and start entering into a conversation with their customers or consumers. They didn't have, really, the tools necessary to jump into the arena and fit in with the kind of things bloggers take for granted everyday. These companies were very scared to get into and did not have the knowledge to get into them.
So they were out looking for people with this kind of expertise. I'd been blogging for a little while and just started doing that and it kind of took off from there.
Denise: OK. So, do you also create blogs for those companies as well?
Jim: Yes. We can host, create, design and develop the blog. We get them up and running and we usually put a blogger in the seat, behind the keyboard, and they start talking about the company, its mission its message that it wants to get out. Talks about its products or its services using key words and industry news to just open up conversations with their company.
Denise: OK. So, let's back up a little bit because I have some questions about what you were just talking about.
Jim: OK.
Denise: Why should a company be blogging at all?
Jim: Well, a company right now is being left behind if they're not out there in the social networking community, if they're not trying out new ways of getting their customers to come to them. It's all really about the ability to find.
Robert Scoble talks about "Living in a Google World" where everybody now is really into a search engine type of thing. The only way people are finding people is through a search on the Internet. We use the Yellow Pages book for the children to sit on to get them up to the table...
Jim: ...but I don't think I've looked in a Yellow Pages book for five or six years, at least.
Jim: So I find everything online, through Google or through Yahoo or MSN or any of the other search engines. I find products and services that I want basically just by putting in the search. So if you're not findable out there and people are not able to engage in your business online, then you're getting left behind.
Many of the companies who have come to us said, "We have this website. It's very cool, we spent lots of money on it but it just sits there dormant and it's not doing anything for my business. It's not helping me in the search engines, it's not getting my customers to find me, and so what do I do to remedy that?"
What we do is we get them set up with a dynamic website or blog and start putting up content. Then that's being indexed by search engines, which then are driving customers to them in droves, actually.
Denise: So, how is what you're doing helping these companies get involved in the social media world? How does this differ from P.R. and advertising?
Jim: Well basically, many of the things that we do are tied into P.R. and advertising and marketing. We've dealt with those different departments using the blog as a tool using other types of social media tools like MySpace, Facebook and a few of the other social networking type sites. We've used all of that as a tool to blend both the P.R., marketing and advertising arms of each one of the companies that we work with.
Jim: In doing that we've just basically brought it all together into one tool, if you will, or one use.
Denise: OK... so it's a holistic approach?
Jim: Yes! Yes...
Denise: OK.
Jim: From that standpoint, yes.
Denise: OK. I want to go back to what you were saying about you developed this blog for a company, for one of your clients, and then you put a blogger in the deriver's set. Now, that's either somebody in your company or somebody that you outsource to, or is that somebody that you train within the company?
Jim: Yes. We have over 70 bloggers in our pool.
Denise: Oh!
Patsi: Wow.
Jim: And we try to fit a blogger with a company, based on the blogger's own knowledge and own experience. We're certainly not going to put a knitting blogger in a technical role.
Jim: But we wouldn't put a technical blogger into a knitting company, either. So, we try to fit people with their personalities and their backgrounds. Many of our bloggers are stay at home moms; they're people with extra time in the evenings that don't need a lot of time. They're all excellent writers. They're all great bloggers and they're passionate about certain types of things.
Companies are out there looking for these types of experts that know about blogging. They know about the new social media out there. They know about the networks that are available. They know how to enter into conversations with people in forums and that kind of thing. And it's a commodity that people are being able to sell now and companies are looking for that kind of expertise.
So yes, we are putting people in the driver seat, but we try to match those people up as best as we can with their experience, and their background, and the things that they like to talk about.
Denise: Patsi, did you have a question?
Patsi: Yeah. I was reading a report from Forrester about email marketing where they had found that maybe one out of six newsletters or e zines were not personal. And newsletters are supposed to be building a relationship with a customer. And of course blogging is a great opportunity to get personal and to build that relationship.
