TechGyts started a hunt for writers and really haven’t found a bearing.
This has been really challenging and all efforts has been to no avail.
We have tried posting on facebook and on some other random forums, spoken to people and maybe we are not talking to the right people.
Can someone with experience give suggestions on how to get writers and interns, who will write for free or get paid for each article forwarded for publishing?
I think the first thing you need to do is become a good writer yourself. No one who is worth his/her salt will work in a place that won’t boost their CV and from your writing here, u need work.
Let me ask you something? Will you be willing to write for TechCabal? For free? If you answer is yes, then find out why and make your blog like that and writers will rush to u. If it’s no, guy find ur calling cause it ain’t tech writing.
Either way you have to build your site up. Get reputation and respect then people will “offer” their services and skills to you. Maybe for free too.
Adding to what the first commenter said, it is about value exchange. if your blog is good and have the right traffic, tech persons will personally look ro publish on your blog. See TechCabal. they basically sit back and allow people build content for them. its about value.
Getting other people to write your content for you for free or paid might be easier than you think after you implement the suggestions of @Chris and @Xender
(Please buy them coffee for their advice)
A resource like AuthorityROI by Ryan Deiss is a good start to understand how a model like this works.
The comments above are OK, but then not so true… You must not be a good writer to get people writing for you, that’s just one way to go, Another way is have deep pocket… offer unbelievable amount per article… they will submit their CV’s.
I totally agree. AuthorityROI is actually an online course taught by Ryan Deiss of DigitalMarketer on how to build a business model around getting other people to do most of the writing. He has built several businesses around this model.
So, if you don’t write, what else should you do or have?
Build a distribution model that people want to tap into. People are on queue to write for HuffPo, CopyBlogger, TechCabal/TechPoint etc because they know a lot of eye-balls will read their post when they are published. Invest in a distribution model (email lists or social media presence) or networks (like Medium) that makes it more valuable to the writers than mere money.
BTW, forums like Radar, Quora and Medium are getting people to publish content on their platforms for FREE; find out what you can learn from them
This is the closest reply to what i have in mind; after reading the first two comments and direct messages I got. A distribution model… Everybody wants their article read, it also increases their relevance, true. Thank.
@Chukwuka_Steve the deep pocket thing is a good idea, but TechGyst is not generating revenue yet.
If I may add, whats the best way to get posts read?
Not Generating Revenue yet? and cant raise funds? Then you must write on your own to raise fund. or borrow shaa
You and your team (if you have) have to do this together. No one became a proffesional with one article. Write and develop your skills.
Turn to friends, ask the geeky ones to contribute… Then pray that you get lucky… tech blogging is not that easy like entertainment blogging (not saying that anyone is easy).
If you want your contents to be read and seen…
Is to write something Useful to people: A breaking news, articles that teach people new things, Stories that motivate, … something unique, Something that shows authority… etc.
Is to promote it: Tell people about your site, create Facebook page, twitter , G+ etc… make sure alot of people are seeing your content… if your fb page has 150k likes… ehhhh. you can promote via paid promotions
3.Still on getting contents seen: Apply some Hacks… *
I have one piece of advice for you about starting a(nother) tech blog: don’t do it.
After reading your About Page I realised that it may be a front for a gadget repair business. If that’s the case, bring your gadget repair business to the front and run the blog as that: a company blog. I’m saying this for 2 reasons:
You have a chicken and egg problem on your hands. Great writers are overworked, and they will not work for free or cheap unless the publication is going to give them what they don’t have: clout, a large® audience etc. You have neither the great writers nor the money to create a large-scale content farm (I assume, from your OP), and so you need great writers to grow to the level where great writers want to write for you. Chicken and egg.
Gadget tips, hacks etc. are a high-volume, low-value commodity, and I’m willing to bet that the content you will publish was gotten from somewhere else. Somewhere you probably found on Google’s first search results page (so they’ve locked down SEO). Your “audience” has as much access to those same resources as you do. See my point?
Feel free to take all this with a pinch of salt. I wish you Godspeed.
Why do you need writers? You want tech articles or startup/entrepreneurial articles right? Very simple.
Build a model of consolidating all the free posts across the blogs. Follow Jason, The Paga guy, Xulobi’s brown droppings, and all the people who write stuff that resonates with your ideology.
Whenever they write a post, you reproduce it on your blog and add a link to their original article. Those guys are too busy to worry about you. You can also lift some radar articles here and post over there.
So don’t sweat about writers. You can do good by creating a blog that features the more useful articles.
Blogging about hacks, isn’t part of TechGyst interest, onless you say “Life hack”, everything you find on the page is intended to be original, nothing like raising “Google’s first search result page” as you mentioned. A good example is the latest post Video and music downloader you never knew of on the page and some others that will be published soon.
I bet you won’t find this post on up to three other websites or blogs. Its a whole new discovery too, we also want to bridge the gap between gadget reviews and other things they don’t know of. Read this one too
You See, Success is a journey… 150k likes wont come in a day… It can come in two yrs. If your blog becomes the 2nd most read tech blog in Nigeria say 4yrs time… you will be happy… wont you? If you quit now because no one is reading. and you look back 4yrs from now and see people doing what you failed doing, you wont be happy, will you?
Now all you Need to do is to make sure your blog has contents worth reading. Ask your self this… “If its not my blog will I visit it, even thou its twice a month just to see that interesting content they do write”?
If you are running a tech blog here in Nigeria, focus more on indegenous contents like Techcabal.com and not generic contents like Techrez.com.
If you write about the specs of new phones so often… I would prefer reading them on Cnet.com or theverge.com because it will always be there 1st. (does not mean you dont have to write it oo)
But I will Read techcabal to know the next big thing in Nigerian tech industry.
(To See when Linda Ikeji finally gets Her New Online TV launched lol).
Brother, You See, its not easy.
On getting more like on fb, I suggest running paid facebook ads… buy facebook pages with large audience… Tell your team to invite thier friends to the page… Twitter is there… Instagram too.
Content is important… Things dont go viral in tech like entertainment… A naked picture of Kim Kardishan copied from blog w > to blog x >to blog y >to blog z may average 100likes each. That wont be the same on tech… a post on next android version you got from cnet may just average 22 likes… with a sample of 300 audience. So write unique, authoritative contents and build your audience around people interested in tech if possible.
I may be wrong in some things I said above, just fix it where necessary .
Thank you very much, someone also told me about indigeneous contents and why it is necessary to dominate a place first, before trying to dominate others, you just refreshed my memory about it. “A Seth Godin quote”
