Gone are the days when an employee could dash out an article stuffed with key words and empty of content. People trawling the net are looking for interesting, informative articles. For a business to effectively promote itself the objective must be to keep the public reading. But how does a company manage the burden of regularly producing content?

When to Outsource

The obvious choice is to outsource. But many companies argue that they know their business like nobody’s business. This is, of course, true. Besides having a specialised knowledge of the company’s particular products or services, each business has its own ethos, culture and character that need to be maintained and purveyed through the content that it publishes.   

If a company has writers on-staff that have the skill, time and discipline to produce good content, then that is definitely a viable option. But let's be honest, most companies don’t have someone on-staff whose only job is producing content. More often than not, content development is given to an employee with an already full schedule.

Perhaps an effective method of maintaining the specialised knowledge and character of a company while managing the consistent production of content is to have the in-house writer do some of the content production and outsource to cover the overflow.

But digital marketing is a complex balancing act that entails strategy, scheduling, creativity and specialised knowledge. A content marketer needs to know how to effectively utilise social media platforms, how to keep websites and blogs fresh and engaging, is both a skilled writer and editor and can act as a go-between for the company and the public in promoting content.

None of this is possible in isolation though. Outsourcing means having a working relationship with your content producers. A company can be very specific about exactly what they want written and have it verified and edited before publishing online. Besides that, any digital marketing company worth its salt would themselves become experts on the services and products they produce content for.

The sheer magnitude of content necessary to maintain a strong online presence means that much of the content will not be directly about the products or services associated with the company. Generating content like this requires research and a strong base of sources but mostly, it requires time.

Have first-class writing on your site, or associated with your company, to keep your potential customer’s reading and tweeting about you. Seldom do people pass on mediocre pieces of writing, even if the content is relevant. In the long run, interesting, well-written articles means your content is spreading further and working that much harder for you.

What do you think? In-house or outsourced content marketing? Give us your thoughts by commenting below or connecting on Twitter @SoundIdea

Sound Idea Digital specialises in Digital Marketing. For more information, contact 012 66 44 227 or email to info@soundidea.co.za | www.soundidea.co.za