The Art of The Ghostblogger

Businesses are finally getting the word: social media is becoming social marketing. That’s good news.

The not so good news is that most business leaders don’t have a clue about how to get started, how to keep it going, and how to make it a central part of the marketing and communications strategy. And an even bigger problem is keeping up the steady stream of content to make it all pay off. You could assign it to someone in the marketing department and have them build and run a company blog, but your customers want to hear from you, the business leader. You have to ask yourself, do you have the time, energy, or frankly, the skills to make it happen? What do you do?

You hire someone, like me, to ghostwrite for you.

You already know that most politicians, actors, and athletes don’t write the books, articles, speeches and other presentations they give. They’re written for them by professional writers. The same thing can work for your blogging and social media. The key word here is “professional”. The writer has to be able to capture your voice and produce clear, effective material. And you’ve got to stay engaged. You don’t want to just hand off the responsibilities to someone else and occasionally take a look at the blog. If you do that you’ll find it isn’t your blog, it’s theirs. You need to develop a relationship with a writer.

Here are 5 tips that can help you work with a writer and be successful in your social media:

1. Find an experienced writer, preferably someone with deep business experience. You need someone with years of experience, someone who can relate to you and what you’re dealing with in your business.
2. Plan on spending several hours up front in interviews. Let the writer understand who you are and what you have to say about your business and industry.
3. Establish an editorial calendar. Plan out what you want to post on what dates. I recommend working at least 60-90 days into the future. You can alway substitute more urgent and timely information, but working ahead will allow you some freedom from always having to work on a post for TODAY. On this blog I try to stay one week ahead. For clients, I like to be a full two weeks or better ahead.
4. Expect the first draft to suck. Remember, this writer doesn’t have your full knowledge and experience, and unless you’ve been very detailed in your interviews, what they first produce may not fully express your thoughts on the subject. A good writer will use the first draft to provoke a reaction in you and pull out the additional key points. The second draft should often be right on the money.
5. Make it a part of your business day, every day, to capture what you’re reading, hearing from customers, thinking about. Doing this will help you shape your future posts and make it much easier for your ghostwriter to “mine” you for material.

It’s a significant expense to hire a writer, especially a good one. But it may be far less expensive than taking hours out of your day, every day, to do it yourself, if you even can. And think of what you’ll gain by becoming a recognized leader in your industry. Imagine how it will help your sales efforts to begin attracting qualified prospects that look at you and your business favorably before you have your first face-to-face meeting. And think of how your search engine results will dramatically improve when your company web site is receiving daily updates and new links created by others in their blogs, tweets, and other social media tools as they share what you have published on your site.

Feel free to contact me and I’d be happy to talk about your social media strategy and needs. You could become that recognized leader. You just might need a ghostwriter on your personal team!