Outsourcing Content

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What is outsourcing?

For the purpose of creating what is sometimes described as ’SEO content‘, the associated set of tasks are often assigned to a freelancer, a part-timer, or even an agency. Outsourcing means that someone who is not a full-time, salaried, or a regular employee with your business is going to be the person creating the content. Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages associated with outsourcing content and bringing on freelancers. 

Advantages

First, let’s look at the advantages: 

• Depending on the business regulations in the regions you operate in, you may incur less employee costs to produce content, since you may not be required to pay for insurance, taxes, benefits, office space, web access, and other HR-related costs. 
• You gain more flexibility. If your content demand reduces, for example, you can decrease your freelance engagement to free up more budget. The same is true when you need more help, as you can offer existing freelancers more work, or bring on more freelancers. 
• And you may gain greater variety in your content. Since it’s coming from a larger pool of writers with different voices, backgrounds, and talents, outsourcing can help deliver a much wider spectrum of content. 

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of outsourcing include: 

• The need for more management oversight. You may need a project manager or project leader to make sure that best practices are being followed. 
• It may be more difficult to enforce hard deadlines. If someone is not in the office, or is working remotely or even in another country, it may be harder to get hold of them if they miss a deadline. Time differences can have an impact as well. Again, you may need a team member who oversees any freelancers to make sure they’re staying on task, that they know what’s expected of them, and that deadlines are being met.
• For some industries, it’s difficult to find subject matter experts that can write accurate, high level, E-A-T content to a consistently high standard.

Finding freelancers

If you are going to outsource content, you can find freelancers in a variety of places:

• Popular job boards include FlexJobs, FreelanceGigs.com, and ProBlogger, which all offer good exposure. Some are paid, some are free for companies. Always use reputable job boards that have a good reputation to ensure your job is shown to the right people. 
• Referrals are by far the best way to find someone. Ask your colleagues, ask your co-workers, and put it out on social media that you’re looking for recommendations for someone to write your content. Be specific about what you are looking for, and what their experience level needs to be, and hopefully you will get a referral from someone in your network whose opinion you trust. 
• You can also post a job description on your website and share it on social media and on your company profiles, to pull from your own audience. Simply provide a brief overview of the role, and a link to the job description. But remember, always check freelancers’ existing online presence on social media. 

Writing job descriptions 

When crafting job descriptions, keep the following in mind.

• Ask applicants to use a specific subject line. When people are sending in their résumés, ask them to use a specific subject line with their applications. This shows whether they are paying attention to detail. This can also demonstrate whether they are reading the entire job description and know what is expected of them.
• Ask for topic ideas for your website, blog, or YouTube channel. This can help you to establish the depth of an applicant’s industry knowledge and how well they think on their own. Independence and proactivity are important when it comes to being a good freelancer, so you will want people who can react in a timely manner to trending topics or crises.
• Be as specific as possible and be upfront about expectations. Outline your expectations and give extensive feedback upfront to ensure that freelancers know what you’re looking for. Over time, this will get easier. It’s also best to be upfront about payment schedules and rates, so people know before they apply what’s going to be expected of them, and what they need to have in terms of experience and skill sets to succeed with your company.

Best practices for hiring

When it comes to hiring, you should follow this process:

• Hire for culture fit, even if the applicant doesn’t have all the experience, you were looking for. If you know that they fit in personality-wise with the rest of your team, then you can train them to do a lot of the things that you’re already doing. This is especially true when it comes to content. If the person is a good writer, and they get along really well with everyone, you could probably take a chance that they’ll thrive in your company.  
• Try to interview in person, or over video if that is not possible. Video gives a better overall view of the person and their personality than a phone call. 

And finally, agree to a trial period. Putting in place a one-month or one-assignment trial is a great way to make sure the person is a good fit. After a month, you’ll often be able to tell whether you want to continue working with them.