“I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!”
Keep telling yourself you can, but in reality blogging is hard work! Creating constant posts, facing a volatile audience who might not even check in on a regular basis and competing for attention in a sea of competitors — blog writing is no walk in the park.
Still, many businesses, individuals and organizations realize blogging is a huge marketing tool and important enough to keep pushing up that daunting mountain of demand. More content, more editing, more ideas – hiring a writer takes the blogging strain off of you, but keeps you at the helm of the operation.
How Will You Say It?
There are many voices to use and many ways to connect with your audience. Some businesses choose to write in a purely informative voice, speaking in the third person and relating information without speaking to an audience or speaking from experience:
A writer must be flexible, matching the nature of the brand he works for.
Others speak directly to the reader:
Your company could benefit from a writer who is capable of writing intriguing content for your brand.
Some speak from the brand’s perspective:
We offer content writing services and our authors’ experience covers a diverse range of industries and subject matter.
And then some speak from their own, individual perspective:
I have seen different companies succeed with different writing methods.
How your blog approaches the customer all depends on who your target market is, what your personal preference is and what will give your posts the most credence. Using a personal perspective for a large brand, for example, could come off confusing when the reader wonders why the blog writer is so special (imagine a single random person writing their perspective for blog posts on Nike’s site). Yet, for a professional advisor, this personal point of view makes perfect sense.
Have You Seen It?
If you’ve seen blog posts that are in line with what you have in mind for your own business, pass the links on to your writer. Your writer will be able to get an idea for what you are looking for and miscommunications will be less likely with a good example or two. If you have already published blog posts in a style you like, then include those examples as well.
Find Freelance Writers to Fill In
Rather than take the time to come up with ideas, find references, write the article, proofread and post, find a writer who can complete 2-3 of these tasks. Your writer can come up with ideas for your blog posts or write articles based on the ideas you have. You are in charge of this operation, so make the most of your writer and spend less time on your content marketing without sacrificing quality.
Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
When you hire a ghost writer, you purchase the article and the rights to publish it. That means no credit is due to the writer. While some companies do choose to publish the article with the writer byline, many do not. Companies simply purchase the article, proofread it to make sure it conveys the message they want to share with their audience and then publish it under the company name.
It’s a huge amount of work, but quality content marketing is worth it:
- 79% of B2B marketers post articles as a means of content marketing
- 62% of companies outsource their content marketing
- 60% of B2B marketers plan to spend more on content marketing in the next year
Alethea M is a corporate blogging guru and freelance writer for WriterAccess. She often uses interesting facts from her article research to impress friends at dinner parties. Her husband is her biggest fan — though this may be because her writing income allows her to share in bill-paying each month.
