Five People You Should Hire for Your Business Blog

Before we began this search, I spent some time trying to answer a very basic question: What type of person is required to create a successful business blog -- at HubSpot or any other company?

My answer? It's simple. You need to hire these five people:

Ernest Hemingway (A Great Writer) -- Great writing makes great blogs. Sure, you don't need to be Hemingway (and if you're not it certainly shouldn't stop you from blogging), but life is a lot easier if the person in charge of the blog can crank out ideas, edited copy and new posts without overheating his or her engines.

Steve Jobs (A Product Visionary) -- If you're running a business blog, you need to understand your business. Traditional journalists can get away with a focus exclusively on content. Business bloggers can't. Business bloggers need an analytical streak and a fixation on figuring out which type of articles are ranking in search engines, building reach and producing leads and sales.

Ashton Kutcher (A New Media Promoter) -- Ashton Kutcher used Twitter, photos and videos to vault onto Hollywood's A-List. He understands the value of content, the way it moves across social networks and the ways to use these forces to advance his own celebrity. Bloggers need to expand reach and engagement with their content. Posting an article and going home is not an option; successful bloggers post, share and engage.

Esther Dyson (A Thought Leader) -- A great blog adds great value. Value doesn't come from rehashing old ideas. It comes from challenging the way people think, and introducing new ways of doing business. If people don't learn from your blog -- if it doesn't add clarity to their view of the world -- they won't read it.

Michelangelo (A Cathedral Builder) -- You have to think big. Michelangelo wasn't doing drawings for a church in Rome, he was building St Peter's Basilica. If you think your blog is going to stay small, it will. If you think it could change your industry and improve people's lives, it might.

Of course, you can't actually hire these people -- and most small businesses can't devote somebody to blogging full-time. But when you're writing your blog, or you're thinking about who in your organization is the best person to lead the blog, these are the people to keep in mind.

So what do you think? Is there anybody else you'd add to this list? Let us know in the comments.

And one last thing: If you're a remarkable mix all these people, we'd like to hear from you. 

Photos: Wikipedia 

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Comments

Posted by Rick Burnes on Mon, Sep 28, 2009 @ 07:15 AM