So, if you've got hired bloggers blogging for a company, and using the first person pronoun, I assume they're writing "I did this" or "I think that", how do they speak for the company if they're not part of the company? Can you address that a little bit?
Jim: Sure, absolutely. What we do is we put these people in the shoes of being a company employee. Basically they are a rental blogger, if you will, or they're a temporary employee. You're bringing them on as a person that's representing your company.
And that's why we try to get someone who's very passionate and very knowledgeable about the company and what they do and their industry. We try to make sure that they have a background. We've got people doing tractor blogs. We have people doing blogging about garbage bags. We have people doing blogging about technology industry type things and that kind of stuff. And they're people with backgrounds in this area. They may have grown up on a farm or they're into the green movement, so they're very much in tune with a company's position on their green movement and stuff like that.
So, they actually sit in the shoes of a company employee and they're actually a voice for the company. And we strongly believe that that transparency is necessary in order to get that communication across of being a human voice, a human being. We don't believe in ghost blogging per se.
We certainly do some editing and things for CEOs that might not be the best writers in the world, but they blog as their own voice and they blog as their own people, And they just happen to be passionate and knowledgeable about the company that they're blogging for.
Denise: OK, so when you match a blogger with a company, what kind of training or guidelines do they need to adhere to before they can write on behalf of the company?
Jim: Well, they have to have a pretty good understanding of what the company's message is and what its mission is. Certainly if you were to hire a person as a communications specialist within your company, they would have to know pretty much what your company stood for, what it was about, what it believed in, what the product was that you were selling, or what the product is that you're servicing, or what service you're providing. And they have to know a lot about that company.
So we try to do a lot of uploading at the front end to try to get the blogger as knowledgeable about the company as possible. We're also obviously doing a lot of SEO type tactics and doing keywords and phrases within their company industry and the things that they want to talk about to begin with.
So these bloggers already have an understanding and a passion about what the business is doing, and what it stands for, and the product or service that it's providing. So they kind of have a pretty good idea of what the company is about and how they should approach that from a communications standpoint. So, basically you're bringing on a communications specialist that is going to be an advocate or an evangelist for your company.
Denise: Well, it sounds like a bit of research is involved before somebody can...
Jim: Yes, not only research, but we also tell them to get involved with the correct department. You were talking before about PR, advertising, and marketing. They may have a company that has all three different departments, and they have to be in touch with those people constantly and through email, through IM, and through the phone calls they talk to these people and they say, "OK, what's our cool message this week?"
Denise: Right.
Jim: Or, "Perhaps we have something going on this month that we really want to push within our industry that's important to us." And they are in constant contact with these people. And basically they are a communication voice for each one of these departments. So, we try to keep them in touch with them.
Patsi: Excuse me, Jim. Do their posts have to be approved before they're published?
Jim: Some of the corporations want to give us approval beforehand, but generally speaking after a few posts, they kind of get the idea that hey, this is OK and this person knows what they're doing. We don't really need to have editorial management control of this.
The only thing that we do preach a lot about is the conversation itself. So, if a conversation gets started through comments, or through emails, or what have you, we make sure that the right person is answering those questions.
If there's a product question or a technical type question that can only be answered by someone within the company, we'll go ahead and post that answer from the company themselves and say, "I'm the blogger, but here's what the company told me about your question."
Or they'll have an opening for other people within the company to actually go into the comments and respond to questions or concerns. It's a great way for interactivity with the employees of the companies themselves because they love to read the blog, and they like to see the comments and the feedback as well.
Denise: Have you found that when somebody has been brought in as a rental blogger that eventually somebody in the company wants to take over that role?
Jim: Yes, and we've done some training in that regard as well. And quite frankly, we've also had a few of our bloggers get hired on as full-time employees and become communication specialists.
Denise: Wow.
Jim: It's been a great experience.
Denise: Yeah, that sounds excellent.
Jim: Basically they get a tryout, if you will, and it's like a temp agency in some respects because, once the person starts to talk and gets a following and gets an audience, the company says, "Hey, we don't want to lose this person. We want to keep them on full-time. And now that we're seeing the benefits and the return on investment, let's go ahead and hire them on as a fulltime employee."
