We’ve seen that content creation is a targeted and tedious process – especially now in 2024. Long hours, sleepless nights, missed events are just some of its highlights. Want to avoid the hassles? Then you should know how to hire someone to create a content creation plan.
However, it’s not something as simple as going to the supermarket to buy something and be done with it.
We have put years of blood and sweat into the content writing & social media marketing fields but it’s only now that we know how and where to find the best content creators. So we have written this guide with the practical and step-by-step methods to make your hiring process a breeze.
Let’s get started.
5 Reasons Why You Should Hire a Content Creator to Create a Plan
“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic,” says Seth Godin. So imagine you have a key create those relations and stories with your audience. You’d use it in a jiffy, right? That’s what a good content creator brings to your team – a chance to tell your story to the audience in a way that will convert them into customers.
So here are the five practical reasons why you should hire a content creator for your business.
1. Increase Your Business Reputation
The right content creator will help you increase your business reputation with high-quality content they create. Informative blog posts, engaging social media content and compelling videos, you name the type of content and they can create it.
Content with higher quality and relevance can position your brand as a trusted authority in your industry and earn the respect and admiration of your target audience.
2. Improve SEO Continuously and Regularly
Google, as a surprise, has been pushing updates for SERPS pretty regularly over the last years and the process has not stopped even today. For business people, it’s a long walk down the road to keep themselves informed & educated with all the new updates.
So a professional content creator will create your content with ultimate precision to make sure that it not only has a high quality but is also perfectly poised to rank on Google by following all the latest tricks and tips and make your business visible to more people.
The fact that almost 70% of online purchases start with a search engine makes knowing how to hire someone to create a content creation plan even more crucial.
3. Build Loyal Audience & More Connections
A successful business is always more than just its quality products and services. It has a special bond, a level of trust with its audience. Now what if our content could do more than just selling your products and services and establish that kind of relationship with your own audience?
That’s what a professional content creator does – speak directly to the hearts and minds to build a loyal and stronger customer base by increasing your audience’s engagement.
Read More: Are Mobile Blogging Software Worth the Hype? Features & Benefits
4. Drive Real Actions on Your Platform
You create content to make your audience visit your website and turn them into customers, right? Are they able to find what they need to make their purchasing decisions? Content isn’t what you only fill your pages with, it’s what creates a pathway to action and makes them buy your services and products.
A good content creator will attract visitors and guide them clearly in a compelling way to take action, whether it is to sign up for updates, buy something or even just share your content with others. For example, when a CTA is added in a strategic way, conversion rates can increase up to 68%, a huge improvement.
5. Align Your Content with Your Business Goals
Content should always have a purpose. Are you sure yours has one and is working hard enough for your business? Does each blog on your website, each post on your social media platforms serve its purpose to increase the engagement, visibility and ultimately sales? If not, maybe your content goals in your marketing strategy are not following your business goals.
To ensure that your goals align, you must hire a professional content creator because only the experienced ones can help achieve your business objectives as strategically as you want.
How to Hire Someone to Create a Content Creation Plan: Steps & Tips
Well, as they say, “In recruiting, there are no good or bad experiences – just learning experiences!!” So how to hire someone to create a content creation plan?
As we have already navigated those waters and know what do and what to avoid, we won’t let you have a bad experience. Our years of experience has helped us refine that process here in this section to make sure that the content creator you choose is not just a hire but the right hire.
1. Create a Job Posting
Freelancing and other professional platforms give you an opportunity to find the best match and separate the experienced from the inexperienced. It all begins with a job posting.
Remember the difference between a job posting and a job description. The job description is for internal purposes and cannot be used for an external audience. Here’s a quick difference:
Job Posting: A kind of announcement to inform your potential candidates about the opportunity and includes details like company bio, job roles & responsibilities.
Job Description: An in-depth overview of the role that includes the summary, catalog of all the responsibilities, soft & business skills and minimum qualifications that you require for that role.
a. Give A Suitable Job Title:
So sign in to your preferred platform and go to the “post a job/hire a candidate” or a similar option and then to content creation services. Begin writing your job posting with a very precise job title. It should reflect the scope of work so it should be something like a Content Writer, SEO Content Specialist or a Digital Content Specialist.
b. Specify The Company Details & Probable Salary Range:
Introduce the name and structure of the company. Then mention the salary expectations the content creator should expect from the business. If someone finds themselves an overachiever for the job, they will simply not apply. Saves you time and money.
c. Define The Role & Responsibilities:
Next, mention the requirements including all the responsibilities and the type of content you need. Will they create content creation plans & calendars? Or write social media posts? Or long form articles? Be clear with the details as they’ll attract those who are qualified and are excited to take it on.
d. Highlight The Required Skills:
Now highlight the skills you want them to possess for that post. It could include SEO knowledge, CMS experience in WordPress, ContentERP, Hubspot etc or any specific writing styles.
e. Outline The Instructions To Apply:
The last section is where you mention all the instructions clearly on how to apply, what to include in their application and what projects or samples they should attach. This will help you understand their previous experiences and expertise in a better way.
