13-Jan-2011 Posted by Chris on 13-Jan-2011 | View Comments

New Blog Template – Thanks to Jay Palter

I have been wanting a new blog template for some time. I Tweeted it and along came  a white knight, Jay Palter.

My goal was to simply move from my old Blog Platform, Squarespace, and begin using WordPress. Squarespace was incredibly easy to use as an author, but simply didn’t give me the flexibility I wanted. I wanted to use the Disqus comment tool, as well as some other widgets like allowing people to share the post on Twitter and Facebook, plus many of the other tools that WordPress allows.

Jay is developing an interesting “Micro-Agency” and I think he is onto something. He describes his business below:

My target market is practice professionals and small firms who want to use social media to build reputation and trust. I’m not a short-term lead generator – I’m a long-term trust builder. Practice professionals include: consultants, financial advisors, insurance advisors, doctors, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, etc.

The services I offer are designed around providing support for active social media engagement, including:

- strategic counsel
- coaching and personalized training (tactics, etiquette, sharing strategies, etc.)
- content production (writing, editing, research, etc.)
- identifying niche influencers
- website/blog development (WordPress-based)
- integration of Web 2.0 tools (social CRM, event registration, etc.)

Basically, I’m positioning myself as a “micro-agency” for individuals (or small groups of them) seeking to enhance their social media capacity.  My sense is that there is a large “micro-market” out there of these types of individual-based businesses who need a wide range of communications support but don’t typically want to spend what traditional agencies charge. I don’t want to build a traditional agency – I’m looking for a new model.

It makes sense really. There are so many people like me, who want a blog or web-based presence, have something they want to say, but don’t have the time or patience to learn something new. His business background gives him the unique ability to help a professional develop their online portfolio, and he understands that they don’t always have a budget like a company might.

I strongly recommend that if you want a website, blog, or some help understanding social media, that Jay is a guy you want to take for lunch.

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