It's a great way for a company to test out this type of new media, and a way for them to jump into the blogosphere and other parts of online marketing, without having to invest a very large amount of time and money training and paying for someone who wouldn't normally be an employee that you would think about hiring when you're a business.
Patsi: Well, this is really interesting, Jim. And I'm sure our listeners are learning a lot too. We just wanted to take a slight station break and remind you that you're listening to Blogging and Beyond with the Blog Squad Denise Wakeman and I'm Patsi Krakoff.
And today we're talking with Jim Turner of www.onebyonemedia.com and www.bloggersforhire.com . Jim is sharing his expertise of professional blogging as a whole new career. You can get information about the Blog Squad at www.blogsquad.biz and read our blogs at www.buildabetterblog.com , www.biztipsblog.com and www.coachezines.com . If you have a question for Jim you can call in to us at 718 508 9559 or you can send IM message via Skype to dwakeman. Now back to Blogging and Beyond, and our conversation with Jim Turner.
Denise: OK Jim. So, do most of the companies that you work with have a set of guidelines for their bloggers?
Jim: No, they really don't, and that's another service that we provide. We kind of let them give us carte blanche to setup the program and the campaign. Because of the fact that this is such a new media and such a new way of communicating with customers, companies are pretty reluctant to jump into the mix without some kind of guideline or some kind of...
Basically each one of these new companies is a new whitepaper that's being written. And they are very leery to get into this new medium. But they try to set forth what they're trying to accomplish, and we do that upfront when we meet with them, is what is it that you want this to do for you? And what do you want this blogger to achieve? And we kind of stick with that kind of a game plan to start with.
And sometimes some of the campaigns that we've started take a different turn than what they really intended for in the first place. And they kind of take a life of their own depending on the company, and what service they're providing or what products they're selling.
Denise: Can you give us some examples of companies that are doing blogging well? Or maybe some where it's gone wrong?
Jim: Well, certainly there are some great blogs out there that we show our clients as a matter of fact. One of the ones that I can think of is Bill Marriott's blog for the Marriott hotel chain. He's got a great CEO blog and he's very, very personal. He's somebody that you'd invite in, and take to dinner, and want to sit down, and have a chat with because the guy is just that nice, and that open, and transparent.
Those are certainly some great examples of company blogs that are beneficial for the company message. And that one's specifically written by the CEO, which is kind of a powerful position and someone that has a lot of say in what their company does.
There are some blogs out there that are really horribly written and they're not well thought out before things go together. And they're just really poorly put together.
And those are the ones that I just grit my teeth because they're doing such a great job of getting into the communication side of things, but they're just really not getting their company message out there the way they should. And they're flailing away and shoveling sand against the tide trying to do the right thing, but their blogs are just really not the kind of blog that you'd like to model your company after.
Denise: Right, right. And we've had another guest mention Bill Marriott's blog in the past with us too. And that's a huge company and there's the CEO blogging, so that's a great example.
Jim: Yes. I think people like Jonathan Schwartz at Sun, he does a great job. He was blogging before he became the head of Sun over there, so we kind of got to grow up with him a little bit and see him go through the ranks of the company. But that's another prime example of someone who really gets blogging. Who really is a great evangelist for the blogging community and does a great job.
There's a lot of other blogs out there too that do a wonderful job of getting their message out, their information out, and they're really using this now as more of their press release. They get to talk about company news. They get to talk about what new and interesting things are happening. And they're really starting to get a following with a lot of their customers.
Patsi: Jim?
Jim: Yeah?
Patsi: Maybe you could mention some of the characteristics of those people that get blogging. What is it about them that make them good bloggers?
Jim: Well, I think a lot of the people that really get blogging understand that it is a communication tool. They don't think that it's going to skyrocket their company into a Fortune 500 status just by throwing words on a page and saying, "Hey, look at me. I'm blogging."