Tip: Make sure you understand the difference between a freelancer and an employee. Sometimes, but not always, freelancers are way better for short term projects. On the other hand, the employee can go for years and can also understand your business better. Choose as per your needs.
2. Gather Portfolio Details & Reviews about the Applicants
Next up, take a look at the list of candidates who have applied for the job and filter the ones who are unqualified. Usually about 75% of the applicants are unqualified for the jobs they apply for, so it will take you some time to filter them all.
For the qualified ones, start collecting their portfolio details. In ideal situations, we usually also look up for referrals and work history before we interview the candidates. Their past work should also show you their work quality, variety and effectiveness.
If we want to hire or outsource to a freelance writer through a freelancing platform, we read the negative reviews as well. This helps us figure out what everyone complains about in their work and what exactly must we avoid.
If something is repetitive, we simply skip the candidate because we know the chances of us making the same complaint are pretty high.
Tip: If someone is really interested in your job posting, their cover letter and resume will be directly customized as per the job requirements. They’d have mentioned your website, expected payment and relevant experience and all other details.
3. Shortlist Potential Candidates for Interviews
Now that you have posted the job, received several cover letters and applications, it’s time to shortlist candidates. Make a list of the ones who you think are the best fits for an interview. It’ll take you a while to go through them all and shortlist the most suitable ones.
In our personal experience, only 1 to 2 out of 10 applicants are good enough to be considered for the next step of the hiring process. We get hundreds of applications just for one job posting so it takes hours, or sometimes even a couple of days, for us to sift through all of them to find the right ones.
Tip: Don’t forget to consider personal statements & work histories. That’ll show you if they’re inclined to stay & grow professionally or simply jump ships after achieving their short-term goals.
4. Schedule & Conduct Thorough Interviews
Next, you have to interview the selected candidates. Finalize the time, dates and the location (if the job is on-site) of the interviews for each candidate and convey this info to them as per the availability.
During the interview process, try to assess how well the candidate can align with your company’s or business’s work ethics. Ask them about their work preferences and career aspirations as well to get some deeper insights about their abilities.
What we find very considerable during the interviews is to ask them how they research the topics. Do they open the links on the first page of Google & jot everything down from there? Cause then, that new blog won’t provide any new info or out of the box suggestions and advice, thus making it similar to the ones already present over the internet.
If they use YouTube, Quora, Reddit, Medium, AnswerThePublic and other platforms as well to gather info and stats where people are genuinely answering queries, it’s a pointer that they know what to do and might be the writer you are looking for.
Tip: Make sure the writer can understand and acknowledge your mission statement and the content goals you convey during the interview. This would be the basis of their future assessments and projects.
5. Set Clear Expectations & Sign a Contract
So now that you have selected the best candidate, it’s time to move on to the next and last step which is to negotiate a contract and make them fully aware of your expectations.
What are the salary range and increment conditions? When do you hold your meetings? What are the work expectations and KPIs? Payment methods and on what basis, expected timeline for each task etc etc. You should convey everything very clearly to the final candidate.
No questions should be left unanswered and the candidate should ask as many questions as they want. This shows commitment and professionalism that someone is interested in understanding the business and taking it to heights.
Tip: Include a review period (of 30, 60 or 90 days) in your contract so that both the parties can evaluate if this new arrangement is working effectively for everyone.
Where to Find the Best Content Creators
Great content is never just about putting some words together, but rather what and how to string them together. And not everyone can do it exactly as you or your brand needs. But to find the perfect content writer is not a small feat.
So now you know how to hire someone to create a content creation plan, but where should you start looking for your ideal candidate?
For your ease, here are some sources we have gathered that will connect you to some of the top content writers and creators.
1. Upwork
Upwork is one of the oldest and most well-managed freelancing platforms and has some of the most experienced freelance content writers and there are less chances of being scammed here due to a strict check and balance between both the parties.
Post Detailed Job Description:
The best thing about Upwork is that you can post a detailed job offer and then receive proposals from all concerned and interested candidates along with direct access to their profile details and portfolio.
Automatic Job Invites:
Upwork also allows you to send invitations to top rated professionals to apply for the job you post even before they can send a proposal themselves. This helps encourage the best and most highly skilled professionals to apply for your job at their earliest to get selected.
The content professionals on Upwork are highly paid so make sure you have a good budget if you want to get extraordinary results.
Read More: YouTube Content Strategy: A Complete Guide with 10 Proven Steps
2. Fiverr
Fiverr is another top rated freelance platform where you search your required task/job and the Fiverr algorithm recommends individuals to whom you reach out with all the details.
Search by Skillset & Experience:
You can filter your searches by any specific writing skills or expertise to hire the best content writer according to your criteria.
Evaluate Portfolios & Past Reviews:
Every freelancer on Fiverr has a portfolio of their experience and past work along with all the ratings and reviews their clients have provided them. This info will give you the insights about their capability and reliability.
Start Small With Low Budget Hires:
The best thing about Fiverr is that you can start with a low budget here. Professionals on Fiverr provide their services for as low as $5 which is a plus especially if you are on a very tight budget.
