How to Manage Multiple Contributors to Your Blog Without Losing Your Mind

Adding on new authors to your blog can be very beneficial – you share the burden of creating fresh content with other people. New voices and perspectives can be appealing to your audience. But like with any group project, things can get complicated pretty quickly. Without some forethought and organization, this brilliant idea can turn into a terrible disaster.

Come up with a strategy

Before your new authors start posting, meet up with them; this can be in person or through Skype. Discuss your goals with the blog and why you wanted more contributors. Decide now the duties of each new person, including social media posting, responding to emails and comments, approaching potential sponsors, web design, etc. Don’t leave any stones unturned when it comes to the responsibilities of managing a blog.

When major companies begin creating their online presence, they first discuss and create a plan. They talk about the voice of the company, the tone of all posts, and other aspects that have to do with their branding. This is something you should imitate when talking to your blog contributors. You may decide to have different voices and tones for each author, but whatever you do, discuss it before you start posting.

Create a process

Does every post need to be proof-read and cleared by at least one other blogger? Do you all need to read it before publication? What’s the format required for each blog post? How do you decide on topics to write about?

Before you start publishing with new authors, it may seem like the process will run itself. However, if you don’t streamline now, problems will arise in the future. What if two bloggers accidentally write about the same topic? What if you disagree with something another author has already published? Decide now how things are going to run after all the authors begin posting.

Organize!

With so many people on one blog, organization is the key to holding it all together. Create editorial calendars and decide who is posting when. Use either Google Docs or Dropbox to save and share your rough drafts. WordPress has many different plugins that can help systemize the process. Remember that it is important to post regularly, both for Google’s SEO spiders and for your returning visitors. Also make sure that you have a way of contacting each of the contributors. With blogging, your relationship will exist mostly online – grab Skype accounts, email addresses, and phone numbers in case there is a blog emergency.

Sources:

“3 Ways to Manage Multiple Authors and Administrators on Your Blog.” http://publishers-blog.helloreverb.com/3-ways-to-manage-multiple-authors-and-administrators-on-your-blog/. (8 Nov. 2013).

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