by ahmedb
To mark the launch of ChrisG.com, Chris Garrett, ex Performancing CTO and good friend of mine, has released a new, free eBook called Killer Flagship Content [pdf].
Having spent the last year working with Chris, im sure it will be Killer!
Let us know what you think….
by ahmedb
If you are business blogger (or a blogger chasing the dream of a high-paying business blogging gig), here are a few problems that you probably face (or will face) and some suggestions on dealing with them.
The benefits of blogging – for organizations, businesses (big and small) and individuals – are evident to us bloggers, but not so clear to most other people. Especially when you talk about corporate blogging, there’s a knee-jerk tendency to dismiss blogging as being a waste of time and to concentrate instead on more traditional means of advertising and connecting with customers.
Chris Garrett hits it on the head when he says that “there needs to be a distinction between offering writing services and providing a blog service”. Bloggers are NOT merely $5/post writers – they have a lot more to offer and as Raj discusses here, it is best to offer your services as part of a package (including blogging, metrics analysis, research, knowledge of an industry, etc.) and it is a very effective way to demonstrate that blogging is a cost-effective and reasonable alternative to traditional advertising.
At the end of the day, corporate blogs are customer-relations management (CRM) tools, and should be promoted as such. I’ve talked about this more in point 3, but the main idea is that in order to “sell” blogging, you have to talk to organizations and businesses in their language and tell them how you will benefit them using metrics that they are familiar and comfortable with. This isn’t always possible with blogging and its intangible benefits but if there is anything that I’ve learned from direct marketing and copyblogging is that the results often speak for themselves.
Experience in blogging will be your biggest bargaining chip when you are up against the traditional media. So if you haven’t already, start a professional blog and work your butt off on it. For practice, you can always write on Performancing…
And remember, just because you write does not mean that you should undervalue your services. If you know how to write in order to achieve specific objectives (i.e. copy blogging) and if you can write with passion about your chosen topic, you have every reason to price yourself high (and thus cherry-pick the jobs available to you). It all goes back to ‘packaging’ – how you present yourself and what value you can effectively project. It’s important to show clients in ‘measurable’ terms what you will do for them and how they will benefit from hiring you.
You may not agree with me here but that’s fine. My point here is that while I’ve seen the wonderful benefits of blogging first-hand, some bloggers don’t have enough respect for the elements that made them such big names in the blogosphere in the first place. Also, owning a popular blog just means that you have a platform through which you can make yourself heard to a lot of people – it doesn’t make you right.
Being arrogant doesn’t work, especially when the cost of entry in the blogging field is so little and the knowledge to succeed is also present for free on websites such as ProBlogger and Performancing. The values and skills that allow a blogger to become popular are also the same ones that will allow him/her to keep on improving and not fall back down to the ground.
You might be a successful blogger, but that is worth jack if you are not able to sell your ideas effectively to a big business. It’s all about what you can do for the client, and in that case it doesn’t matter how popular a blogger you are – what matters is how popular a blog you can establish for your client.
In the comments of my last article on Exchange, TCWriter and Brian Clark talked about pitching blogs to the companies you wish to write for and to choose your clients instead of having them choose you. While I totally agree with that approach, the problem here is that most aspiring bloggers have no idea (and little experience) in pitching their blogs.
Instead of waiting for an opportunity to come knocking, be proactive and look around you for businesses big and small that would benefit from having corporate blogs. To an extent, this means that any company without a blog is fair game to be approached. But here you also have to consider whether you would be interested in writing about this topic, whether they are willing to pay enough, and whether this is a company that you would wish to be associated with (i.e. financially).
Is there a topic that interests you so much that you would be willing to write about it for free? Is there something that you spend hours reading / chatting about every day? For me, that topic is football. For you, it could a hobby, a topic related to your work or even a subject you are interested in learning about. No matter what the topic is – if you can write passionately about it, you can probably make money blogging about it.
And if there is money to be made, you will invariably find companies to whom you can pitch your blog to.
The best part about writing on a topic you are passionate about is that your work will almost always be a higher quality than those of ‘hired guns’ and you can use your additional knowledge (plus other services) as leverage for a high-paying deal.
Earlier I talked about how it was important to show clients in ‘measurable’ terms what you will do for them and how they will benefit from hiring you. If you want to sell the idea of a corporate blog to, let’s say, a major telecommunications network, you’ll need to highlight how blogging will help them retain their present customer base and will be a cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising in acquiring new customers. To make something like this work you need to do some concrete research on advertising spends in the industry and compare that with the costs of viral marketing, creating link bait, etc.
If you go in prepared, and can back your PR spin with hard, cold facts (making sure that the ‘selling’ of benefits takes precedence over presenting facts), it becomes hard for any company to say no (especially if they know that you could just as easily go to a rival and set up shop for them.
Needless to say the above advice can be adapted for any industry you choose to work in.
Slightly contentious point, but I think that you might do too well a job of selling the idea and not too good a job of selling yourself. The only way you close the deal, get the check signed and have the money deposited in your account is when you are part and parcel of the blog pitch that you are making. It is your knowledge, your skills and your passion which will make the hypothetical success a reality.
