Employing Online Creatives To Expand Your Blog

Last updated on 30 October 2023

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Thinking of employing online creatives to expand your blog?

Blogging has really taken off over the last decade or so. When I started blogging back in 2008, I hadn’t been aware of this sort of platform, let alone be a place where you could collaborate with others and even begin employing online creatives to contribute to your little spot on the internet. With far more people having access to the Internet than ever before, it’s becoming easier and easier to create your own content and build a following of people who enjoy your content and/or benefit from the things you’re sharing.

Once you reach enough readers, there will come a time when you might want to expand. Just like any business, taking on new employees (or writers, in this context) is an excellent way to approach this, but it can be hard to know how best to handle something like this for the first time. To help you out with this, here are a few steps you can follow to find the right content creators for you and your blog.

Finding Creatives

The internet is full of creative sorts, and there’s no shortage of writers, photographers and content creators out there. There are a number of different ways to find creative people, and you can usually pick and choose how you’d like to handle their employment. Having them on as a freelance worker will be the least risky and most cost-effective approach. While this will mean that they can quit their work with you at the drop of a hat, it also means that you won’t have to continue giving them work you if you don’t want to. Websites like Upwork can help you to find good writers, but you could also look at hiring someone else who has a blog that covers topics similar to your own.

I’ve been a freelance writer myself for a few different online sites, and it was a fantastic experience and allowed me to better understand both writing as a skill, and also being a freelancer.

Testing Their Skills

Before you make any agreements or give them any money, it will be important that you see their skills in action. Hiring a creative person without seeing what they can do can be a big mistake, as even high-quality work sometimes doesn’t meet the right standards for you and your blog. You can ask for writing samples, examples of their previous work, and even a mock blog post to make sure that they can match your style. When I did work the freelance work I mentioned previously, they had already seen my work in action through various other blogs and sites. This will be less crucial if you plan to let them post under their own name on the blog, but this is something you have to decide for yourself.

Giving Them Terms

It’s crucial that you build an understanding from the very beginning when you hire someone like this. They are working for you, and this means that you have to make it clear that while you’re collaborating, you retain sole ownership of the blog you’ve built along with the content they write for you.

You can find contract templates around the web, but it might be worth hiring another freelancer on a temporary basis to write one for you. At this point, it can be smart to perform ID verification with automated image quality check. This will ensure that they are who they say they are, without making them jump through too many hoops.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to get started employing online creatives to your blog. Hiring people has always been a good way to grow a business, and using freelancers is a cost-effective way to achieve this goal. You won’t need to pay for offices, expensive bills, or insurance to cover it all, and will have the freedom to drop and pick up new writers as you see fit.

Disclaimer: This post was contributed to This Splendid Shambles by FatJoe. Learn more about This Splendid Shambles’ collaborations on the Policies page.

Image originally from Ivory Mix.