Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them
08.14.07Update: Response to this post has been extensive - it's going to take me some time to deal with all the replies! That's great.
I've been getting so many inquiries lately from companies looking to hire bloggers, and so many responses to messages I send out about them over twitter, that I'm losing track. I really like helping bring these two groups together. Sometimes I fantasize about starting a blogger training and placement service, but for now let's just try to get organized! I'm a big believer in paying bloggers - see this post for example on social media marketing at SplashCast, that's good stuff. Want a sophisticated discussion on the value of social media content creation? I can't stop recommending this podcast and transcript by Dana Gardner on the topic.
There are other places that bloggers can find paid work, check out the great community around ProBlogger.net for example, but I'm just going to introduce people I like (particularly good bloggers) to companies I like (good companies) informally and at no cost because people are already asking me to do so.
Am I available to write for your blog? Probably not, even if it's very part time. Thanks for asking. Can I train a person already on your staff to rock the blogosphere and set them up with a bunch of resources to help make that happen? You bet; send me an email.
So, if you are a company who would like to hire a blogger for either in-house content creation or for news coverage for your blog network, send me an email at marshall@marshallk.com. Tell me what topic areas you're looking to fill, whether it's a part time, very part time or full time job and how much the position pays. (How much should you pay? See the bottom of this post.) If and when I find bloggers who I would recommend for the position, I'll email you and offer to introduce you. This is where the quality control comes in, my reputation for this depends on my not recommending bad bloggers. If you would like to hire me to offer advanced training for whoever you select, that's great - let me know. You'll end up with a world class social media presence. I'm happy to make introductions regardless.
Second, if you're a blogger or otherwise skilled writer interested in a full or part time writing gig, send me an email at marshall@marshallk.com. Your confidentiality will be a top priority. Tell me whether you're interested in doing news, company blogging or both/either. Tell me what topics you are knowledgeable about. Tell me whether you are available for full time or just part time work. Send me an URL where I can see your writing in action. If and when I find a blogging job that I think could work well for you, I'll email you and ask if you are still available. If you are, and if the company in question is interested, then I'll introduce the two of you. It'll be great.
I've started a private wiki to keep track of leads coming in from both directions. I'll be adding a link to the sidebar of this blog about this, linking to this post. Did I mention that it'll be great?
How much should you pay a blogger?
I am asked frequently how much a company should pay a blogger. I find that bloggers who are paid per-post generally get paid between $10 and $20 per post by good sites for general interest topics. In most cases, I recommend asking yourself what monthly budget you have available for a blogger, about how many posts you would like to see per week (3 or 20?) and working backwards on the rate. The most serious blogs should be paid for on a monthly basis, not per post. I believe that top-tier bloggers that will be tied closely to your brand should be paid between $5k and $8k per month. Pay your blogger well, communicate with them clearly about expectations and if it doesn't seem worth it after some time then fire them and find a new one.
Note: I've been told by a couple of people today that this pay is higher than is reasonable to expect. That may be true to some degree, but I think the range is reasonable. News bloggers typically have one pay range, bloggers representing a company have another.
If you are going to pay a blogger $500-$1000/month, it had better not take very much time or that blog had better be a great way for said blogger to gain visibility and move onto a better gig. That's what AOL Weblogs Inc. paid me for a whole lot of posts, but the blog was great for my career.
Those are my thoughts about paying bloggers.
I hope this offer to introduce parties on both sides will prove useful for all involved.
August 14th, 2007 at
[…] That’s what makes this offer from Marshall Kirkpatrick so interesting: So, if you are a company who would like to hire a blogger for either in-house content creation or for news coverage for your blog network, send me an email at marshall@marshallk.com. Tell me what topic areas you’re looking to fill, whether it’s a part time, very part time or full time job and how much the position pays. (How much should you pay? See the bottom of this post.) If and when I find bloggers who I would recommend for the position, I’ll email you and offer to introduce you. This is where the quality control comes in, my reputation for this depends on my not recommending bad bloggers. If you would like to hire me to offer advanced training for whoever you select, that’s great - let me know. You’ll end up with a world class social media presence. I’m happy to make introductions regardless. […]
August 14th, 2007 at
Yeah, sign me up. I need to stretch a little…
August 14th, 2007 at
Championing the community, baby! I love it. Thanks!
August 14th, 2007 at
Great idea - run with it and I hope that you succeed in making some great introductions!
Rex
August 14th, 2007 at
Bonus tip: once your blog is up and running, consider sponsoring Techmeme to jack up your blog’s visibility:
http://www.techmeme.com/sponsor
Oops, did I just type an ad?
August 14th, 2007 at
Excellent information Marshall! Based upon your suggestions about time and pay…I’m getting screwed. My estimates indicate that I am earning about $1.66 an hour. Not even close to minimum wage.