I said this at the beginning, but it is worth repeating – blogging and its benefits are self-evident to us but not to those executives who have based their careers on traditional advertising and media. You have to sell blogging to them and for your own benefit, you need a valuable proposal that includes you as part of the package you are offering.
Just because the startup costs are low does not mean that it requires any less effort than selling any other type of product. The same principles of selling that apply to information products online or face-to-face salesmanship apply to getting hired as a business blogger as well.
by ahmedb
Here are a few points regarding Performancing Exchange that I’ve been thinking about since morning – hopefully this will foster some debate on what the Exchange can / should do and on the future of “blogging for hire” as well.
Blogging does not pay as well as mainstream media traditionally does – and as a result both sides have to accept that a compromise has to be made.
Bloggers need to realise that we are still at a stage where blogging is new and definitely not considered as profitable or valuable as traditional journalism. That will change, but only with time. Till then we’re going to be paid less (most of the time) and will have to deal with it. That’s why it’s important to know how to leverage your blogging gig to help you land a better job and to negotiate for perks within your blogging that may not cost much to the employer but could help you in your career.
For employers and publishers – well, they need to get that personal connections bloggers can form between themselves and their readers are key to the future of marketing. The value may not be immediately tangible in revenue dollars, but the long-term impact of hiring bloggers will be invariably positive and more effective than traditional advertising.
Right now Exchange is at a very basic stage. We haven’t incorporated the ability for publishers to search for bloggers that are ‘for hire’. Once that happens, your profile page will suddenly be your first and possibly only chance to make a positive impression on potential employers. It makes sense to provide as much relevant information in your ‘professional details’ section as you can. Here’s a basic formula that I use:
If you haven’t posted on your Performancing blog, consider making a few posts relevant to your blogging experiences to help people get a quick idea of your writing ability and style.
Perhaps I should qualify that statement as: “Everyone who wants to expand their online business should hire a blogger”.
If you run a blog where you post daily (or a few times a week), you need to realise that unless you free yourself up from the daily grind of blogging, you’ll never be able to properly focus on growing your business. To give a personal example, my football blog is now 5 months old, and to date I’ve brought in 4-5 contributing authors to help me write. I’m still doing the bulk of the writing, but in a couple of months I’m hoping to cut back and let other writers get a bigger share. It will give me more time to promote the site, as well as allow me to work on other projects.
Performancing Exchange is not just about bloggers – it’s about services in general (copywriting, web design, programming, graphic design, etc). However I sincerely hope that the Exchange can become a focal point for promoting blogging as well as helping bloggers (like myself) get paid work.
Some bloggers are not in it for the money – if the money is coming in from elsewhere (from other online properties, perhaps), blogging then becomes a way to connect with people in your field and to be heard. My reason for pursuing a blogging gig is primarily based on my desire to have my views on particular subjects heard – in other words, it’s more about having a platform from which you can talk to and converse with a much larger audience than you could on your own (not to mention that blogging for an organisation or media outlet automatically gives you more credibility than having an individual blog – for most people).
It’s different for each blogger, and that’s why it is important for publishers to have a central point of research where they can find bloggers who are suited to their needs. The best bloggers will invariably be highly paid, but you can find some very good bloggers who would write for next to nothing as long as they are writing about something they love.
And at the end, isn’t that what blogging is all about?
by ahmedb
One of the easiest niches to get into is sports – it’s a market with the perfect ingredients for a blog. You have:
So, with one eye on the 2006 Fifa World Cup (that’s soccer to you Americans), let’s talk about what you need to in order to blog about a sporting event.
Obvious as it may seem, you can get a lot of benefit out of creating a timeline for the event and breaking it down into distinct sections. Once you have the event divided up into sections in time, you have a much better idea of what stages your coverage will go through. You will also be setting separate goals and objectives for each of these stages, but not yet.
First, you need to find your focus.
Pick a theme for your coverage. Do you have a favorite team (team sports) or a favorite athlete (individual sports)? If it is a multi-sport event, pick your favorite event(s). In simple terms, pick out a few specific, identifiable themes from the event that you are interested in (or barring interest, you think would be the most interesting for your readers).
This will help you find your primary focus for your event coverage. Throughout the sports event, it is going to be very tempting to try to cover all the news – using these themes, you can reorient yourself and focus on only that in which you are truly interested. For the rest, you can setup a daily ‘links’ or ‘briefs’ post in which cover all the interesting news that you did not have time to cover.
Set specific goals for the event, with respect to the following:
It is important that you set yourself these goals – they will keep you on track as well as keep you motivated throughout the event. At the very least, this is going to be a heavy period of blogging, so you should also think about your other responsibilities. In my case I have delayed projects and taken time off from most of my other blogs in order to immerse myself fully on covering the World Cup.
I’ve said this before, and Nick and Chris have said it time and time again:
To be successful, you have to be able to execute on your plans. This meets meeting your goals, not only for each stage of the event but also for the themes you have picked (the focal points for your blog).
