When I had started blogging in 2006, I never expected to be any good at it. In the 10th grade, I had one teacher (hi Mrs. Paige), who criticized my writing so badly I was moved from the honors level to a place where a couple of sentences qualified as a full term paper. I’m not saying that I’m a good writer now. I have enough typos and grammar errors to fill the New Yankee Stadium.
I’ve learned along the way a few things about blogging. I made it a huge focus for the last three years. I’d go as far to say that I’m more interested in reading about blogging, than actually writing the articles you read here. I could lose hours reading about SEO, writing good titles, formatting for quick scanning, etc. Quite often a blogger or two will contact me and ask me for help. I’m almost always willing to give a helping hand. I only regret that sometimes I don’t have the time to help out everyone as much as I’d like.
Last year, I worked closely with Prosper consulting and writing on their corporate blog. That experience was the catalyst in turning a budding idea into a blooming one. I had noticed that Mint.com, started a blog months before they even had a product. Likewise, Lending Club was early to the blogging game. It took me a little while to figure out why these companies would bother with blogging instead of working on their core product.
Then it hit me. Blogging is a cheap and easy marketing engine. It brings in visitors from search engines. It gets the company’s corporate message out there. If it’s done well, it establishes them as a leader in the field and engages the fanatics who follow the company. With this in mind, I have partnered with Buildify to help manage corporate blogs. After talking with them a bit, they made a great point that too many CEOs and CMOs of companies are spending time blogging. They believe that C-level executives are paid too well to spend their hours this way. They also feel that CEOs and CMOs are not necessary experts at blogging. Even if they are good at blogging now, the day-to-day core activities of C-level executives rarely leave time for keeping up with the latest blogging trends. Buildify is setting up a soup-to-nuts blogging house aimed at corporations. They’ll handle everything from writing and editing content, managing security, and even marketing the blog.
How the partnership will work is still not well defined. I think the idea is great and I can’t poke too many holes in it – as long as the writing is good. They’ve assured me that clients will be satisfied with the content. In fact, Buildify is happy to write a few sample articles for prospective companies to ensure they are on the same page.
It sounds like a win for the company to me. If you are interested in learning more contact Lazy Man and I can probably set you up with a much more favorable price than their posted rates.
Very cool, LazyMan. Here’s to your success with this venture.
There is a high demand and great value for corporate blogging. You have picked a good time to enter this market.
So, through your partnership you’ll be writing the posts for these guys? I thought you said you’d rather read about blogging than actually write, lol. Either way, it sounds like an excellent opportunity for you so congrats! Will you have a say in which companies you work with on this? Do you think you’d stick to finance, or expand into other areas?
I don’t think I’d write – maybe occasionally under the right circumstances. I have seen a bit of what the Buildify authors can do and they probably can do better than me (to be brutally honest).
However, I will be involved in all steps of the process if someone contacts me. I’ll make sure that the writing is suitable to their requirements. I’ll make sure they are doing the right SEO things (not that I doubt that they will). In short, I’ll put myself on the line and say that I’ll bend over backwards to make clients happy.
As a CEO, I’ll be interested to hear if your new venture takes hold. I’ve had some increasing pressure to reach out to the younger generation through a company blog. I’d like to do it, but the only way I’d start is if I could be honest. However, offering personal thoughts and opinions can have some serious political ramifications. Please keep us posted and shoot me an e-mail if you want some free advice from a CEO’s perspective.
Congrats, that sounds like an excellent venture. Pretty neat how news businesses and ideas just come up out of whatever you’re doing anyway :)
That’s great. Good for you. I hope it works out.