There's a significant problem companies are having nowadays.
They are not able to create enough content.
The reason is because, for obvious reasons, it's not very cheap.
Creating content regularly or hiring a content creator costs a lot of time and also takes a lot of money to have done correctly.
A typical content creator can charge anywhere between $1000 - $10,000 a month. I know that's a pretty large gap.
But there are a variety of services that can change. And because of that, there's no specific number.
Blogs paid for can range anywhere between $50 to $500. Depending on the knowledge, skill level, and ability to write, to write by the author.
The major problem that companies are having is not understanding how to leverage their employees to build and create more content.
I love looking at different companies and saying, hey, how could you create more content for not only cheaper, faster, but better than any blog writer or content creator could make?
Coming from somebody that does this for a living, there are a lot of things that I look for when I'm working with a company.
One, are they willing to work with me and not just make me do all of the work? I know that sounds weird.
However, the content that I can produce is only going to be of a certain quality, the content that they can provide for me is going to be far better than anything I could find online.
I know that sounds strange.
The internet is limited in a lot of areas and the content that could be provided by a company is usually far better.
However, it is not something I'm unwilling to do, they just need to understand that there are limitations that I'm going to have.
Those limitations can be everything from image quality, down to not knowing everything there is possible to know about a certain subject.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I have had the fortunate ability to work in a variety of different companies in a variety of different industries.
Because of that, there are certain companies and industries that I could do a phenomenal job in.
And on the flip side of things, there are companies and industries that I can't write well for.
For example, lawyers are a very difficult subject for me since I didn't go to law school and don't understand everything that they know, nor do I have access to the information they have because I just don't know where to find it.
So, you're probably wondering how that relates to your company.
Well, this is the case if you're looking to hire somebody, but I want to talk to you about the more important stuff where it's having a company be able to create their content from inside.
If you're a company with at least 5 to 10 employees, chances are pretty good that you can create a nearly limitless amount of content.
Now, I've said in other blogs that you should be able to ask your employees to write at least one blog every quarter at a bare minimum.
That means if you have 10 employees all writing one blog per quarter, you're looking at about 40 new pieces of blogs or content each year.
Now that might not sound like a lot, but most companies have zero or very little content.
Having your employees write for you at least once a quarter for an entire year is going to put you significantly further ahead online.
The benefits of this are not only new eyeballs from potential customers, however, you now also can break into different areas and have different answers to questions potential consumers may have but how do you get your employees to write?
Well, there are typically a couple of different ways.
You can ask them to write for you.
You may get some pushback, however, if you make it a mandatory company policy that everybody writes at least one blog per quarter, that is of decent quality.
Now that it's company policy, everybody has to do it, it will more than likely go over pretty smooth.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are going to be employees that can't write nearly as good as others. And that's fine.
You could leverage them for social media.
Typically, they should be able to create some kind of content for social media and post it in something like Grammarly, which will help fix their mistakes.
I know it sounds very strange. But, when you do this, you're still giving them the ability to create and express themselves and help further the company.
However, not everybody is going to be a good writer, and that's just a matter of fact. But how do you fix all of the blogs that are written by somebody else?
That's much more simple to answer.
You can easily hire a proofreader that will go in and help correct and fix a lot of your blogs. Chances are good that most blogs written by employees are going to be of decent quality.
Having a proofreader come in and fix and clean up some of your blogs should be way cheaper than creating from scratch.
They're also going to have significantly higher quality because they're going to be answered by an employee who knows the industry like the back of their hand.
This is going to give you a tremendous advantage against your competition.
Because you're creating content that comes from inside, not hiring an outside person who doesn't know everything there is to know about the industry.
Doing your research, taking some time and investing in your employees is a phenomenal way to build up a huge content database.
But you might be thinking, "Harrison, we're already so busy, there's no way we can create content."
An easy outlet for you is to find somebody that can write for you, I have a ton of resources and people that I've found simply by posting on LinkedIn and Facebook, saying, "Hey, I'm looking for a writer in these certain areas."
Typically, somebody will work their way out and say, "Hey, I'd love to write for you." Also, people in other companies will work on the side to help, right?
Because of that, you can leverage those people and leverage those things, to work to your advantage. Nobody ever complains about a little extra money.
And that's something that you could pay an outside person to write for you who is already involved in the industry to get the largest advantage.
Now, these people typically won't be cheap because they already have their experience and their quality might not be the absolute best unless you find a company that specializes in a certain area.
I love writing all of my blogs or as many as I possibly can, because they're typically longer format and they cover a much deeper knowledge level, then I could pay most other people.
Even if I hired outside and said, "Hey, can you write a blog for me?" They're still not going to be as deep as I would like them to be.
And because of that, they're not going to be the quality that I'm looking for.
Now, I'm not saying I write all of my blogs, but as many as I possibly can.
I will write because those are going to be the much deeper ones that give you inside information, and typically are much more accurate as far as real-world knowledge.
I also leave those blogs to be written for me because they can be much deeper than a topical blog.
For example, how to set up a LinkedIn is a blog that somebody else could write where I don't have to invest my time energy effort into, and I could pay somebody else to write that.
However, how to make a sale or how to turn your employees into contact creators is going to be drastically different than a simple LinkedIn setup.
So you're probably wondering, "Harrison, I don't understand how to do this. First of all, the easiest way is to just make it policy."
Set a realistic example or set a realistic timeframe for your employees and ask your employees what they're capable of.
Some employees might have stronger suits than others. Not every employee is going to be able to take a good picture.
And not every employee is going to be able to write a good blog.
But if you ask them all to mandatorily do something that should take them less than maybe an hour a month. There's no reason why they can't do something significant.
The nice part is if you just tell them to work it into their day, they should be able to get it done with little to no extra cost to you.
You may need to hire some people to look over all the social media and to go over at all, which is fine because that's what most companies need to do anyway.
Do yourself a favor and invest in a decent copywriter and proofreader because they can take decent content and make it significantly better.
This is also a tremendous benefit to you when it comes to looking for future talent.
I recommend companies that can afford it to have a full-time writer because that person is not only going to write and create content for the company.
But they're also going to be able to learn industry experience that they would never be able to get otherwise when creating content.
If that person can write at least one blog every day or every other day, that gives you the potential to write hundreds of pieces of not only blogs but social media posts that could be attracting new customers.
Now, I know this might sound crazy, or you might be saying how much does that cost?
Anyone decent at their job is going to typically charge anywhere between 50 to $60,000 a year, and that might not sound like a lot of money to some people and that might sound like a ton of money to others.
But customer acquisition is usually one of the more expensive areas for companies. And because of that, this is an easy way to avoid spending a ton of money on ads and leveraging significantly better talent otherwise.
Companies should be focusing on creating more and more as we migrate to a consumption society.
Creating blogs on how to buy and curating social media content is going to be the best way to attract new clients and build better relationships in the long term.