Local SEO, Content Writers, Traditional SEO, Social and Email
SEO-Focused Web Content Writers
Getting the Most Out Of Your Freelance Writer and Other Creative Consultants
3 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
ENSURING THAT YOUR FREELANCE WRITER AND OTHER CONSULTANTS ARE SUCCESSFUL
Creative freelancers can be a tremendous asset to your company when used in the right ways, and can hit the ground running on just about any project – but you can really boost the process and put an extra spring in their step by swiftly integrating them into the team and providing helpful information. Here are eight strategies that can help you achieve maximum benefit from your creative consultants and freelance writing resources.
Secure management support. Make sure you have strong management support of the project professionals’ roles.
Keep your staff informed. Inform full-time employees of the nature and length of the freelancers’ projects. Your staff may also have unwarranted concerns about their own job security when they hear the words “creative freelancer”, so be sure to explain that the consultants are being brought on board to help lighten their workload and make EVERYONE more productive and successful.
Give them a quick tour. Assist consultants acclimate by introducing them to everyone on the team, and include administrative personnel. Be sure to explain your department’s day-to-day routines and a brief overview of policies and procedures too.
Foster a welcoming workspace. Ensure that their designated work areas are equipped with basic office supplies and computers with up-to-date software and access to relevant data. An hour spent with IT trying to get equipment running is an hour freelancers are not performing the work they were hired to do.
Clarify project details. On their first day, schedule a one-on-one meeting with freelancers to define the scope of the project(s), identify objectives and your expectations, set clear deadlines, and provide specific instructions on doing their job most effectively. Put these guidelines in writing, and go over any lingering questions the consultants may have during this meeting.
Keep them in the loop. Let freelancers review existing marketing materials and advertising, web and social media content and anything else that will help them to understand your company’s brand. Also include them in all relevant meetings and emails concerning their projects. Don’t forget to invite consultants to team-building activities and informal events, like afternoon coffee runs, too. Making them feel they are part of the team can go a long way to making them feel most comfortable in their new role, no matter how short term it will be, and produce the highest quality of work for you.
Promote open communication. Make sure you have a point person to answer any questions or address any concerns that may arise. If that person is busy, appoint secondary contacts who can address issues if the primary contact person is unavailable.
Review progress and check in with staffing firms. Conduct an assessment of your freelancers’ performance early on to ensure everything is going as planned. This will ensure that the project doesn’t go off track, and result in longer than necessary assignments and overall results that are less than they should be. If working with a staffing firm, provide updates to your staffing manager on the freelancers’ progress. This will help him or her ensure the consultants are available for as long as needed.
If you do these things, you’ll find your relationships with freelance writers along with other creatives will go more smoothly and ultimately lead to more success. And if you’d like to put these principles in to practice, you can always work with me as your professional web content freelance writer!
Jim H.
Have No Social Media Strategy? FACT: You May Not Have A Business Future!
4 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
Perhaps not very surprisingly, a recent report by Nielsenwire found that Internet users now spend more time on social networks than on any other website category. And the B2B buyer of today is able to pick and choose where and how to consume information online, making it more difficult to control the brand message. You are beholden to what is written and said about you via social media, whether you like it or not!
For marketers, this means it’s no longer a question of whether or not to use social media, but how to create compelling content, generate leads, and accurately measure their social ROI - something that has been quite difficult to do up to this point (and also the reason why some companies balked at using social media earlier in the game).
But marketers must master all aspects of social communication, from creating website content that engages potential customers and drives leads, to supporting these SEO-related/organic efforts with paid advertising using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a number of other important social networking and bookmarking services. If you aren’t currently using social networking sites to a fairly high degree by now, you have ALREADY fallen behind your competition quite a bit. Companies that embrace social media as part of their larger web content creation and distribution strategy will be the ones who succeed in the future. What does YOUR social media management plan look like?
(If you don’t have any answer to that question, you need to Contact Us today to learn more about potential solutions, before you slip behind your competitors even further!)
Social Media is Now King Over Email
4 years
by jhaynes
in Uncategorized
It’s Official - People Now Spend More Time On Social Media Than In Their Email Inbox
At Hat Trick Associates, we have talked at depth about the continued power of email marketing. In a 2012 study in fact, 74% of respondents said that email was still their preferred method to receive commercial communications. But that doesn’t take into account that many people do NOT associated interaction with some brands and companies via social media as “commercial” communications, like they would a coupon or special offer, and that number (that 74%) is admittedly in a terminal decline downward. What does this mean? Well, your email list is still a very good way to get web content to your prospective clients and customers or current ones…and a “clean” list of email addresses of those you do business with or would like to still has tremendous value to your organization. But social media as a marketing strategy is no longer an afterthought, and for many businesses it has become “the” place that the bulk of their marketing can and should be applied.
Social Media Web Content Trends
This also doesn’t take away from web content SEO needs, and the fact that your homepage, overall website and any landing pages you create should be very well designed and opitimized, both for search engines and also for the user experience - or sales conversions, you know, the reason you have a site in the first place? (You’d be surprised at home many companies lose sight of that fact when focusing just on SEO for their web properties). But your social media efforts need to be robust (for most businesses, ESPECIALLY B2C companies) and need to be integrated into your other marketing. Which means it has the same tone, the same voice, messaging, etc. that all your other marketing does. Is your brand a break-the-mold, irreverent type of service or product that has been promoted that way? Then make sure your Twitter feed or Facebook posts match that same voice…and don’t instead have plain, boring posts that are informational in nature. In the same way, if your brand is a very upright, by the books “show me the specs” type of company or in an industry such as that overall, a wacky off the wall social media voice probably won’t work best for you. So INTEGRATE this marketing vehicle, and include your plans for social media when crafting all of your other marketing plans and proposals. Don’t allow social media to be a tack-on marketing effort that isn’t incorporated into your overall company goals. Set targets, and do your best to measure metrics. Have minimum posting schedules in place, a strategy for addressing immediate, this is your only shot-type of opportunities (Think: Oreo’s “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark” ad and social media during the black out in this year’s Super Bowl).
It’s more important than ever before for an agency to provide its clients with a specific social plan to grow their social audience, promote their best content on social, and measure the effects of each effort. Ensure that YOUR marketing department is one of those that is “doing it right” when it comes to your social media efforts, it will pay off for your organization in the long-term assuredly.