In previous articles, we have looked at the benefit of writing articles as part of your social media marketing and as an excellent means of generating new customers. Just as a reminder – the more value you give to your prospective customers the more likely they are to buy. So, you now have 2 options; you either write the articles yourself or employ a writer to do it for you.
Writing articles yourself is a viable option under a couple of conditions. Firstly, and most importantly, you must have the time to write them without distracting from your principle activity of giving your customers a great experience. Secondly, you must want to write the articles. If you don’t want to or find it difficult, then a better option is to pay someone to do it for you.
Let us assume you are going to find, and pay someone to produce your articles for you. There are lots of freelance writers available from a wide variety of sites so you need to know how to pick the right one for your business.
1. The first thing you should do is ask for a resume. The resume gives you a picture of their experience not only in writing but also in other roles so you can get some idea about their skills. This will tell you if they have the necessary background for your business.
2. Secondly, you will want samples of their work. Clearly, by looking at samples of their writing you can get an impression of whether or not their style matches yours as well as obvious checks on things like language and punctuation.
3. Now, you will need to agree on the financial side of the transaction. If you are using one of the many freelance websites (such Upwork or oDesk) then some of the terms will be defined by the site. There will be variations that you and the writer can define like upfront payment or stage payments. The other most important thing you will need to agree on is how much you will pay for each article.
Depending on the writer you have found the payment terms may vary widely. You need to be clear about how much the engagement will cost you and make sure you can afford it. A clear agreement on payment terms will make for a happy and lasting business relationship.
4. When employing a writer to produce your articles as part of your internet marketing, it is essential that you define exactly what sort of articles you are looking for. This could be as simple as the number of words required but should also give the writer clear direction on the topic for the article, how much research should the writer do, or do you have the base material. If you have clear ideas on how the article should be structured then you need to make that clear.
5. You need to be very clear on timescales. If you are having a series of articles written, or even if it is only a one-off, you need to set out the timeframe for delivery of the article(s). This means one of the checks you should be doing is the dependability of the writer to deliver to the schedule. The objective here is to make sure the writer can deliver when you want them to.
6. It is a good idea to think about using more than 1 writer. If you have 2 or 3 then you have coverage if something happens to one of them and it is much easier to spread the workload across more than 1 person. It is equally as important not to work with too many otherwise the management overhead will outweigh the benefit.
The other thing that you will need to manage with more than 1 writer is the style of writing can be totally different. This can lead to the “voice” of your business being confused. You really want the articles to have the same sound so that your readers to not get confused by different styles.
When your social media marketing involves writing articles then employing a writer will save you a lot of time that you can better spend on working on your business. Whether you aren’t a writer by nature or simply don’t have the time, employing a writer to produce your articles will make your strategy for article marketing a lot easier.</p >
