need a writer - Express Writers

Despite the Growth of Automation, Here’s Why Human Writers Aren’t Going Anywhere

June 19, 2024July 7, 2016 by Adam Oakley

“Hello, this is Sarah with Express Writers?” “Yes, hi. We’re a content automation company and need your services.” “I’d love to help. Can you explain your needs?” “Well, we’ve built software to create content that hits target audiences and is personable, but we really need human writers to add words and basically clean up the text. How good are your writers?” “They are great at writing–they’re actually human! We’d love to help.” ** I wish I could say we snuck in that sarcastic sentence at the end, but Sarah is actually much nicer than that. She’s one of our Content Specialists who answers our phones daily—and that was a call she got earlier this year. We aren’t disclosing company names for privacy reasons, but believe us when we say that a large automation company actually called in after they saw us on Google to confess that their “content automation” needed the human touch. And they’re not the first company to feel that way. [clickToTweet tweet=”In order to succeed today, you need to get personal, and this is something only actual people can do. -@ExpWriters” quote=”In order to succeed with today’s customers, you need to get personal, and this is something only actual people can do well. This isn’t likely to change anytime soon.”] Why Automation Will Never Replace Human Writers Did you know that 79% of top companies have been using some form of content automation for the last two years? At Express Writers, we use and love tools that allow us to automate some form of our content marketing process: i.e., Buffer for scheduling social media posts and visuals, KWFinder for honing down the best keywords online, and SEMrush for site audit and online presence analysis. But here’s why automation won’t come close to replacing the human writer. The written copy, the created content that fuels the automation, is always created by humans. Sure, you can plug the copy in any automation tool you want after it’s done, but first: you need real copy, crafted by a human. We rely on human copywriters to create every bit of human content that fuels our content automation part. We have a social media copywriter writing unique posts for every single scheduled post automated to go out in Buffer. We have a blogger and a content editor involved in the process it takes to create every single blog post of ours. The day a business or brand stops relying on humans for the creation part of it all, is the day they set themselves up for failure. On a more technical side, a few years ago WebProNews interviewed the CEO of a leading automation company, and reported that human writers aren’t going anywhere yet, because of the need for the human perspective and qualitative analysis in online content. To further this point, let’s look at what went on when content automation has been attempted. (Because let’s face it, trying to engineer the next automated writer replacement has happened.) A lot…went wrong. The Facts: Stories of Content Automation Attempts that Failed Take a look at content automation that went wrong. Buffer: A Leading Social Media Tool Closes their Social Content Automation Feature Remember the tools I mentioned that we use? Well, one of them, Buffer (a leading social media tool) used to allow you to automatically schedule already-created posts. These were curated and pulled for you in a Suggestions feed. With one click, you could add their “suggested posts” to your feed and schedule – without even reading the content that you’re sharing. It looked like this: Guess what happened to that handy-dandy social media automation feature? They did away with it, announcing that it was closing in 2015. Why? In their own words–it didn’t hold up to the standard of value they believed in, across social media. It encouraged the sharing of content that wasn’t personalized to the person sharing it. Here’s what they said in the announcement: (P.S. We love Buffer all the more for their commitment to truly valuable content sharing in social media.) Now, let’s go deeper. The last time someone tried to use actual robots for the most important part of content marketing, the writing part, things went terribly wrong. Let’s explore the automation failures of history to show you exactly how that happened. Content Automation Gone Terribly Wrong: The Story of Spinners & Content Farms During the days of yesteryear, sneaky content creators tried to devise a way to spin out tons of “quality” content without bothering with hiring actual humans to write, edit, and post it. They did this through a series of “black-hat” SEO tactics including content spinning, content mills or farms, and scraped content. I’m going to break down the key two methods used back then: article spinning, and content farming. #1: Article Spinning (Spun Right Down the Drain) There were actually programs called article spinners – and they still exist today. Take a look at the gibberish that “Free Article Spinner” gives you, once you type or copy in a block of text, enter their captcha, and hit Spin. (Yes, this program is still out there!) Content spinning, using article spinners like these, used to actually be a thing. Black hat SEOs used spinning software to take one article and “spin” it into dozens of new articles at the push of a button. As seen above, content spinning often resulted in low-quality, unintelligible writing that human readers couldn’t even decipher. Google Panda Farmer is one of the main reasons no one is spinning articles anymore. It was one of the biggest algorithms that ever happened (it went down early February 2011), striking down over 11% of the spam on the web, de-ranking all duplicate and most of the spun content, and decreasing by 90% the rankings of big sites like Ezinearticles.com, hubpages.com, Answers.com, Articlesbase.com, and similar places that housed a lot of cheap, thin content written only for SEO. (See a more indepth analyses of Farmer on Searchmetrics.) I like to think that Farmer was Google’s announcement to the web that it’s algorithm was human-based: created for humans, by humans. Not some robotic crap that you could “game.” #2: Content Mills (or Farms): Not Your Old McDonald’s Besides … Read more

