I am not a Blogger; I'm a Customer Engagement Engineer

For some reason, the word Blogger is not only disrespected out of the online world, but inside, as well.

Outside the blogging world, a Blogger is someone who sits and writes dumb articles about his or her cat, partisan politics without research, flames, or celebrity pictures. Bloggers are not journalists. They do no research. They aren't worth reading. Etc.

I could sort of understand that from outside the Web 2.0 world. What I find harder to swallow is that the attitude inside the Web 2.0 world isn't much better.

In this world, Bloggers are millions of faceless and nameless commoditized text and picture generating machines. Frankly, it really doesn't matter what they say or write, it only matters how many links they write and the traffic they bring.

For this reason, Blogging as a profession gets paid nothing but performance. Bloggers have to write posts of certain length. 300 words, 500 words. They have to include certain links. If they're lucky, they'll get $5 and some of the advertising revenue. Most of the time, it's only the advertising revenue.

Good lord, man. That's not what I do. I don't write endless strings of garbage to bring in traffic or increase your links. I am not a Blogger.

I have spent three years honing the art of building client relationships. I measure the conversation about the brand. I seek out and engage you wherever and whenever you are talking about the company's space. I put a good face on the company, not by spamming, but by positioning myself as an expert and a nice guy.

I produce content that is truly useful to you. I create a client community. I straddle the line between you and company; I'm not happy unless you're happy. My job isn't to swallow up the story, but to make it heard. I want you to know that you haven't simply paid your money and bought a doodad; I want you to know that you have bought a responsive relationship with someone who will guarantee that the money you spent has brought you satisfaction.

I will educate you. I will entertain you. I will highlight your complaints, not bury them, to let you know that the company has heard them and that we take them seriously. I will highlight your happy stories, to let you know that we're happy when you're happy, and that others can have that too.

I will work hard, rest little, keep the lines of communication open, give you more than you asked for, keep you going, and give you something to look forward to.

I am a Customer Engagement Engineer. Calling me a Blogger is like calling someone in Customer Support a "Telephoner" because part of his or her job is to answer telephones.

No, I don't just sit around writing stupid posts.

Yehuda

Whoops

Well, I'm no longer working as a corporate blogger at all :-( .

For the last two months I was working 1 hour a day for a company doing a corporate blog, which was simply a once a day post about some item in their directory. Owing to the lack of windfall returns on the blog, combined with two posts that bothered them, we decided to end it. My vision of a blog didn't really match theirs.

My two mistakes were:

- Embedding a number of videos into a single post. Since I had Flashblock installed, I didn't notice that all the videos began playing as soon as the post was loaded into browsers that didn't have Flashblock. Youtube videos are not a problem with this, as you have to hit click to play the videos. Myspace videos begin playing automatically, and simultaneously. Stupid of Myspace.

- Posting a note about a feature that was dropped from the site a long time ago, even though it is still discussed on the web at large and people found it annoying. My employers didn't want me to discuss it at all.

Sigh.

In the meantime, still researching Web 2.0 sites. I'm compiling my list of funniest, stupidest, best, and so on. One of the funniest is this profile for George W. Bush on Planzo.com, an online calendar site.

I promised one of my commenters that I'd put together a post on the locations that I use to look for Blog job posts. Soon.

Yehuda

Top Ten Rejected Web 2.0 Ideas

1. Gonorreader - The newsgroup reader that's catching on like a virus.
2. DefrockedPriest - Your secret guide to young and agile web 2.0 religious sites.
3. YelloSno - Mark the web! Leave post-it notes anywhere on a web site. [1]
4. WreckedHum - Music covers. Go deep. Explore. See what you find.
5. Blue Balls - Frustrated at not getting what you want on the web? Click a blue ball and see what pops up!
6. Regurgit8 - Like what you once saw? See it again with this powerful bookmarking site.
7. sCatLog - The hidden web. A directory of what's left after you take out the good stuff.
8. ShoutAtYou - If you're hard of hearing, or you frequent noisy places, just forward your emails to us and we'll yell them at you over your phone. Mobile enable.
9. NotSeeLovr - An anonymous social dating chat site. You never know who you might be talking to!
10. FlemBucket - A Flemish sharing site. Take a drink of our culture and pass it around.

Yehuda

[1] Good grief, this URL exists and is a production company.

Rejections are Hard to Take

Of the two interviews I had last week, one has now answered saying that they decided to scrap the position for the moment (not personal).

The other still hasn't gotten back to me.

I went on an interview to be a Technical Writer. I could be happy doing that, if the pay and conditions are good. But I'd sure rather be blogging.

If you know of any full or corporate positions available, please let me know!

Yehuda

Dell Did Something Right Once

According to this article in Business Edge, about corporate blogging.

Yehuda

How you get my business

Happy birthday, Indexed.

Yehuda

It's Quiet Out There ... Too Quiet

Status: unchanged.

Last week I went on two blogging interviews. One of them asked me to send them some more info, which I did, but I haven't heard back. The other asked me to send references, which I did, but I haven't heard back.

A company I used to work for as a technical writer wants to rehire me and place me in a permanent outsourced technical writer position, for which I will interview next week.

All week I've been scouring major corporate blog resource sites looking for open blog positions. I find about twenty a day. Of which, two or three look interesting. I inquire.

What I really want is a full-time or part-time position as a blogger/company point man/editor/... What everyone wants from me is for me to write five 300 - 500 word posts a week for which they'll pay me ad revenue, or $5 plus ad revenue, with no other benefits or incentives.

There's one place (Mashable.com) that's willing to pay better and has invited me to submit long, well-researched posts. I'm gathering the research required before submitting to them. Other than that, it looks pretty bleak.

Is this what freelance writing is all about? I don't think I can do it.

I's tempted to say that I think companies don't yet "get it", but that's a cop out. I need to make them see it. My job. My responsibility.

Yehuda

P.S. And this site only has one reader a day (hi, Dee), but I'm too too unmotivated to start pushing it right now. It's not meant to be my money making site.