Blog outsourcing is ideal for businesses that need the expertise and attention for their company blog. How do you know if this solution is also right for you? Open Access BPO, a leading call center company in the Philippines, will help you weigh your decision by presenting the things you should consider before outsourcing your blog.
Having a company blog is good way to introduce your brand, market your goods, and establish a reputation online. Maintaining one, however, can be hard work. Just think of all the time, attention, and resources you need to devote to keep up with web updates, respond to or moderate a swarm of comments daily, promote your posts, and do many other small but daunting content creation tasks.
Both starting and established blogs can face these challenges, and blogs of any size or reputation can benefit from outsourcing. But before delegating content management roles to outsourced bloggers, search engine optimization (SEO) experts, moderators, and curators, consider these pros and cons of the venture first:
The advantages
Perhaps the biggest advantages of blog outsourcing, or any outsourcing move, are cost reduction and high quality output. Hiring writers from low-cost areas with a highly educated populace like the Philippines gives you access to a pool of competent talents, some of whom prefer exposure more than monetary compensation. These bloggers may want a barter arrangement like writing for you in exchange for a link to their own site on your blog or republication rights of what they write for you. If they’re reputable, they could boost your blog’s reputation as well, especially if it’s still new.
The disadvantages
If your blog has already established a good readership, outsourcing may tarnish the tone you’ve already set and the personality that your readers have built a relationship with. Even if your outsourced blogger produces quality content, you may lose readers if he can’t convey ideas in the image that your followers have grown to love.
The solution
There are always drawbacks that come with every business decision. In blog outsourcing, the cons can be countered by carefully defining the needs of your business and the pulse of your audience to come up with the most effective blogging strategies and find the type of creators that suit your market’s taste.
Consider including these in your criteria when sifting through a handful of candidates:
• Knowledge about the role and your industry
• Writing style and personality
• Compatibility of style with your brand
• Past accomplishments
It also pays to consider the setting that you and your content management team will agree on. Should you hire staff bloggers or guest posters? Should you outsource the SEO, moderation, and management duties only while you continue writing to maintain the blog’s personality? And if you ever decide to entrust the writing to someone else, how should he emulate or uphold your established blog personality?
No matter what setting and criteria you decide on, you should be ready for any results, be it good or bad. If traffic and customer count start going up, then be ready to heighten your engagement activities. And if the opposite turns out, re-strategize until you arrive at the blogging solution that works best for you.