Makes me want to cry. But I enjoy blogging too much to give it up. I just wish it was more lucrative.
August 14th, 2007 at
Well Derek, on the other hand - getting paid to blog at all is pretty sweet - and your blog has helped you become far more widely known than you might have been otherwise. Perhaps a job at a widget company is in your future?
August 14th, 2007 at
Perhaps you are right. However, have you seen the price of milk lately? I have three kids to feed and no matter how much the cashier at the local market recognizes me, I’ll still be paying for that food with greenbacks! 3 hours per gallon.(milk)
August 14th, 2007 at
[…] According to a post by Marshal Kirkpatrick, hiring bloggers is becoming more popular. So much so, he is getting cold calls from companies looking to hire a blogger. I’ve been getting so many inquiries lately from companies looking to hire bloggers, and so many responses to messages I send out about them over twitter, that I’m losing track. […]
August 14th, 2007 at
Marshall I tried the email address you gave above and for some reason it was would not go through. Tris Hussey and I own Bloggers For Hire and would love to help you fill any needs. For those of you looking for jobs in this area, give me a shout I would be happy to help place you in a contract with a company to do what you love and get paid well to do it!
August 14th, 2007 at
[…] Marshall has realistic ideas on pay for bloggers: How much should you pay a blogger? […]
August 14th, 2007 at
Derek,
Getting a future job aside, i think the rate Marshall mentioned can work out real good if you crank 1 post in 30 mins or under. In other words, that is what is expected from you.
August 14th, 2007 at
I work for One by One Media, and I can tell you from personal experience that blogging for a business can be amazingly educational, as well as lucrative. I haven’t done this much research since graduate school! Jim Turner has given me four clients and I hope to get more. Being a professional blogger is also a lot of fun. I consider myself part of all four companies, and I take these loyalties very seriously indeed. Do I make a living wage, blogging? Not yet, but it certainly makes a big difference! My advice? Contact Jim Turner at One by One Media; he is not only a fantastic businessman and really good at what he does: he’s also a great guy who will help his beginning bloggers with any questions they may have. And believe me, at the beginning, we all have questions! Pro-blogging is the best thing that’s happened to me in many years. I love it.
Since I have been pro-blogging for nearly a year now, I can also affirm that a business with a regularly and frequently updated blog is a business that is telling its customers right up front that it not only cares about keeping its customers informed, it cares about its customers, period. And I think we all know that an informed and cherished customer is very often a repeat customer.
August 14th, 2007 at
I might be interested in blogging as a career move but I’d really that move to be a part of a job in technology evangelism. I wouldn’t ask for an insane amount of money as long as I believed in the mission and the direction the company was heading.
Also, the job I have now makes me pretty happy.
Evangelism is something that you have to be passionate about, and writing and blogging are a skill that takes practice. Having an understanding of where technologies are progressing and being able to give instant insight into the: what, how, and why is very paramount to success.
A little link love never hurt anyone either.
Marshall one reason why I wanted to make a comment is to basically say, “I realize that in order to progress in life I must always keep an open mind about everything, having said that, to what training and/or resources that would make me a better blogger are you giving thought.” Perhaps there is another post that will come out of this one, and will be for the benefit of all!
-GS
August 14th, 2007 at
Always think of blogging and what you can make of it. Don’t settle for where you are today.
Blogging can open up so many doors, more than you would think. Marshall should know that, and I love it that he is giving back.
If you need help man, just holler! You know I feel like giving back also. Right now - I’m so busy with the doors it has opened - I didn’t even have time to post a link back to this post today!
Almost 11:30pm my time, and I’m still working.
But…. you know I have told you many times since the move - “I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’m still Loving Every Minute of It!”
