Who is writing your business blog? If it’s not the right person, you won’t get the results you want and need from your blog. That’s because no two people are alike on the social Web and different bloggers have a wide variety of skills, experience, and natural aptitude for conversing on the social Web, particularly via a business blog.
There are three primary options for choosing a business blogger:
- Write your business blog yourself.
- Enlist an employee to write your business blog.
- Hire a professional blogger to write your business blog.
Each of the options above has pros and cons.
First, there is no one who knows your business, customers, and goals better than you do, but finding time to write great content doesn’t come easily to everyone.
Second, employees can be great bloggers, particularly if they’re familiar with the social Web and are vocal advocates of your brand and business. However, you have to monitor your employees’ conversations and behaviors online to ensure they adequately represent your business and brand and don’t disclose any proprietary information.Â
Third, hiring a professional blogger is an excellent alternative, but not all bloggers are what they claim to be. You’ll find a huge variation in writing abilities, social Web experience, and technical knowledge, and those differences are usually very visibile when it comes to the rates that bloggers charge. There is a reason the old adage, you get what you pay for, is still around.
Following are five skills you should look for in potential business bloggers to ensure you select a blogger who is willing and able to develop a successful blog for your business:
1. Has a knowledge of blogging and the social Web
Just because a person knows how to use WordPress doesn’t mean he or she understands how to effectively write, publish, and promote blog content to build a successful blog. He or she should have active social networking, social bookmarking, and microblogging accounts and understand how to drive conversations, sharing and traffic to a blog.
2. Has excellent writing skills
The person who writes your business blog should have excellent writing, grammar, spelling, and proofreading skills to represent your brand well and alleviate the need for you to edit his or her work.
3. Listens and understands your wants, needs, and goals for your business blog.
The person who writes your business blog should aggressively learn about your business, industry, competitors, customers, and so on in order to be able to effectively write interesting blog content that attracts an audience and sparks conversations.
4. Is responsive, responsible and ethical.
The person who writes your business blog should actively respond to comments and emails related to your business blog and they should be responsible enough to publish blog posts without being micro-managed. They should also understand what content is and is not appropriate for your business blog without having to run every post topic by you for approval, and they should understand the ethics and laws of the social Web, so your business blog doesn’t attract a negative reputation or legal trouble. Otherwise, you might as well write your business blog yourself!
5. Has search engine optimization knowledge
The person who writes your business blog doesn’t have to be a search engine optimization expert (that’s a career unto itself), but he or she should understand the most important do’s and don’ts of search engine optimization and search engine reputation management to effectively write posts for maximum search engine referral traffic.
Keep an eye on Business Logs next week for tips for finding professional bloggers to write your business blog for you.
Image: stock.xchang