Question

Topic: Social Media

Blog Freelancing - How To Get Started

Posted by KathyAd on 4/11/2011 at 11:33 PM ET 250 Points
Does anyone have suggestions on how to get started contributing to Social Media blogs? I am an online marketer by trade, know a good amount about Twitter and such, and writing comes easily to me. Sadly, though, I do not know much about blogs. Thus, the reason I want to start contributing.

I do not have time to start my own blog, but figured I could conribute to some of the social media blogs and could get experience that way. My goal is really to (1) learn more about the blogosphere (2) show potential emloyers that I have (will have) experience in blogs.

I am wondering:

(a) Which social media blogs do you think are best?

(b) Do I need to know someone, or is it fairly easy to contribute?

(c) Can I get paid, and if so, how do you approach it? Or should I just be happy a blog is publishing my work?

(d) Do I need to tell my current employer what I am doing? I do NOT plan to reference my company name in my blog posts or bio, and will also try to avoid things that can be linked back to my employer if someone digs. Ex. I would not write something like "At my current job, we post to Twitter 3 times per day," knowing that a competitor could easily be reading my blog posts.

The last question is perhaps the most important to me. I really do not want to mention this to my employer, since that opens the door for them to possibly give me a hard time. On the other hand, I don't want to end up in hot water with my employer 6 months from now because I did not know industry rules and etiquette.

Thanks everyone!
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 4/12/2011 at 8:57 AM Accepted
    Others who know more about blogging will answer your questions point by point. I make two general recommendations, and conclude with a way to help you solve your "to tell or not" quandry.

    1) A major Internet guru who specializes in blogging is Yaro Starak in Australia. He has some good free content on his site www.entreprenuers-journey.com and an aggresive sales pitch for his blogging program at www.blogmastermind.com. You should be able to glean some ideas from his websites and newsletter.

    "Learn by doing" for a while, and then you can decide what, if any, training could make sense for you to buy.

    2) The star sales trainer, Geoffrey Gitomer, has just written a book about social media, cf. Social Boom at www.amazon.com. It only has one short four page section on Blogging. However he writes well and has good ideas. Giving it to your boss might "grease the skids" for your own efforts.

    3) You do not provide enough information about your employer and company to answer the disclosure question (high-tech, or not; micromanagement, or not, etc.) The U.S. military did well for a long time on the devisive issue of homosexuality with a policy of "don´t ask, don´t tell." Your safest course is to send in a "Trojan horse." Have SOMEONE ELSE ask your boss about blogging. "So of course all kinds of people at companies are blogging nowadays. What do you think about that anyway? Good for your company?"

    On the basis of the reaction, you can decide your oourse of action.

    Regards, JH
  • Posted by KathyAd on 4/14/2011 at 11:11 PM Author
    Thanks, JH. Anyone else?
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/15/2011 at 8:41 AM Accepted
    It sounds like you have 2 goals: 1) learn more about blogging and 2) leverage blogging for employment gains.

    You learn more about blogging by doing it. You can create your own blog (anonymously, if you want) for free using software such as: https://wordpress.org/ This will allow you to write articles for others to find/read with the hope of establishing yourself as an expert. Part of this work might involve responding to others' blogs, offering to guest write a blog article for an existing blogger, etc.

    What are you seeing based on your network about the need for employers/blogging? If your ultimate goal is to get paid to blog, then you need to prove that doing this work is a perceived value to companies.
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