They have to really understand its use. And it's those that understand it is just a way of talking to your customer, a way of communicating your message, and conveying that mission statement that your company is all about. And it's got to be someone who's passionate about the industry.
You can certainly read someone that is writing a school paper about world hungry, and maybe it's a cool thing to write about, but at the same time they're not real passionate about it. So, it comes through in their writing that they're really not sold themselves on what they're selling, if you will.
So it has to be someone who's real passionate, real genuine about their thoughts and ideas on where the company is going, what it's doing, and its industry. Certainly there are some industries out there that are pretty boring industries, but at the same time if someone is passionate about their...
Perhaps they're an accountant, who'll want to talk about numbers all day, and maybe I don't want to read about that, but someone within their niche wants to read about that. And they talk about it passionately and they love what they're doing.
Those are the kind of people that really get it. They understand that the blogging is a tool for them to be able to connect with their customer on a one to one basis, and that's really why we named our company One By One. We're trying to connect people one by one. So, it's really that thought pattern is that you're not preaching your company, but you're talking about it passionately.
Denise: Right. I kind of sat up when you said... Well, I'm sitting up anyway, but sat up straighter when you said that you have somebody blogging about garbage bags.
Jim: Yes, we have a blog, it's called Repellem.com [ed. Note: this is not correct and I cannot find the correct URL.], and it's a company that does garbage bags. And they're all organic garbage bags. They're a green garbage bag company. And they actually repel insects and animals. So, it's a way for them to get out there and talk about how passionate they are about garbage bags. And me, I could care less. It holds my trash. It goes out on Wednesdays and it goes away.
Denise: Right.
Jim: But someone who is out camping or... They have not only garbage bags, but they also have picnic tablecloths. And they're all organic and they repel insects, so how cool is that?
It's just one of those things where it's a guy who is very passionate about his company, and he's very passionate about this new design that he's come up with for garbage bags.
And you can get into a whole bunch of things about garbage bags that I never really thought of before, but I wouldn't know any of these things unless I read his blog.
So, it's a way for people to get onto Google and say, "You know what? I'm going to start leading more of a green life. Let's see if I can find a garbage bag out there that is a green company. An organic, green company that is providing these garbage bags that not only are organic and green, but they also repel insects and animals."
So, you were talking about living in the rural area or something like that where you have raccoons and that kind of thing and these garbage bags repel them.
Denise: Right.
Jim: It is a great way to talk about your product.
Denise: You briefly mentioned earlier about MySpace and FaceBook. What kind of sights are your companies, the companies you are working with, using?
Jim: Well basically they are setting up a blog. We try to set them up on WordPress because we are WordPress gurus if you will.
Denise: Right.
Jim: We kind of had used WordPress and know it's ins and outs and we think that it's as powerful a content management system as any of them out there. We know a lot of widgets that are available for them, we know a lot of the nice little tools and add ons and plug ins that they offer. We're real comfortable with it and a lot of our bloggers are also on Word Press so they are very comfortable about publishing with that platform.
Jim: So we try to get them set up in a Word Press blog. They do have the option, of course, to go onto MySpace, start a MySpace page. If their target market is baby boomers they will probably not have a big presence on MySpace so you kind of have to know your audience as well. FaceBook is a little bit more of the college crowd, a little bit more of the hip young twenties type people, where as MySpace is more towards teenagers, more towards the younger crowd.
Denise: Ah, not so much anymore.
Jim: Not so much, yes, but I mean, it is getting to the point where it is getting to a point of saturation and FaceBook is really taking off. We can start a FaceBook Page for them. We can start MySpace pages for them. They can get into all different kinds of different social networks that are available out there. We can get them sign up for things like Digg and Reddit and some of these other tools that are great to be signed up for.
Denise: Right.
Jim: To really get a message out there and to follow the message as well.
Denise: Are any of your companies getting into Second Life?
