team building - Express Writers

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Tips on Managing and Building Effective Content Marketing Teams with Michele Linn

January 1, 2021November 10, 2017 by Rachel Moffett

When it comes to building content marketing teams, there’s a lot involved in selecting the right people and working together successfully. But if you need help building a team of your very own, you’re in luck because that’s what we talked about in this week’s #ContentWritingChat. You’ll learn the essential traits a great team member should have, the roles that should be filled, and how to combat some of the common roadblocks that content marketing teams face. Ready to learn more? Keep reading for the recap! #ContentWritingChat Recap: Tips on Managing and Building Effective Content Marketing Teams with Michele Linn Join us for #ContentWritingChat on Tuesday, November 7th at 10 AM Central with @michelelinn of @CMIContent! ? pic.twitter.com/7ES4EAIBFO — Express Writers (@ExpWriters) October 31, 2017 Our guest host this week was Michele Linn. Michele is the VP of Content for Content Marketing Institute. Being a member of the CMI team, she definitely knows a thing or two about building a team and ensuring everyone works well together. She had some great advice to share during the chat, which you won’t want to miss! Q1: When building a team, what are some essential traits members should have? When selecting people for content marketing teams, there are some key traits you may want those people to have. Here’s what you should look for in a potential team member: A1: For content marketing teams, people need to fit in 3 ways: culture, content marketing mindset and skills. #ContentWritingChat — Michele Linn (@michelelinn) November 7, 2017 A1. I hire for a can-do attitude + willingness to be uncomfortable and figure out answers #ContentWritingChat — Michele Linn (@michelelinn) November 7, 2017 Michele feels that the people within a team need to fit together in three ways: culture, content marketing mindset, and skills. She said she also hires people based on their can—do attitude and their willingness to figure out answers to questions and problems. A1: The ability to work well with others is huge. Whether a team lead or a “worker bee,” everyone needs to get along.#ContentWritingChat https://t.co/jIGOCSoNaH — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) November 7, 2017 It’s crucial that the people on your team are able to work well with others. As Sarah said, everyone needs to get along if you want to work together efficiently. A1 Commitment to: 1 Larger purpose + goal 2 Each other (understanding, collaboration) 3 Work (strong work ethic)#ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/4U0HCHvmry — Gabriela Cardoza (@CardozaGab) November 7, 2017 Gaby feels a commitment to the team’s larger purpose and goal is essential. She also said it’s important to collaborate with one another and to have a strong work ethic. A1) The ability to collaborate & work together. If there’s animosity within the team, everyone & everything suffers. #ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/0Tl5Im8qTc — Jason Schemmel (@JasonSchemmel) November 7, 2017 For any kind of team, being able to work together is a must. As Jason mentioned, if there’s any kind of animosity within a team, everything will suffer. A1: Communication skills are most important in my opinion. A person needs to have the ability to talk with team members. #contentwritingchat — Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) November 7, 2017 Lexie knows that communication skills are a must. A team needs to be able to easily reach out to one another and connect. A1 Growth hacking mindset. Creativity. Expertise. Self-disciplined. Driven. = High-value content marketing #traits. #ContentWritingChat pic.twitter.com/pQP7dMoJLY — Julia McCoy ? (@JuliaEMcCoy) November 7, 2017 For Julia, she looks for someone who has a growth hacking mindset, creativity, and expertise. She also wants a team member who is self-disciplined and driven. A1. They have to be able to communicate as well as listen. #ContentWritingChat — Botz ? (@botzmag) November 7, 2017 Being able to communicate and listen is always essential for any kind of team. A1: Listening—to understand and not to reply. It’s important for team members to hear each other out. #ContentWritingChat. — Narmadhaa (@s_narmadhaa) November 7, 2017 It’s so important that team members hear each other out, which is why listening is such an important skill. Q2: How do you go about finding and selecting the right person for your content marketing team? Once you know what you’re looking for in a great team member, how do you find that person? Here’s some advice to help you while you’re on the hunt: A2. Figure out what gaps you have in your process. Where do you need the most help? #ContentWritingChat — Michele Linn (@michelelinn) November 7, 2017 A2. Consider the idea of hybrid marketers. Maybe a writer who knows SEO or a designer who understands UX. #ContentWritingChat — Michele Linn (@michelelinn) November 7, 2017 Michele suggests first finding the gaps you have in your process. You need to determine where you need the most help before moving forward with hiring. She also said you should consider hybrid marketers, which are those who have skills in a variety of areas. A2 a I start by writing a SUPER detailed description of who I’m looking for, their traits + the job, perks, and pay. #ContentWritingChat — Julia McCoy ? (@JuliaEMcCoy) November 7, 2017 Julia crafts a detailed description of whatever job she’s hiring for. She outlines what she’s looking for and that person’s ideal traits. A description of the job, any perks, and the pay is important as well. A2: Do a trial run & adjust the team afterward if necessary. Someone might look great on paper, but not be a good fit. #contentwritingchat — Netvantage Marketing (@netvantage) November 7, 2017 Lexie suggests doing a trial run before committing someone to your team. This allows you to see how this person will work with everyone else. You’ll know right away whether or not that person will be a good fit. A2: I ask for referrals from people whose work I like. I look for a certain quality level. #ContentWritingChat https://t.co/DpzEmZe1zh — Carlarjenkins (@carlarjenkins) November 7, 2017 Carla said she likes to ask for referrals from people. This is a great way to get recommendations since they’re coming from someone … Read more

