Let’s instead focus on the core of what you are suggesting:

But smart agents know that a blog is an important tool to help agents get found in search and showcase their skills and abilities. And if that means hiring a writer or using other ways to build quality creative content then so be it.

Isn’t this precisely Joel Burslem’s point? That if the reason why you have a “blog” is to get found in search, then the content farms will squash you. It’s just a matter of time. “Showcasing their skills and abilities” sounds fantastic, but in real terms, how that ‘blog’ differs from a standard brochure is somewhat beyond me. And why that showcasing couldn’t happen on other channels — e.g., FaceBook — is something I can’t quite understand.

Finally, hiring a writer to ghostwrite a blog for you strikes me as the very definition of a content farm, but far more expensive. How “quality” could such content be at the end of the day? What skills and abilities are you showcasing, beyond the skill and ability to write a check to a writer?

I suppose I still argue that blogging has one of the poorest ROI’s in the arsenal of marketing until you hit some sort of a tipping point. Getting there, I think, is a labor of love more than anything else — just like a musician could play thousands and thousands of hours in the subway without ever getting a recording contract. But once you get one… I suppose that makes it worthwhile. I still consider such longshots as inefficient marketing for everyone who doesn’t love doing it while doing it.

I do think you have a point, however; perhaps it’s just a matter of actually performing metrics on various activities and seeing where blogging falls in the mix.

-rsh

-rsh