Rex
August 14th, 2007 at
[…] Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them — I’ve been getting so many inquiries lately from companies looking to hire bloggers, and so many responses to messages I send out about them over twitter, that I’m losing track. I really like helping bring these two groups together. Source: Marshall Kirkpatrick Author: Marshall Link: http://marshallk.com/introducing-bloggers-and… Techmeme permalink […]
August 14th, 2007 at
[…] That brings me to the original point why I started writing this post. What kind of blogger companies need to hire and how they should go about hiring them. Marshall has an interesting idea on doing a simple match making between companies interesting in hiring bloggers and bloggers looking for chump change. Check it out if you have time and intent. […]
August 14th, 2007 at
The Past Couple of Days
August 14th, 2007 at
The Past Couple of Days
August 14th, 2007 at
[…] Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 2:23 AM by Will Femia I’ve been traveling out to Redmond and back these past couple of days so this is a bit of a catch-up post for me. “A new data-mining service launched Monday traces millions of Wikipedia entries to their corporate sources, and for the first time puts comprehensive data behind longstanding suspicions of manipulation, which until now have surfaced only piecemeal in investigations of specific allegations.” I like this line from the article: “Employees at the CIA’s net address, for example, have been busy — but with little that would indicate their place of apparent employment, or a particular bias.” Of course that’s because they’re sharing secret coded messages through Wikipedia entries - or at least that’s what’s happening in my fantasy reading of that line. So far the sorting of all the info that data-mining service has produced is in the early stages, so we can probably look forward to a series of “gotcha” headlines in the future from this operation. Tonight’s spotlight seems to be on Fox News. There are a number of links floating around that point out bold and shameless edits made from a Fox News IP, but this link seems to have the greatest number. I know some of the examples involve MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, but I don’t point this out as a matter of cable news partisanship. The Web loves “gotcha” stories. The Left loves to pull back the curtain on Rupert Murdoch. The combination has made for an actual Web storm. Vote on the most shameful wikipedia spin job. Speaking of gotchas, Senator Obama has the hive buzzing with this quote about Afghanistan: “We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.” Actually, what appears to be more offensive to some is that the AP has issued a fact check article defending the point. I clicked this fact checking of the fact checking. Also this fact checking which came before the AP’s fact checking. And also this item on Obama displaying the unusual trait of not backing down when his statements are criticized. “If you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.” Yesterday’s Rove reaction was too much for me to catch up on this quickly. Check out the lead on yesterday’s Memeorandum. You don’t often see blog buzz like that. Most fun to me were the “why he’s really leaving” posts like this one. I don’t doubt there’s sufficient mainstream coverage of the whole thing that you don’t really need supplemental blog analysis anyway. Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them - If you’re a blogger who doesn’t see any appeal in the traffic building tricks we read about so often with regard to making money from your blog (via ads) then you may feel more encouraged by what this guy’s talking about. Really it’s like blogging as a writing audition. He’s informally putting writers (bloggers) in touch with companies who need content (remember the other day when we were squinting to see a trend?) or online representation of some kind. Includes a bit on what kind of money we’re talking about. I had to laugh at this description of Chris Matthews having a “Joe Namath moment.” If I can find the video I’ll add the link of him interviewing all of those “Obama girls” but suffice it to say, while I like Chris Matthews, he needs some coaching on dealing with the pretty ladies on the air. The back of the toothbrush channels the water like a drinking fountain. Duh. How is this not standard? “Why Are the New York Times and So Much of the MSM Neglecting a Vital Part of the Utah Mine Collapse Story?” Even ignoring whether the safety record of Bob Murray’s mines is a vital part of the story (and it’s hard to imagine why it wouldn’t be) it defies understanding how a story can stay so prominent in the news for a week with no actual developments and yet all the media sitting around waiting for the next spoon feeding from Murray aren’t exploring any other angles. Nevermind the possible scandal, I’m just talking about keeping the story interesting. For all of its recent accolades for opening its platform, Facebook has been suffering criticism for being an old fashioned “walled garden” (remember this was basically Kottke’s point about it being the new AOL). It looks like there’s some new permeability to that wall. Built With: Find out what a site is built with. My first thought was that this would be handy for if you ever wonder what kind of blogware someone is using but it gives a lot more information than that. “This is a brochure from the Kelsey-Hayes company advertising their easy to assemble fallout shelters for the home.” This is probably missing the point, but there is some appeal in having a secret underground fort on the property. “In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission.” I would love to see what that permission would look like - or for that matter, how the ban would be enforced. Probably not surprisingly, the story of the girl overdosing on espresso made the Seattle news while I was out there. Most unexpected symptom: “By noon she was feeling unwell and crying and laughing uncontrollably in front of bewildered customers.” The Story of the Falling Boat Photos - Strangely, I had a hard time finding the original photos this article is about. Anyone got a link? We may have seen pieces like this before, but it’s really soured me on those tear-jerker free new house shows to realize how the winners get slammed with taxes and upkeep bills they have no hope of affording. It’s been a while since we had a “cancer cured” headline of the day: Canadian team discovers gene that turns cancers off “Scientists have concluded that the freshwater baiji dolphin, only found in China is now ‘likely to be extinct’ after an extensive 6 week study of the dolphin’s habitat when they failed to spot any in the Yangtze river.” It seems odd that we (humans) just kind of watched this animal go extinct. It’s probably foolish to think that we can grab a couple of everything in some kind of special zoo, but it seems inadequate to just say, “See ya.” Here’s the video of that new father being tasered while holding his baby in the hospital (and trying to leave.) It doesn’t really tell the whole story but I can see how the security guy might have let his imagination get the best of him in thinking he’d pull a sudden sneak zap while the other guy caught the baby. Which isn’t an excuse of course. Not tasering people holding babies is one of those rules that shouldn’t even have to be written down. […]
August 15th, 2007 at
After doing political, sports and tech blogging, I am seriously looking into Business Blogging thing. Where can I find bloggers-required jobs?
