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Comment by olefoo | Hacker News Reader

Full Service Blogger sounds ever so slightly shady; like someone who would write pay-for-play stories and not care about the reputation they'd be burning.

I realize that's not the intent here, but it seems like that would be a natural equilibrium state for commercial writers.

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I disagree. I think a case could be made for "brand ambassador" - blogging and social media management. While startup X is busy focusing on their core business, for $1,000 a month they could outsource some non-core functions like communicating with customers and writing interesting blog posts. They need someone to write three quality posts a week for them.

If you could pick up 10 clients for this, you're making $10,000 a month from home.

Big companies do this. Go to any large multi-national - take P&G for instance. Do you think the tweets for Tide detergent are done by P&G? Or do they have a social media marketing agency that works with them to ensure their customers and fans get responses? Of course, they work with an agency.

Why wouldn't a small company have an agency too? Priced right for them. Makes sense.

I think you're describing the majority of freelance blog writers you'll find on places like Elance, etc. these days.

What I meant was the blogger should deliver not only articles but all the other (very important) tasks for running an effective blog: editorial calendar, topic development, blogger outreach, etc. A premium blogging service, if you will.

As someone with a little experience and some modest success in this area, a good full-service blogger would be expensive. Not only because it requires a cluster of skills that are only tangentially related to each other and so are relatively rare to find together, but because a person who possesses these skills can build a good income for themselves will little investment aside from their own time. The opportunity cost of such a person selling their time is massive because they're exchanging long-run passive income for short-term work-for-hire income.

I'm hesitant to estimate how much such a service would reasonably cost without thinking about it some more, but I am very curious as to how much a startup in a position to benefit from this kind of outsourcing thinks they could reasonably pay.

I agree that a person who is competent and creative enough to write solid blog posts in a space that isn't his or her specialty is exceedingly rare. They often have their own ideas and projects.

Honestly, most guest bloggers and freelance writers may be affordable (or even cheap) but simply aren't that good. The writing is often bland or immature. Not content I would want representing my brand.

To get a creative and smart wordslinger to run your blog and manage your brand like that would be expensive.

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