Yay Me. I Got Another Job

I went to Haifa today and landed another part-time customer engagement position with a company. It probably would have been full-time, but they're still a start-up and so need to keep a tight budget, or so I assume.

Having learned from my previous experience, this time I cataloged the list of things that I can do, and can't do, as a blogger right off. I may make many more mistakes, but hopefully I won't repeat the last ones.

Still, the whole thing is still a new concept to both of us. And the person hiring me is a traditional marketer. We speak very different languages, even though we're both aiming, ultimately, at the same goal. He is very organized and thorough! While he doesn't need numbers from me, he wants me planning very carefully where and what I'll be doing. It's going to be hard work, but it's going to be a learning experience.

In fact, the entire trip until now has been a great learning experience.

While I've seen blogs and sites with bullet points about corporate blogging - by which they mean writing a corporate blog - and about professional blogging - by which they mean making money directly or indirectly from blogging - there just aren't any sites talking about what I'm doing. Namely, freelancing or hiring oneself out as a corporate blogger. Which is strange.

I'm learning it all by experience:

- That blogging is marketing, and that familiarity with marketing is helpful.
- That someone coming from the outside is going to have to sell a product that the developers and company owners already know and love.
- That companies who think that they want to hire bloggers want them for links and traffic, not for the primary strengths of blogging, which is customer engagement and relationship building.
- That companies are scared of blogging. Blogging is a tool for captivating users by bringing them the best and most valuable information, which includes outlinking. Companies want to pretend that there is nothing else in the world other than their own company, and are thus afraid of outlinking.
- That the primary qualities of a corporate blogger are, in order: great manners, great writing, great searching ability, niche defining, and only then the traditional blogging skills of SEO and so on.
- That no one knows what to pay me.
- That there's nearly no competition for these positions, and you can probably create one for yourself almost anywhere.

And slews of other stuff that I'm only beginning to crystallize. I will be writing them down as they come to me.

With all the unknowns still looming over me, and not enough written information to guide me, it's going to be a wild ride!

Yehuda