Initial Blogging Class Coming Tuesday

I’ve done a few trainings now and have come to the conclusion that it’s fine to help the “competition” because most bad actors wont bother to blog.

There might be an exception, but I’ve yet to meet an RE blogger who I know for sure that I wouldn’t do business with. You have to want to help your clients to write a blog and keep it going.

More bloggers mean more good guys getting over on the bad guys.

I disagree that you don’t need to be able to write well to blog. You don’t have to be perfect; that’s for sure. Clearly the vast majority of people cannot write well enough to blog. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t successful. In fact, the wealthiest people I know are terrible writers. I am shocked when someone I know to be worth millions makes errors in emails such as using the word “right” instead of “write.” Some folks have horrendous grammar and spelling, putting blogging out of reach. There is, however, a way that those people can still blog. They just need to have their copy edited. WordsRu.com does this, and for a small fee.

From emails I receive, the amount of people who can put a few good sentences together is few. I’m not talking about the misuse of a word here and there. I’m talking about extremely poor writing skills being more commonplace than people who can write even close to correctly. Blogging is out of reach except to a precious few. The good news is that ghost writers will re-write articles for $5-$10 per pop. That’s a far better strategy than trying to teach an old dog new tricks. If someone is in the 30-60 range and can’t write well, chances are that person will never be able to write well. I say pay a professional to turn your thoughts into a publishable piece.

And I’m not arguing blogging is for everyone. Clearly it isn’t. It takes time, it takes thought, it takes commitment, it takes intelligence and it takes some level of grammatical and compositional competence.

Jonathan-

I’m not talking about someone writing the blog from scratch. I’m referring to the RE professional writing the post and the copy writer simply fixing it. That won’t sound or feel canned. That is how most major books are written. Do you really think that celebrities and politicians write their own books? No. They write them and then a ghost writer fixes the text. It will work if someone who can’t write really wants to blog, and the cost is minimal.

Athol-

Absolutely NOT. I cannot point to a blog that is ghost written. However, did you read John McEnroe’s biography? I have a sneaking suspicion that he didn’t write it. I write my own two cents, but I’m just putting something out there for those who don’t have that ability. Call me a pioneer; I won’t contradict you.

I don’t consider myself a good writer but I can tell you that you only get better by doing it and when I look back at posts from a year ago, I’ve come a long way.

That’s the beauty of blogging. For those that are great at formal letter writing, their blog comes out as stiff and boring – LA LA LA LA LA…..need some VOICE lessons.

>>The question is: do bloggers make any money? Does blogging generate leads that you couldn’t generate the old-fashioned way?

That is indeed the question. In my opinion it is an ineffective tool used by itself, it’s likely best used as a landing platform for other marketing attempts (i.e. business cards, handshaking, direct mail etc etc).

Also there is a huge “chicken or the egg” problem. If you are already established an an agent, blgging seems to pay off much faster than if you a new agent breaking into the field.

I will say this though – the primary blogging cost is time rather than money. Newspaper ads are simply gone once they run, your blog is forever. It can develop and snowball over time.

Though I don’t encourage anyone to expect much return in terms of leads etc in the first year of a blog. That’s like burying an apple core in the backyard and getting angry you don’t have a fruit bearing tree after just a couple weeks.

I’m in escrow thanks to the blog, so it does work for leads. It also helps with SEO which in turn will help with additional leads.

CO – just caught up and it was my mistake in reading what you were saying. There is a HUGE difference between a ghost-written post and one reviewed by a copy editor.

Now … I’m also a recovering journalist so I tend to despise all editors as tin-eared cretans with no sense of style … but that’s just me. 🙂

I only see minimal difference between blogging and developing a content rich website. The majority of my content rich website pages are repackaged blog posts anyway.

Ines – I’ve made copius mistakes in content and tone over my first year, so some of that lack of response is no doubt my fault.

I will stand by feeling that blogging is a slow but steady creation though. It’s huge advantage over other forms of advertising is it’s permanance though.