A corporation’s online presence today has expanded far beyond the single page brochures of the past. Now companies regularly churn out content for their web site, blogs, social media sites, etc. They often need writers to help create this content, but that expertise can be difficult to find on staff. Contently is helping solve this problem through its online platform that connects writers with companies who need their services.
“Contently is an easy way for businesses to get high quality writing done,” explains Joe Coleman, Co-founder of Contently. “What we’re finding is that brands are increasingly producing more and more content, but publishing isn’t their core competency, so typically brands don’t have people in-house who can write the content. Usually they don’t want to build editorial teams, and there’s really no central place where you can go find great writing talent. Contently is building that marketplace of professional journalists and bloggers where companies can come and find great talent and work with those guys to create great content.”
When you sign up with Contently, the first thing you do is have a conversation with the head of Contently’s editorial division. You describe your audience, your brand, your goals, topics that you want to cover, and the dos and don’ts for your brand. Contently uses that information to build a style guide, which they can give to writers and editors to make sure they’re creating content that’s well written and on-point. They also use the style guide to help find writers uniquely suited for your project.
“One of the things we believe about great content,” says Coleman, “is that it’s important to have not just a writer who’s a good writer but also somebody who really understands the topic they’re writing about. We have that big database of professional journalists and bloggers. We know that they’re good writers. We know what they’re good at writing about, so if P&G [for example] comes to us and needs specific writers around a certain topic, we can go and connect P&G to a group of writers who talk about those sorts of things and can do a good job with that content.”
Finding steady, reliable income can be quite challenging for freelance writers, and seeking out new projects takes away from time that could be spent on their craft. Contently hopes to give writers and journalists a quick and convenient way to pursue their passions and earn competitive wages doing it.
“One of the things we’re most excited about with the business is giving freelance journalists a new way to work,” explains Coleman. “Being a freelance writer is really hard. As you start out from journalism school…you spend a lot of your time chasing editors and chasing checks when all you really want to do is write about the stuff you love. At Contently, we found a unique formula where we have brands paying for high quality original content. They’re willing to pay more than say traditional media companies and people who are only paying as much as they can afford based on ad impressions and those sorts of things, which means we can give writers higher payouts and basically allow them to earn a living through Contently.”
More info:
Contently web site: http://contently.com/
Contently blog: http://contently.com/blog/
Contently profile on CrunchBase: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/contently
Contently profile on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gocontently
Comments on this entry are closed.