10 Non-Excusable Reasons Why You Need a Writer

December 31, 2020June 28, 2016 by Adam Oakley

As a writing team, we’re constantly hired to fill in for a missing talent: the art of writing. We put our unique writing ability and style to good use to help companies grow organically. Good copy enables them to improve their communication with their targeted audiences, sell faster and better, and achieve bold marketing goals – that they didn’t even know they had in mind. Yes: written content can do all of that. What’s your superpower? Need a Writer? Two Solutions: Become an Overnight Creative Superhero, or Find One Maybe you consider yourself fairly decent with words. Let’s go further. Maybe you’re among the few wonders of the world who can solve a Rubix cube in the blink of an eye. You feel like you can count on your above-average analytical skills to deliver the best answers to your customers’ questions, challenges and concerns. But what if you can’t string one sentence together that can convert a reader? Turn someone visiting your site into a buyer? Activate their brain as they scan your content, so they automatically (and instantly) want to know more about you and buy whatever you’re selling? Those “activation” words, my friend, are the product of a true artist – a writer with the compound power of creative thinking and creative writing, at their disposal. I’ll be honest here: as a writer, you can’t just “be creative.” You have to be able to turn your creativity into a flow of words. A well-developed vocabulary helps. Online writing skills are a big help if you want Google to read your words, too. But you can’t try too hard, because it must come naturally. Thus, the best content is written. Easy as pie–if you have a natural, talented expert writer at your disposal. 10 Clear-Cut Reasons Why You (And Everyone Else) Truly Does Need a Writer Intrigued on what makes a writer so hire-able? Here are some of the biggest reasons we’re hired daily (and why you need a writer). 1. You Need Better-Than-Average Copy to Win with Google Today It’s funny my first point references a “robotic algorithm,” right? Well, they’ve actually come to a point of reading content like a real human–so they look for great writing in the copy. Useful stuff, that people will actually want to click on and read. (I’m serious. Google’s that advanced these days.) And they recently released their rulebook, aka Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, which I’ve already discussed (read: dissected) in a previous blog here. In a nutshell, E.A.T is Google’s new name listing all the three key components that a page needs to meet its standards: A High Level of Expertise (E), Authoritativeness (A), and Trustworthiness (T). And then there’s Y.M.Y.L., which refers to the expert level content required for those high level industries (your money or your life – great rapper style, Google). If you think that your writing isn’t focused on expertise, authoritativeness, or trust: stop right now and rewrite everything until you come up with Google (and people)-friendlier versions, or put the pen down and let an experienced writer take charge. 2. You Don’t Want that Typo To Bring You Down OK: let’s say you have copy already written and you like it. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here. No matter what your content is about, a professional writer or copyeditor is your best bet to ensure your copy is error-free and solid. You don’t want to be the unintentional butt of that one humorous grammatical joke. I’m a professional copywriter, and I’ve been there: now, I always involve multiple people from our team in my own copy creation. Your answer: Nah, I’ve got this. I can proofread. #1: We’re all human, even the best of us. You’re going to miss an error at some point. #2: And have you ever proofread a ton of content? Because as your business and needs grow and you create more and more content, being your own editor gets a little…tedious. Refer to the below. Also, another short note on this point. An expert copywriter or is the best person to consult if you’re considering launching a tagline, slogan, or some other small bit of copy that will bring serious exposure. A writer can help you bring even more direct ROI from that little conversion phrase if they catch something, or perhaps save your business a ton of dough you’d lose if it wasn’t as good as it could be. Example: let’s say you’re starting a hashtag campaign. A professional writer can tell you if you’re falling in the danger of #SusAnalBumParty (a hashtag fail at trying to create a hashtag for Susan’s Album Party, for Susan Boyle, a few years ago). So, are we all looking forward to Susan Boyle’s #susanalbumparty? pic.twitter.com/AGZicIJq — ZOO Magazine (@ZOO) November 22, 2012 3. Your Brand Needs Great Content to Stay Relevant & Maintain A Competitive Edge Very few business owners have the creativity and analytical skills required to craft different types of web content that a brand requires to maintain an active presence both online and offline in today’s market. I’m not putting anyone down–there’s actually a lot of content types now you need to be creating to succeed online. And various types of content demand differing writing skills and knowledge. For instance, social media content is friendly, warm, and requires some marketing and conversational skills. On the other hand, web copy revolves around content SEO optimization knowledge, the ability to write targeted taglines and engage/direct your reader to ROI. For great blog content you have to know how to research certain topic well, and put it all together in a highly useful, informative, storified piece. Take an infographic–you have to know how to research, dig deep, and present it in an actionable, short, useful way. In all honesty, knowing how to mold your writing voice to each isn’t easy! You will need various writers for each type of web content that you’re planning on delivering. We have a social media manager, web copywriters, and blog copywriters who create our EW content. Our company counts on a team of specialized writers with experts … Read more

