Today is seems like everyone’s blogging and everyone’s offering social media services and using the label “expert” whether these activities are used to further their business, or simply for fun. Well, you’ll never hear my calling myself an “expert” in these areas, even if online content and blogging happen to be WriteSourcing’s main specialty and here’s why:

1. Social networking and blogging/online content development is evolving - to me, the term “expert” implies you know everything there is to know about something (just my interpretation, you don’t have to agree) and that can’t be the case when changes are being made on a daily basis that require us to adapt strategies for effective brand marketing through blogging and social networking. As far as I’m concerned, it’s trial and error with social networking and blogging, even if there are no drastic changes to methods. This is because what works for one business, won’t necessarily work for another, so no one can walk in and say “I’m an expert and here’s your solution”. What someone can do, is step in, do some experimentation  and come up with a strategy that will accomplish social media and blogging goals. There is no rule book for these things; you can’t know everything there is to know.

2.  An “expert” doesn’t need to learn - if you already know everything or think you do, then you’re not going to be encouraged to learn are you? Well, that’s a necessity today with blogging and social networking. You need to stay abreast of what’s happening and then do some problem-solving to develop an effective strategy.

3. Just because you blog or tweet, doesn’t make you an expert – I use a computer everyday too, but that doesn’t mean I’m a technology expert. Sure, you can share your knowledge with other and probably have some great insight, but you may find that you take just as much listening to someone else’s advice on the subject.

Let’s be honest, I just don’t like the term “expert”. You can say you’ve got “expertise” in a specific area all you like; you just won’t catch me labeling myself or anyone else an “expert”. It does seem like many people are applying this label to themselves though; so look beyond that title and let their track record and experience speak for itself. Don’t hire a blogger or a social media specialist just because they say that the title describes them; find out what they can bring to the table!

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I recently witnessed an interesting exchange on Twitter, one person tweeted “I should be blogging” another answered “there’s no ’should be’ blogging, blogging just happens when you need it to!” It got me thinking about the perception that blogging is strictly done for the sake of journaling, in a reality, it is a career.

I mean no disrespect whatsoever to those who blog about their personal lives as parents, as professionals, as people with busy lives. These people share their experiences, and some of them even get paid for it. I read blogs like this on a daily basis, and have many good friends that blog about themselves and their families and have attracted a large following. But, there’s a much bigger world of blogging, and it’s time that people know it!

While there are situations where I blog as myself, about myself and my personal experiences, that’s not really what my business is all about. Professional bloggers do more than just write casual editorials or recount what happened that day or week. We work strategically to establish blog content that will attract the target audience of a niche market. It’s about inadvertent advertising in a way that will actually engage people or stimulate thought. Unlike traditional advertising methods, blog content produced by a pro blogger really gives something back and that’s because it’s not directly about making a sale; it’s about giving people something interesting to read and letting things happen from there.  Coming up with blog content is like setting up a complete marketing campaign and it takes skill, experience and knowledge.

Reputation, integrity, credibility, and a great source of entertainment are a few things that a blog will help people remember about the businesses that feature them. Can people take the same away from a casual blog for which the writer is compensated for, but writes as themselves?  Sure they can. These bloggers can also use similar strategies like pro bloggers do to get people to read – but hiring a pro blogger gets you someone that can write about any topic area, any industry and do it in a way that drives traffic to the site. Since professional bloggers ghost write for business blogs, the spotlight is not on them or what their personal opinions and experiences are; it’s on the business and it’s that ability to deliver that end result that makes a difference.

So, to the Twitter user who indicated that blogging just happens – when it’s a career as a professional blogger, you can’t wait for it to happen; you make sure it does!

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Since WriteSourcing specializes in providing blog writing services to business clients across all industries, there is one common question that I find I receive – how can you writers produce content about an industry they don’t work in? The fast answer is of course not, otherwise I wouldn’t have much of a business if clients soon realized that we have no idea what we’re doing. But what clients really want to know is not if we can do it, because we can and saying that only goes so far; they want to know how we do it.

WriteSourcing has clients that span many industries, we write for  , business (as in entrepreneurial management and mentorship), marketing and PR, television production and many others. My team of writers and I aren’t doctors, we don’t run entrepreneurial management firms, and we don’t get to suck up to celebrities (but will accept invitations to do so!), but you don’t need to be hands-on to produce great and effective blog content. We have more knowledge than strictly what’s hot in the industry, we also know how to use a blog to really leverage a regular readership and following. In many ways, it’s like ghost writing for an industry with a marketing twist.

Coming up with industry topics truly isn’t the hardest part of the job, because we have so many resources at our fingertips and the specific knowledge about how to capture that audience. Of course we keep abreast of industry news, and after a few months of writing for a specific industry, we often feel like we could dive right in and start working in the industry as though we’ve been doing so for decades.

To get a better grasp of how we come up with the specific topics that we post to our clients’ blogs day-after-day, read today’s post on the Wax Blog that focuses on the subject. You’ll soon figure out that writers don’t actually need to be in the industry to produce effective blog content; it’s about knowing how to find it and knowing what to do it with the perspective of using a blog as a marketing tool in mind.

Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons

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