While I almost never look at job boards and freelance marketplaces for new freelance writing and blogging jobs, I do review them to curate the best leads on my own site for freelance writers. I frequently come across one client request in those ads that makes very little sense, and which is downright disrespectful to the freelance professionals clients are looking to hire.
Some clients not only ask, but demand, that any freelance blogger they hire should use their own personal social network accounts to promote all blog posts they write for the client.
That’s a problem, and not just for the freelancer.
3 Reasons You Shouldn’t Require Bloggers to Use Their Personal Social Media Profiles for Promotion
Here are three specific reasons you shouldn’t even want to require your freelance bloggers to promote your posts via their personal social media accounts.
1. Your freelance blogger built their social media following around their own networking goals.
Their target network is almost guaranteed not to be your target network. For example, they might network with prospects for their freelance business, or they might build a community of their colleagues. Neither is likely to be your own target market. And poorly-targeted updates do nothing but piss people off for wasting their time. Is that the impression you want your blog posts to leave?
2. Blogging is about building a community.
It is the job of a freelance blogger to help you build a targeted community around your company blog. If they don’t respect their own communities or networks, why would you want them to build and represent yours? Respectable freelancers don’t sell out their networks.
3. You risk hurting both of your reputations.
If your bloggers are required to promote your posts via their social media accounts, and they’re being paid by you to do so, good ethics (and FTC guidelines if you or your blogger is located in the U.S.) would require that their referrals include a disclosure. That means they should note that their tweet, share, post, etc. is directly paid for. Not doing so opens both of you up to criticism as soon as someone realizes what’s going on. Many social network users don’t like seeing paid promotions, but especially ones where someone they follow sells out and then isn’t honest about it.
At the same time including a disclosure could also be problematic. When their followers see that the promotion is paid for in some way (and probably not well-targeted to them), it can lead to skepticism. Did this person promote your content because it was truly deserving, or simply because they’re being paid?
Instead of requiring your freelance bloggers to use their own social media profiles to promote your posts, focus on building your own social media presence. Then hire them to help you craft tweets, posts, and other updates related to your blog posts so you can reach a better-targeted audience on social networks.
If your post does happen to be relevant to your blogger’s followers or friends, they’ll likely share it on their own. And those genuine referrals mean much more than forced promotion, while their followers are likely to pick up on the latter.
Do you not have a social media presence at all yet? Consider hiring a social media specialist or a blogger who also specializes in social media writing to help you build one alongside your company’s blog. Get in touch today to see if I’m available to help.
