Hire a Professional Writer (With a Side of Geek)

What do you get when you hire a professional writer? Well, with this writer at least, you get a huge side order of geekery – and that can help me offer you an even better service.

Here’s how it all began. My first work computer started life as a bookshelf – true story. I rescued it from isolation and tried to figure out how it worked so I could improve my workflow.

My second work computer was a Mac. After a couple of hours introducing us to the basics the tech guy left us with the words: “Try stuff; you can’t break it.”

I sometimes wonder if he knew where those words would lead, because ever since then I’ve had that mantra in the back of my mind while experimenting first with computer software and more recently with web applications and online tools.

I like to joke that I suffer from signup-itis – the complete inability to pass up a beta invite. That has taken me down some geeky avenues frequented only by those willing to accept the possibility of computer hara-kiri. Luckily, that’s never actually happened. 🙂

So what does this have to do with writing and for the work I do for you – my client? You already know I’m an excellent writer, but sometimes you need more than just writing – and I can deliver.

Too Many Hats, Too Little Time

When you start a business, you usually have a good idea about the client you are serving or what you want to offer them. But you may not know much about writing the content you need to promote your business and the tools to help you spread the word. That’s why you hire a professional writer to take care of content for you. Quite frankly, most of the time you just don’t want to have to think about it because you’re so busy doing lots of other business tasks. (Believe me, after running my writing business for the last seven years, I know what it’s like to wear many hats!) You know that you need a plan for content marketing and social media – if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, as the saying goes. And who wants to fail when it’s so easy to make things work?

How I Can Help

I know that sometimes you need a little bit of help that goes beyond writing the content. You need some technical know-how. My clients also ask for advice on:

• the best blogging platform to choose for their business blog (WordPress, hands down!)
• where to promote the press release they have hired me to write
• which social media sites they should be on
• how to optimize their web content
• how to get the most return on their investment in quality written content
• how to build their authority on a wide range of networks

Because I love experimenting with new web tools, I almost always have an answer to those questions. It’s one of the side benefits of being a polymath. My geeky alter-ego has been able to:

• create a content plan for my clients
• advise them on automation options for sharing stuff on social media (and advise them when they should update manually)
• turn their blog into an ebook
• help them with SEO
• and more

Geekery in Action

Everything I’ve learned from using web applications and trying out new social media sites gives me skills I can use to help you. Just to give one example, when Google recently announced the impending shutdown of Google Reader, I was immediately able to recommend an alternative, Feedly, which I’ve used for five years. And a couple of years ago, when article marketing sites became passe, I helped several clients promote themselves by using guest blogging sites to promote the guest posts I’d ghostwritten for them.

I’m not claiming to know everything – that would be silly – but since geeks of a feather flock together if I don’t know the answer to a particular tech issue I’m pretty sure to know someone who will.

The truth is that I don’t want you to have to struggle to find the right tools to promote yourself – you are already busy growing your business.

The Tech Side of Business

Make my geekery work for you and ask me a few questions. When you hire me to do your writing (you are going to hire me, right?), I can make a few suggestions for other ways that you can use the content I create for you. We can talk about social media strategies and content plans. I can even help you find people who can implement the strategy for you once I’ve put it together – people that I have worked with before and know, like and trust. You will be able to focus on your business, while knowing that, along with the writing, the tech side of content and social media is totally under control. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

So if lack of technical knowledge has been holding you back from investing in new content, don’t let it. Hire a professional writer – contact me and I’ll help you get the ball rolling.

Image: paloetic