Considering paying for content? Here’s what it’ll cost you

Tech journalist and social media adviser Paul Gillin says it’s worth the cost to hire a pro to write content for you. He even offers some ballpark pay figures.

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If you’ve been spending your time trying to get engineers and software developers to blog, tweet, post to Facebook or podcast, you should probably stop. According to Paul Gillin, a social media adviser to marketers and business executives, the better bet in the long run is to hire professional journalists to freelance or work full time.

“It’s a lot harder and costlier to train technology experts to write than it is to teach writers what they need to know to about technology,” he wrote.

Plus, it’s a buyer’s market. About 45,000 journalists have been laid off in the past year, and they’ll likely accept salaries smaller than the $60,000 to $80,000 they were making at big papers during the glory days. They’re “happy to work” for $35,000 to $40,000 now, Gillin wrote. For freelancers, he recommends starting at around 30 cents a word, though the established norm is 50 to 80 cents.

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