3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn has to be the most professional platform for freelancers, outright businesses and high-end clients and is our 2nd most go-to platform to hire our writers. Not only is it an extremely preferred amongst all content professionals but also a go-to place for them to show their skills and experience by actually displaying it in the form of comments, blogs, industry connections etc.
Find Candidates With Recommendations:
The top rated content writers have several authentic endorsements on their profiles by other industry professionals. It becomes easier for you to know which ones are worthy enough to offer a role for your projects.
Engage With Content To Understand Expertise:
Good content managers and writers actively publish blogs and comments to show their expertise. You can take a look at their content to see if their writing style and expertise match your job responsibilities and criteria.
Create an Effective Content Creation Plan with Your New Hire
See how crucial it is to know how to hire someone to create a content creation plan? It covers a whole process that makes sure you select the best content creator to achieve your content goals.
Done with selecting one? Now it’s time for a proper plan to take this forward.
- Tell them what you are hoping to achieve and for how long. The objectives need to be clear. Your content creator should know what is expected of him and how he should achieve it.
- They might not get it on the first day so give them some time to adjust to the work requirements, brand personality, brand voice etc.
- Work with your content creator to define your target audience and develop content strategies and goals. Help and identify the gaps and opportunities for improvements via a content audit.
- Once everything is done and you have all the information on your fingertips, now create the perfect content creation plan with a content calendar to make sure that the production, approval and publication of content goes according to the plan.
- Hold regular (we suggest keeping the frequency weekly or every 10 days) meetings and tell them about responsibilities and evaluate their work.
Maintain a Successful Relationship with Your Content Team
You see, the business grows when the team grows. There’s very little we can do alone and so much we can do together.
From our experience in the content writing industry, we say can say one thing with confidence: once you start keeping all the teams updated about everything, your teams eventually grow confidence in your decisions and follow it to perfection.
Content is all about creativity & trends and variety is its lifeline in digital marketing. Hence, don’t boss the teams around too much, give them some space to be creative and think out of the box.
So now we know how to hire someone to create a content creation plan, it’s time to kick start a successful professional relation to bring out the best in them. Hear them out and keep a clear communication. It opens doors to fostering a positive work culture. And also the team feels supported and valued.
Isn’t that what we all want?
Prevent burnout and have brainstorming sessions where everyone grabs a cup of coffee and pitches in with their ideas, no matter how absurd they sound. Not only will this help get some productive ideas but also give time to the whole team to interact with each other.
Read More: Creative Brainstorm for Content Ideation – Here’s How to Conduct It
FAQs – How to Hire Someone to Create a Content Creation Plan
How much does it cost to hire a content creator?
In our experience, the cost to hire a content writer varies widely and primarily depends on their level of expertise. Typically:
Freelancers: May charge anywhere between $0.05 to $0.5 per word as per their experience & the topic complexity.
Agencies: Usually offer packages content writing that can range from $500 to several thousand per month.
How do I hire someone to create content?
To hire a content creator, you have to:
- Define your content needs first of all (like type, goals, volume etc).
- Choose the right hiring platform (freelancing websites, professional networks, agencies etc).
- Post a job with detailed description, shortlist candidates and conduct interviews.
- Clarify your goals and then sign a contract.
Is hiring a content creator worth it?
Oh definitely yes. Hiring a content creator is worth the investment. They should, however, be an expert and a professional enough to help you boost your SEO, engagement and conversions. Here’s a fun fact: content generates over 3 times as many leads as conventional marketing and costs 60% lesser.
How much do agencies charge for content creation?
Agencies usually have packages which include different content writing roles and responsibilities. Their basic packages can start from just a few hundred dollars while more comprehensive ones that may also include SEO optimization, social media management etc may cost you several thousand dollars per month.
How Can ContentERP Improve Your Content Management & Productivity
Well, here it comes, the crown jewel of your content creation plan, ContentERP. We have designed it to help you manage and streamline your niche blog and content websites in a more effective and efficient way.
Here’s how it will make your productivity skyrocket:
- Manage Your Keyword Research & SEO
Now track your target keywords automatically or search for new ones in the inbuilt keyword research tool to make sure your content ranks higher on search engines.
- Automate Your Content Workflow
No more running around the teams to have your projects completed. ContentERP simplifies content planning, creation and publication with automated workflows and assigns the topics to respective writers. Save your time & increase your productivity with content automation.
- Get Performance Analytics
ContentERP gives you all the information and insights you need to make data-driven decisions. See how each writer is doing, track their working hours and efficiency at your fingertips.
By using ContentERP, you’ll be able to create a much more organized, efficient and a highly scalable content creation plan. Sign up today and take your productivity to the next level.
Conclusion
Knowing how to hire someone to create a content creation plan has now become an essential knowledge, one that can affect the future of your brand. The Content Marketing Institute says that 62% of the most successful content marketers have a documented strategy. So to succeed in content strategizing, you have to find someone who not only understand your content’s vision and your brand’s personality but can also use it in the content that actually performs.
It took us years to understand the hiring process and polish it to perfection, but with this blog, we have made sure you get the best hire right away.
So sign up for ContentERP and follow the steps we have mentioned to create not just content but more of an experience that will engage your audience and drive your growth quickly towards success.