Why You Need A Writer: The Infamous Zookeenes & Bail Peprs Sign

December 31, 2020August 19, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Need a writer? The people in the Pacific Northwest might… Imagine this, you’re driving there, and you see a farm stand coming into view on the horizon. Your mouth waters as you imagine the juicy produce, and your mind begins to fill with fantasies of fresh-picked cherries, strawberries, apples, raspberries, honeys and jams and maybe even some delicious veggies to throw on the grill during dinner that night. As you get closer, however, you realize that this isn’t just any fruit stand. This is a fruit stand that appears to be in desperate need of a good writer, as evidenced by the spray-painted wooden sign that advertises “zookeene”, “tater + maters,” “hallopinyo” and… *Gasp* Your favorite member of the entire vegetable family – “bail peprs.” 3 Other Major Sign Mistakes (Aka Why You Need a Writer) Hold your giggles now folks, because this is exactly what happened to customers at the infamous “zookeene” farm stand and, while there is certainly a decent amount of power in sounding out difficult words, we can probably all agree that this is just one piece of evidence that indicates the need for good writers in all industries. Why you need a writer is about to be illustrated in 3,2,1… 1. The Case of Patterson School 20’s Misspelled Sign There is one misspelling mishap that might be slightly more tragic than the colorful “zookeene” and “bail peprs” sign and that is the infamous misspelling on the Patterson School sign. When students arrived at Patterson School 20 in Patterson, New Jersey in December 2014, they were in for a surprise. There, on the school’s marquee sign prominently located directly above the entrance to the prestigious establishment, was the newest of the school’s monthly information boards. This one, however, read like this: It didn’t take long, of course, for students and faculty to notice that, not only was December misspelled “Dicimber” and report as “reepor” but also that there was a ‘1’ facing noticeably backwards. To make matters worse, the school’s principal, who earned a salary of roughly $108,000 per year, left the sign up for an entire week, seeming not to notice the multiple mistakes. As a result, the school board grew angry and the principal, Antoinette Young, was quickly relocated to a different school district – all over a proofreading failure that went embarrassingly public. And that my friends is why you need a writer (or just a good copyeditor). 2. The Montgomery Debacle As if losing a job weren’t bad enough, imagine losing several thousand dollars over a misspelling. This is exactly what happened in Montgomery, Pennsylvania when the Montgomery County Court House left an important ‘m’ out of “commissioners” and produced a grand total of 26 signs throughout the county that had glaring and obvious misspellings on both sides, resulting in the need to fix a whopping 52 sign panels to rectify the mistake. After a call from the public and elected officials to fix the signs, Montgomery did so, at a cost of $4,000. To add insult to injury, the city projects that the signs will need to be replaced yet again after the local general election, resulting in another several thousand-dollar expenditure. 3. The Case of the Misspelled Spelling Bee When two young girls, Maiesha Akhand and Anamaria Brown came out as victors of the Centennial Elementary spelling bee, they expected local fame and maybe their name on the school’s marque sign. In the end, they got both but they were in for a bit of a surprise when their bus rolled by the billboard on the way out of town and they were met with this: Little did the girls know that the students would soon become the teachers, both in spelling and in irony. There’s A Growing Epidemic, And It’s Called Bad Spelling If the state of our spelling is this bad with all of our current technology, just imagine a civilization without spell check. Misspelled signs are popping up in everything from “A State Sales” to homemade billboards advertising “farwood fer sale.” Although these signs seem funny, and indeed they are, they also provide a pretty obvious reminder that there is no end to the value of a good writer – no matter what you’re selling. Although the “zookeenes” example is hilarious in its absurdity, it’s clear that these mistakes also make their way into high-level affairs, such as official city signage and school billboards and it goes without saying that it’s difficult to be taken seriously as an individual or an institution when your literature is riddled with misspellings. In addition to writing, optimizing sites for search engines, incorporating keywords into content and helping devise marketing and promotional materials, a great writer can also play the important role of proofreader and editor, which evidence has shown may be more important than anything else, in some cases. Businesses need a good writer more than they know. Although misspellings like Westar Mart’s “Ice Cold Bear” are hilarious at first glance, oversights like this can be detrimental for business at a higher level and spelling, as it turns out, is an indiscriminate and persistent scourge. Misspellings affect everyone from fruit salesmen to lawyers (as was the case when one attorney misspelled public as ‘pubic’ – as in “in consideration of important pubic matters” – all throughout a27 page legal document) and can cost a business time, money and sales. That said, the moral of the story is clear: hire great writers and keep yourself out of Elite Daily’s list of the “25 worst public spelling errors ever seen”. Need a writer (or two)? To learn more about the importance of hiring a great writer and how it can benefit your business (so you don’t let any “zookeenes” sneak in)… check out our Proofreading services.