What’s New at Express Writers for February: Storytelling Images & Custom Blog Headers, Social Media, Editing (Copy and Developmental), Project Management & More

September 5, 2022March 2, 2017 by Adam Oakley

This February, we’ve added some seriously powerful content services to our Content Shop repertoire. All of our continual changes and updates are based on specific needs from our clients, and a strict adherence we personally have to always maintain the edge of the curve in our industry. Here’s a shortlist / TL;DR of February’s new updates (scroll down to read about each): Storytelling Images & Custom Blog Headers. Our design team has been creating these for our own brand with great results in more brand awareness and content traction, so we decided it was time to launch custom image solutions, including beautiful storytelling variations and custom blog images, for our clients! Social Media Plans Update: Revamped social media plans to new standards, including content curation using BuzzSumo. Editing (Copy and Developmental). At both copy editing levels. Professional Interviewing. In this service, based on one simple interview fee, we now have staff Project Managers who are experts at interviewing subjects and obtaining key information that leads to a wonderful interview. Project Management. This new service takes care of a lot of “monkey work” that goes into organizing and maintaining content marketing. Client 101s. These are completely free for our clients, and are being written and designed as we speak! The first one, a Process/Content Order Lifecycle 101, is live! We’re working on a Meet the Team 101 next, where we explain how everyone’s staff role fits into an order and how clients can contact each of us, a Writing Levels 101, and several others. What’s New at Express Writers for February: Everything You Needed to Know on 5 New/Revamped Products & a New, Free Client Resource 1. New Custom Images: Storytelling Imagery, Blog Header Sets, & More Ever thought to yourself… “I wish I had a REALLY cool branded header for my blog and a variation to share on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook…” “I wish I could visualize a step in my customer journey/buying process with a cool, engaging illustration…” “It would be awesome to boost engagement with a cartoon strip for this industry controversial blog…” We’ve got you covered on all of those visual needs in our re-launched Custom Imagery service, live in the Content Shop. Clients can choose from a custom, beautiful, blog image set put together by our design team in Adobe InDesign, complete with a full-sized header and an inset to share on social media, or a storytelling graphic that would fit nicely in a process for your customers to visualize their journey/how it works page (example: our process). Want to see how cool these get (read: how amazing our design team is)? Here are a few: Killer, right?? We’ve literally designed thousands of these images for our own brand by now – the samples above are a brief preview of what we can do – and we thought it was high time to allow clients to buy it as a product. With custom imagery, we’ve seen massive results… We a huge CTR boost with a cartoon strip on our SEO post – a 25% boost in actual reads. Influencers picked up our content and shared it on Twitter WITH the image attached, boosting views to our content by another 25%. Never leave your images last on your to-do list again. Let us help you create better-than-average custom imagery to accompany your content! 2. Social Media Plans During this month, we also did some heavy updates and restructuring, much-needed, to our social media plans. I sat down and created new guidelines for our Social Media Experts, which condenses down to these three key, important changes: We now create and post 3/images per week at the minimum level (3 IG posts) instead of 1. Images, and Instagram, are hot! You can’t miss out on either, so we’ve increasing the volume at all levels on all plans. Our SMEs are now trained on how to use BuzzSumo to curate industry influencer content, and position your brand as an authority by sharing content that your fans will love and identify with. Choose whichever social media platform you’d like us to manage, now straight from the product itself! Our Social Media Plans have also been renamed to Level 1, 2, and 3 instead of Basic/Guru/Enterprise. 3. Copy Editing Our revamped Copy Editing service in the Content Shop now includes two levels to cover every need, developmental and copy editing services, starting at one hour (up to 3,000 words). We have senior, expert editors at both levels ready to take orders! See a guide to knowing the two differences of copy vs. developmental editing from our Content Development Specialist, Tara, on the Write Blog. 4. Professional Interviewing For one simple interview fee you can now have an incredible interview organized and done (check that off your list!) by our professional interviewing team. We now have staff Project Managers who have background expertise in interviewing and journalism, and have seen amazing results from the interviews done so far. See a post co-created by our Project Manager Hannah and Content Development Specialist, Hannah, on why interviews matter to content marketing. 5. Project Management Just launched last week, our new project management service offers a wonderful solution for a lot of our marketer clients who are continually overwhelmed, swamped, and lost beneath the work they have to do on their content marketing get-done list. Did you know that only 30% of marketers say their organizations are effective at content marketing? An actual decrease of 8% from the previous year.(source: Content Marketing Institute’s 2016 Benchmarks) Even less have a strong, documented content marketing strategy. Yet budgets, goals, and creation itself in content marketing actually increased by a large percentage during the same year. Our solution in offering project management is to help a real need we see that our clients have. Project management is a serious drain on them, yet a vastly crucial part of content marketing not to be overlooked. Scenarios Where Project Management Fits In Just a few of the problems our clients have given us that we can now solve with our project management service include: “We’re thinking about hiring a part-time staff member to handle all of these content needs and work with you, but it may not be in the budget, or we don’t know … Read more