Paul over at Radiant Marketing Group is considering setting his group up as an Agency for Pro Bloggers and wants the feedback of probloggers, consultants and CEO types:
‘I’ve been thinking about turning Radiant Marketing Group into an agency for bloggers who want to find paying gigs. Serving as a rep for them so to speak. (I’d consider doing the same for blog consultants.)
What do you think? If you’re a pro blogger or a consultant, especially if you’re one looking for paying jobs, I’d like to get your take on this. Would you be interested in aligning yourself with an agency? I’d also like to hear from CEO-types as well as business consultants. Do you see viability in a business like this?’
I left a comment over there (and encourage you to do likewise) that expressed my interest. I know there would be a number of issues to work through for it to work, but purely speaking as a blogger wanting to earn an income from the field I know I’d be interested.
The model that I currently use for earning an income from blogging has been very much focused upon setting up my own niche blogs and earning a direct income from them. This has been pretty successful for me so far and has enabled me to give up ‘my day job’ – however I always argue that probloggers shouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket and should diversify their blogging interests/income streams.
As a result I know I would be interested in having an agent to set up both short and longer term blogging jobs and consulting projects for me to supplement what I’m earning from my own private ventures.
The issue for many of us who set ourselves up as single person ventures (often scattered across the globe) is that to find such jobs takes us away from our core business – blogging. This is my frustration with advertising. Whilst systems like Adsense, Amazon etc are easy to use and implement and take very little time to keep running – finding private corporate advertising for your blog can be very time consuming.
I know when we ran the Olympic Blog earlier in the year that I spent days (weeks?) seeking a sponsor to no avail. In my mind it was an opportunity missed for both us as bloggers but also for potential sponsors who could have put their product in the faces of over 2 million readers in a 2 week period.
Whilst companies like Blog Ads are providing an incredibly valuable service (I use them with some success on a number of my blogs) I see a big gap in the market currently for services that represent bloggers to both potential clients but also to potential advertisers.
I’ve often considered setting up such a business myself but to this point have felt that my geographic location means I am not in the most logical position to best represent bloggers and be in contact with potential advertisers and employers. However I think its an opportunity worth exploring and would be keen to be involved in some way.