August 15th, 2007 at
[…] Added Aug 15th : Marshall Kirkpatrick has written a post where he quotes what he believes a company should be willing to pay … top-tier bloggers that will be tied closely to your brand should be paid between $5k and $8k per month. […]
August 15th, 2007 at
[…] Marshall Kirkpatrick’s post, introducing good bloggers and the companies that hire them points out some interesting issues. It just leaves out one extremely important point! Having a series of blogs being managed by non-bloggers is a recipe for one or more of the following: ineffective blogs, unhappy bloggers, internal corporate strife and/or worse, serious pr problems in the blogosphere. […]
August 15th, 2007 at
[…] There you are with your freshly minted blog, and you have done some excellent work, made some headway and getting a couple of hundred people a day, life is good, and your enthused. If you have taken on the idea that blogging is a way of life, and you enjoy blogging, Marshall Kirkpatrick has some interesting news for you to follow up on. Paid blogging jobs, but there are some realities here as well. I’ve been getting so many inquiries lately from companies looking to hire bloggers, and so many responses to messages I send out about them over twitter, that I’m losing track. I really like helping bring these two groups together. Sometimes I fantasize about starting a blogger training and placement service, but for now let’s just try to get organized! Source: Marshall Kirkpatrick […]
August 15th, 2007 at
[…] SplashCast Media Director of Content and blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick has taken it upon himself to help connect bloggers with paid blogging gigs. Since he has been getting so many informal requests about both potential gigs and open positions, he’s put out a general call for people to get in touch with him if they’d like to be considered for future work. […]
August 16th, 2007 at
[…] I love blogging, and I utilize a few different services to bring in around $1,000 in additional income each month. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s allowed me to do things I wouldn’t have been able to on a single income. Because I love blogging, and I strive to be the best blogger I can be, for myself and for my advertisers, I am interested in Marshall Kirkpatrick and his campaign to introduce good bloggers to good companies. I don’t view his idea of paid blogging as I do some of the other web based services. He’s acting as a consultant for specific bloggers, negotiating paid blogging jobs on their behalf. There is human interaction and a desire to represent quality blogs and quality people. […]
August 18th, 2007 at
[…] Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them, which is referenced by all the articles in #1-3 above. Marshall writes about how he is currently getting a lot of requests to help hook up bloggers and business owners, and how he’s helping. […]
August 20th, 2007 at
[…] (Source) If you are going to pay a blogger $500-$1000/month, it had better not take very much time or that blog had better be a great way for said blogger to gain visibility and move onto a better gig. That’s what AOL Weblogs Inc. paid me for a whole lot of posts, but the blog was great for my career. […]
August 31st, 2007 at
[…] If you are looking for a decent blogging job then these are good places to check out, then there is always Marshall Kirkpatrick’s offer to hook people up with bloggers, and bloggers looking for cool paid gigs. If you read this you can not whine about not being able to find cool Blogging Gigs. If you have a blogging gig or are looking for bloggers reply to this and we will add you to the list. digg_url=’http://techwag.com/index.php/2007/08/31/blogging-jobs-who-is-hiring/’; digg_skin = ‘button’; digg_bgcolor = ‘#FFFFFF’; digg_title = ‘Blogging Jobs Who is Hiring ‘; digg_bodytext = ‘’; digg_topic = ‘’; Powered by Gregarious (42) Share This Sphere: Related Content […]
September 7th, 2007 at
[…] * Are you looking to emulate Richard and the rest of us? Marshall Kirkpatrick (formerly at TechCruch, currently Splashcast) would love to introduce good bloggers to companies to introduce them. Interested? Click here. […]
December 21st, 2007 at
excellent!s
December 23rd, 2007 at
[…] Ce qui m’a amenée au marketing expérientiel il y a un mois environ, c’est le fait que j’étais en discussion avec plusieurs clients potentiels qui voulaient tous que je “blogue pour eux”. J’avais d’ailleurs fait ma petite enquête pour tenter de déterminer combien étaient payés ceux qui “bloguent pour de l’argent”, et grosso modo, ça variait de $5 à plus de $500 par article. Voici un billet intéressant sur le sujet, et un autre concernant les tarifs, en passant. Mais dans l’ensemble, les sommes qu’on se proposait de me payer étaient vraiment très basses, compte tenu du temps à investir, de la prise de risque pour ma réputation, et… mes compétences (quand même!) […]