If you do something like this, and if you plan on covering it properly (that is, following news and actually providing timely updates instead of putting up a “all-links-lumped-together†post at the end of each day, then this will take a lot of time and effort. For me, the World Cup has not even begun yet and I’ve already spent two full days working on my football blog (albeit half of that time was spent redesigning it).
Make the best of your resources to “get the job doneâ€. It will pay off in spades by the end.
Make a list of 4 to 5 different things you can do (other than just blogging about the event) that will generate interest in your readers. If you are programming-inclined you could put together a scoreboard widget (like Microsoft did for the World Cup). If you are a designer you could put together a new design for your blog specially in anticipation for the event (something that I did for my football blog).
There’s a lot more you can do – podcasts, picture galleries, strong opinionated content and more, but the key here is what I said earlier regarding execution: you have to be able to carry out your plans fully. It’s no use setting yourself lofty goals if you cannot keep up with them. Work hard, but remember your limits.
It really, really helps if you have a team of bloggers. They can share the blogging load, contribute in different ways (images, programming, etc) and best of all, it always helps to have alternate opinions on a blog.
If you’re going solo, then good luck. You’ll bloody well need it.
This post is actually inspired by another post I wrote on blogging elsewhere. In it I’ve shown exactly what goals I’ve set for myself (and the blog) for the World Cup and how I plan to accomplish them. If you are interested, here’s the link: blogging about the World Cup.
by ahmedb
Suppose that you have a personal blog (like many of us starting out in blogging do or did at a time) and that you learn blog marketing by promoting your own blog (site optimization, link building, etc). Then sooner or later you move on to professional blogging, where there’s a need to be more formal and impersonal (you can’t talk about your problems or swear on your business blogs).
The only issue is, thanks to your efforts in building links and trying to rank your personal blog for your name, you end up in a situation where a potential client comes across your business blog, sees your name and decides to Google you. He finds your personal blog, reads your latest rant on dog poop (or whatever), forms a negative impression of you immediately and decides not to do business with you.
The same thing can happen with potential partners and competitors – if the search engines know you because of your personal blog, then that’s what people will find – and that can be, in this case, a hurdle in building your professional reputation online.
My specific situation – I’m starting a business consultancy blog very soon. Only problem is that in this field people often do a background check on you to find out who you are and what you’ve done. If my personal blog comes up on top of the results (full with a rant on some obscure issue), how will that look? I would have (probably) been judged by a potential client negatively for something that is totally unrelated to what I’m providing, but because at this point the search engines know me through my personal blog, that’s what the people get.
My question is – how do you “hide†your personal blog from the eyes of your readers? I shudder at the thought of sanitizing my blog, but then again I wouldn’t want most of my readers from my business blogs to go over to my personal blog and read about what I did today (or whatever).
The obvious answer here is to not post anything that you wouldn’t want other people to read online, but that’s not a solution anymore. You can try to get yourself de-listed from the search engines, but that takes away a lot of your traffic (and if no one’s reading, why are you writing?).
How do I deal with this? Any suggestions?
Note: I know this has been discussed by Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger and Nick here at Performancing, but I want to talk about this from a blogger who is just starting to gain ‘traction’ in the pro blogging field.
by ahmedb
What is the best strategy for building a community around your website/blog? Forums have been, for a long time, the primary tool for building a community on a website. The downside here was that you needed considerable traffic (or heavy marketing) to get the forum going – nothing kills a forum more than a lack of participation. Message boards and IRC chat rooms provide a tenuous alternative (as do discussions in the comments section of a blog), and leave something to be desired for, especially on websites that are not popular enough to support their own forums.
Interactivity on most blogs is limited to comment conversations (read Chris’s views on tracking comments). It’s easy to say that this is sufficient, but is there any real need for a better solution? The questions I’m trying to ask here are:
For my part, I’ll talk about group chat solutions. Hopefully other readers can shed light on what I’ve missed and on other techniques as well.
Group chat services such as Campfire and Tangler (read TechCrunch’s review on Tangler) are more suited to project based collaboration, event-specific conversations, Q&A sessions (Andy, do you think you could do one on link-building anytime soon?) and personal chats. Like instant messaging, group chat works best when the connections between people are personal – it would be more natural for the moderators of a forum to communicate via Campfire rather than a bunch of strangers who drop by my blog for the first time.
The real benefit of placing a group chat solution on your blog / website is that it can be equated to your blog having a chat-room, which in turn encourages readers to interact and discuss posts as well present their own comments.
Secondly, without allowing chat transcripts to be indexed, there will be little search engine value for such a solution. For a contrast, consider how useful forums are for building search engine rankings. Forums offer a phenomenal gateway into producing tons of fresh, useful content on your website in a short period of time. In return, forum posters get recognition and a chance to build their reputation (yes, some of us do it for the sake of helping others, but that is a small minority).
In the end, a major part of community building comes from giving your blog readers a chance to ask questions and interact with other readers. Group chat achieves that splendidly.
What do you think?