I hear a lot of despair from new writers over the $15-an-article content mills they see online. I’m always encouraging writers to ignore the Internet sweatshops and look for good-paying work. And yesterday, I learned about a great example of a niche where the pay is great and the outlook is for growth.

I took a free Webinar from copywriter Chris Marlow on how to combine your copywriting and Web content skills with social media knowledge to earn really good money.

She had study data that the most commonly quoted rate for this combined service package was $300 an hour. $150 an hour was the lowest price quoted!

Among the service niches she described in this arena:

* Helping companies set up profiles on social media such as FaceBook and LinkedIn

* Helping companies defend their reputation on social media sites from rude comments about their products or services

* Ghost blogging for the company or executives

* Helping companies promote their offerings and helping them devise an event schedule for making sure they are regularly appearing in social media.

For those of us who already have — or are interested in obtaining — copywriting skills, and are dabbling in social media, it doesn’t sound like too much of a leap to acquire this expertise. Personally, I’m dabbling on Twitter, in part to learn more about how social media is evolving.

Marlow teaches a class in this topic that provides lots more details, I gather…maybe something to consider for the blog-savvy who would like to start really making good money off their online skills!

Food for thought for new writers who maybe have been blogging and are interested in copywriting…or maybe have a couple copywriting samples put together and are interested in social media.