Today, Entrepreneur.com posted an article that talks to some successful ghostwriters, how they work, and what they charge.  One blogger points out:

“Ghostwriting can have a seedy appearance: Somebody you’ve hired is pretending to be you,” says Katie Gutierrez Painter, a writer in Austin, Texas. “Before I started, I saw it the same way. But you need to look at it from the business, branding and marketing standpoint. It’s just outsourcing an employee to work under the name of the company.”

And what are they charging?

Ghost rates vary, but generally, it costs far less to create a ghosted blog or Twitter account than to launch a traditional PR campaign. McCord charges $18 to $32 per blog post, and $150 to $500 a month for multiple daily tweets. Lindsay Manfredi, a social media strategist in Indianapolis, charges $75 to $100 for a blog post, a fee that includes research, writing and editing.

Click HERE to read the full article.

And, if you have been considering working social networking into your marketing strategy but aren’t sure how to take the first step, or want to contract someone to handle the management of this for you, Contact Us!

Social Media Savvy

Watch this very helpful, clearly presented 3 min video explaining… Social Bookmarking.

Everyone is pretty clearly informed about the massive shift in marketing, mainly impacted by the Internet and Web 2.0.  But even within the overall shift and focus to online marketing, there are shifting undercurrents within Web 2.0.  For instance, Myspace is out, Twitter is in.  What’s working within this media?

A recent study from the Online Publishers Association (OPA) compares the percentage of time spent in various online activities from a 5 year period: 2009 to 2004.  The study also asks the question to respondents, “which components of your current digital marketing campaigns are delivering the best results?”

An overview of the findings as well as a link to purchase the $200 report – if you’re feeling lavish – is available HERE.

But a quick answer’s here: #1 component is being reported as “search” (search engine results) and #2 as email. Most important takeaway for now: search and email still constitute the core of a solid online media plan.  Don’t forget that social networking profiles and blogging will contribute weightily and inexpensively towards organic search presence.  Also don’t forget that the interludes between these “shifts” are changing at a quicker and quicker rate.  For instance, a report of the next 5 year period could show event more drastic percentage shifts.

Monogram Marketing can help you maximize the application of these and other components in your marketing strategy.  Contact us for more information.

One of the most important parts of setting up a blog is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO for a blog is different than SEO for static websites, mainly because of the social nature of blogging technology. It is less about buying links or tricking inadequate search technology. SEO for blogs is more focused on the technical infrastructure of your site, and your ability to write creative articles that are noteworthy for others to read and link to.

Why bother with SEO? If you want to get more exposure for your blog, Search Engine Optimization can make a huge difference. It can bring 10,000 visitors to your site compared to the 100 that you were getting. Therefore if you are thinking about getting organic traffic from search engines at no cost, implement the certain techniques can take it to the next level.  The techniques simply require a bit of the investment of time.

Click HERE for a detailed guide on how to optimize SEO for Wordpress blogs.