{"id":1337,"date":"2015-05-06T20:35:05","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T20:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/?p=1337"},"modified":"2019-02-15T17:14:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T17:14:27","slug":"hire-freelance-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/hire-freelance-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring a Freelance Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Mistake 1: Why&#8217;re you outsourcing? No clue!<\/h3>\n<p>Primary reasons why agencies\/businesses outsource content to freelance writers are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Lack of resources<\/li>\n<li>Lack of knowledge<\/li>\n<li>Lack of time<\/li>\n<li>Producing enough content varieties<\/li>\n<li>Lack of budget.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What&#8217;s your reason for outsourcing content? Think over these questions first &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Can your in-house team do it efficiently?<\/li>\n<li>What&#8217;s the investment from your side? Number of resources you would need to co-ordinate with the freelancers; remuneration of the freelancers; time spent on co-ordination etc.<\/li>\n<li>Will they be able to deliver by set deadlines? If not, then what&#8217;ll be your Plan B?<\/li>\n<li>What guidance will they need to complete the assignment?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The whole purpose is to analyse whether you need freelance writers or not? This will save a lot of trouble down the line. I&#8217;ve seen a lot of businesses hiring freelance writers then realizing that their in-house team can do it better than freelance writers. Which, if you ask me is a waste of time for both the parties.<\/p>\n<h3>Mistake 2: Define the person first<\/h3>\n<p>The pragmatic advice by Lou Adler &#8211; <strong>Define the job before defining the person. <\/strong>Mention in your posting these important things:<\/p>\n<p>a) What kind of content the writer will be working on? Will it be blogs, newsletter, social media posts, brochures, case studies or press releases?<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/hschulze\/b2b-content-marketing-report-40688285\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">B2B Content Marketing Report<\/a>\u00a0the most outsourced content formats are<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/123.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1350 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/123.png\" alt=\"b2b content marketing outsource\" width=\"657\" height=\"505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/123.png 657w, https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/123-300x231.png 300w, https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/123-150x115.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 657px) 100vw, 657px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/contentmarketinginstitute.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/B2C_Research_2014-withlinks.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">B2C Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets &amp; Trends<\/a>, B2C outsource more content than B2B companies.<\/p>\n<p>b) What&#8217;s the purpose of the content? Is it traffic? Engagement on social media? Branding?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">c) For which industry you need the content? Is it real estate, finance, lifestyle etc?\u00a0You don\u2019t have to tell all about the client in the posting. But, a brief overview of the client\u2019s business will ease out a lot of ambiguity.<\/p>\n<p>d) Who&#8217;ll he\/she be coordinating with? The marketing or the creative team?<\/p>\n<p>e) Does the writer need to do the research or your in-house team will provide the data?<\/p>\n<p>f) Where&#8217;s the client based? This is important\u00a0Because British and American English are as different as chalk and cheese.<\/p>\n<p>g) Does the writer need to go on a client call? If yes, then how frequently? If the client is based in the US and you&#8217;re hiring an Indian content writer then sort it out first.<\/p>\n<p>Then comes defining the person<\/p>\n<p>a) He\/she should be grammatically sound.<\/p>\n<p>b) Must have a prior experience writing for similar industry.<\/p>\n<p>c) Consider deadline as sacred.<\/p>\n<p>d) Can write content that relates to the goals.<\/p>\n<h3>Mistake 3: Not checking the CV<\/h3>\n<p>Sounds absurd, right? A lot of companies when hiring freelance writers don&#8217;t even bother to check the CVs. The only criterion for selection is how they write the sample topic. But that&#8217;s not the correct way to go about hiring. Often it also happens that freelance writers don&#8217;t email their CVs, they only send you a couple of their sample articles. In such cases ask the writer to email you the CV.<\/p>\n<p>Important things to check in the CV<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are they currently working? If yes, then ask how frequently they can submit the assignments? Suppose you need 5 blogs per day from the writer &#8211; will her\/his schedule allow it?<\/li>\n<li>Check previous employment. Are they writers by chance or passion? I get a lot of CVs from event managers to engineering students &#8211; all trying to dabble in content writing. 9 out of 10 times I&#8217;ve seen their passion for writing dwindling after first assignment.<\/li>\n<li>Check the references and call them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Mistake 4: No contract<\/h3>\n<p>No contract = a lot of trouble. The contract between your company\/agency and the freelance writer should include these points &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>services the writer will provide<\/li>\n<li>deadline<\/li>\n<li>response time<\/li>\n<li>originality of the work<\/li>\n<li>remuneration<\/li>\n<li>changes<\/li>\n<li>cancellation<\/li>\n<li>confidentiality<\/li>\n<li>payment &amp; collection.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Mistake 5: No guidelines on communication<\/h3>\n<p>Are there any guidelines regarding who&#8217;ll communicate with the freelancers, what&#8217;ll be the mode of communication, time etc. Where I work we always communicate via email; so both the parties have all the important things in writing. The reason for doing so isn&#8217;t lack of trust but clarity.<\/p>\n<h3>Mistake 6: Not interacting at all<\/h3>\n<p>Sadly a lot of companies hire freelance writers without even talking to them. I think one should talk to the writer at least once before hiring. After all, you don&#8217;t want to work with a person whose DNA doesn&#8217;t match with that of your company.<\/p>\n<p>Ask them behavior based questions and check how they&#8217;re responding. Also, note whether they&#8217;re asking questions or not. You can understand many things about a person based on the questions he\/she asks.<\/p>\n<h3>Mistake 7: Selecting only on the basis of price<\/h3>\n<p>What a writer quotes isn&#8217;t in anyway related to the quality of the article he\/she&#8217;s capable of submitting. I&#8217;ve seen writers who come with a higher price tag delivering content that in one word can be described as gibberish.<\/p>\n<h3>Mistake 8: &#8220;I don&#8217;t need you&#8221; attitude<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/e182c3e12889f98181884b3d9d794f5d.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1374 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/e182c3e12889f98181884b3d9d794f5d.jpg\" alt=\"hiring freelance writer \" width=\"500\" height=\"352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/e182c3e12889f98181884b3d9d794f5d.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/e182c3e12889f98181884b3d9d794f5d-300x211.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Seriously? Remember content is the king? And good content writers are the queen. Having a team of creative, grammatically sound, intelligent &amp; honest freelance content writers is an asset. It requires a lot of hard work, patience and time. Don&#8217;t ruin it with your I-really-don&#8217;t-need-you attitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mistake 1: Why&#8217;re you outsourcing? No clue! Primary reasons why agencies\/businesses outsource content to freelance writers are Lack of resources Lack of knowledge Lack of time Producing enough content varieties Lack of budget. What&#8217;s your reason for outsourcing content? Think over these questions first &#8211; Can your in-house team do it efficiently? What&#8217;s the investment from your side? Number of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-content-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meabhi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}