Jim: Yes, we have one company that has now told us that they are now going to go into Second Life and they are going to build their own world. It is quite exciting. I'm not so much into the technical side of things with Second Life, as far as that goes but I think it will be an excellent way for companies to also get online and actually present themselves as a business, and kind of a brick and mortar type thing. "Welcome to our offices", "Check out our lobby", and that kind of thing: just a cool way to get into that space. More and more people are using that stuff so you have to stay up on top of that.
Denise: Right, right. Patsi did you have a question?
Patsi: Yeah, I was thinking that perhaps there are some of our listeners who are avid bloggers and are trying to figure out how they can make money blogging because they love it so much. What do you look for in hiring a professional blogger?
Jim: Well I hand pick all of our bloggers because I think that it is important for people have a good grasp of the written language. They need to be able to write in conversation style writing. They have to have decent skills with people, obviously, because you are not just pushing the message out to them. You need to invite them into your living room, so to speak, and be a person that can moderate well, and know how to gather listeners and readers.
It is important for them to be good at blogging and that is really all that people are looking for out there; someone who knows how to market their blog, how to get more readers, how to evaluate traffic, referrers and Google, searches; and those types of things. These are all commodities that we as bloggers take for granted because it is something that we learned as we were blogging. But companies don't know these little tricks and little tactics, so it has to be someone who is a decent blogger that has been doing it for a little while so that they have an understanding of the etiquette; they have an understanding of distribution, copyright, and have an understanding of communicating. It is really that that I look for, are they good communicators and if they are good communicators generally the rest will fall into place.
Denise: And now can someone actually make a living?
Jim: Yes, there are a few of our bloggers that are making actually more money then I am, which is disconcerting to me, but I do think that there are many more people out there that are beginning to do this more and more as a profession and like I said we have quite a number of different bloggers to choose from and they are all very excellent bloggers wanting to earn extra money and if it is not extra money they want to earn a living at it. And as I said before a few of our bloggers have actually gone on to become full employees with communications specialists' titles within companies they have been blogging for, for a little while.
So yes, there is a great opportunity out there because it is a ground floor opportunity. Blogging has only been around for so long and the new source of media out there is such a scary place for companies. They are really looking for experts, and they are looking for people who understand it.
Patsi: Jim, this has really been very informative and we want to thank you for taking the time to inform our listeners about professional blogging.
Jim: Absolutely.
Denise: Thank you so much.
Jim: I appreciate having you around.
Denise: Oh, you are welcome. Before we wrap up we just have a couple of important announcements. I'd like our listeners to know that next week on Blog Talk radio we are interviewing Roxanne Darling of the Barefoot Studios and Beach Walks with Rocks, and she is going to be telling us all about video blogging so tune in on May 17th at 3pm pacific time for the show, and remember you can find Jim Turner at onebyonemedia.com and bloggersforhire.com. Jim is that bloggers with the number four or spell it out?
Jim: Either one actually, there is a redirect for both, but bloggers spelt out f o r for hire.
Denise: OK so great, Thank you Jim for joining us today and sharing your expertise. You might be getting some calls from people who want to be bloggers.
Jim: Thank you ladies for having me and I hope maybe I get to see you guys out at BlogHer.
Patsi: Absolutely.
Denise: Yep, it is on our list. You have been listening to Blogging and Beyond on Blog Talk radio. You can always get the latest information on our show on our blog at www.blogingandbeyond.com and remember that the time is now…
Patsi: The time is now to attract, sell and profit. Blog on.
About the The Blog Squad:
Blogging experts Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman are known as The Blog Squad™. They have teamed up to help professionals Attract, Sell and Profit by harnessing the power of blogs, newsletters, and ecommerce systems. Between them, they have 17 years of Internet know-how, write on 10 blogs and publish 2 ezines.
Patsi and Denise have co-authored, "Build a Better Blog: The Ultimate Guide to Boosting Your Business with a Professional Blog" and many other blogging programs to address niche blogging. They host a Blogging and Beyond, a weekly Internet radio show. You can get their free weekly ezine Savvy eBiz Tips at www.SavvyeBizTips.com.
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