The BG Blogging Franchise
Bloggers Wanted. As a blogger on the Brown’s Guide site, you’ll have the tools in your hands and the promotional resources at your service that will raise your profile in your area of expertise and further establish your credentials as an authority in your field.
Brown’s Guides is in the process of recruiting a team of expert bloggers.
The usual qualifications apply: you must be creative, self-motivated, capable of generating your own editorial ideas, and happy working without direct supervision. And there are two other essential qualifications. You must be an expert in one or more of the over 200 categories on the Brown’s Guide site: museums, art galleries, restaurants - you can look for yourself - and that expertise must have been demonstrated by published books or articles, or by consulting, training, education, or high-level sales work that you have done that required communicating in writing. You must have had writing experience.
As a blogger on the Brown’s Guide site, you will have the tools in your hands and promotional resources at your service that will raise your profile in your area of expertise and further establish your credentials as an authority in your field. And you have the potential to earn an income based on the success and popularity of your blog.
Your blog
You will have a regular Brown’s Guide blog in a category where you have established your track record of expertise. Any one of the over 200 categories on the site is bloggable. Or, if you have a category that is related to travel and recreation but is not currently on the site, that is a possibility, too, and something we can discuss.
The Blog Index
Your blog will appear in the Blog Index, along with a brief explanation of what it is about.
Pages
The “Pages” feature on your blog gives you an opportunity to spell out your qualifications and showcase (and link to) books or articles you have written. Pages tells website visitors why you are qualified to write your blog. It is a permanent easy-to-reference promotion and resume for you and your area of expertise always available to a large, interested audience.
Your Responsibilities
BLOGGING FREQUENCY You will be responsible for blogging at least once a week and may blog more frequently if your category is one that provides the material, resources and reason to do so. A Restaurants blogger, for example, could conceivably blog three times a day; an Accommodations and Lodgings blogger would have enough material to blog daily, likewise a Deals and Discounts blogger. A weekly blog is a minimum.
PROFILES You will be responsible for creating Profiles for all the resources in your category. This means literally all resources. Brown’s Guide mission is: “Every travel and recreation resource in Georgia. Everything. Indexed and searchable.” It’s a mission we take seriously. We want every museum, every art gallery, every bed and breakfast included on the site. You will be responsible for making sure that each resource has a basic Profile on the site: name, contact information, website, and a few words of introductory copy. Further, it will be your job to be sure that every resource in your category is fully aware of the Brown’s Guide Silver, Gold and Platinum Profile formats and how they can benefit by upgrading the level of their Profile.
LINKS You will be responsible for creating links between blogs and Profiles and Profiles and blogs.
NEWSLETTER You will have access to the Brown’s Guide Newsletter templates and mailing lists and be expected to communicate on a regular basis with the resources in your category via a newsletter that you write. You will want to add names to the mailing lists through your own contacts and blogging. You can see representative editions of the Brown’s Guide Newsletter by going to the BG Newsletter.
ADVERTISING You will work directly with the Brown’s Guide advertising staff to identify regional and national advertisers in your category and assist with contacts and sales calls. You may contract with your own ad sales team and with associate bloggers if your category or categories demonstrates the kind of activity that merits it.
Compensation
You will be compensated as a percentage of advertising revenue generated by your category or categories. That percentage is negotiable, depending on several factors, including your experience, the size of the category, and its propensity for advertising.
Expansion
As a successful blogger, you will have the option to add other categories or extend your blog(s) geographically as Brown’s Guide expands.
Summary
I have been writing, editing, publishing, promoting and selling travel and recreation material for over 25 years. I have never experienced a situation that combined satisfying editorial work with advertising and promotional opportunities that so benefited readers and advertisers the way this website does. It presents a variety of fun and potential profitable opportunities for qualified, creative editorial entrepreneurs.
If you are interested, send me an email with your qualifications, along with your writing experience. I hope we’ll have the opportunity to work together.