A site only runs smoothly when you take the time to work with all people involved in its running. Editors and webmasters have a tendency to forget this, and don’t communicate very well with their contributors. Maybe because they have no responsibility for the actual maintenance of the site, which is the primary objective of the administrator.
The Importance Of Communication
Having a background in food, I like to use the analogy of a kitchen when speaking about the communication needed between blog staff. When you are working in a kitchen, you have a dozen things going at once: pots on the stove, food in the oven, plates waiting to be filled, and orders coming in constantly.
The staff all have their own jobs, and they are doing their best to perform them properly. But if the chef doesn’t speak to them, and they don’t speak to one another, it will be a disaster. Orders may be done up twice or forgotten altogether, food will be burnt, and there will be a dining room of very angry customers. You have to communicate properly to keep everything running smoothly.
A blog runs in a similar way. You have the administrator, the editor, the moderators, the contributors, designers and developers…sure, some of the people might take on multiple jobs. But that doesn’t make communication any less important. Speaking to one another is the best way to keep away mistakes. That way two writers don’t end up writing the same post, a topic doesn’t go neglected, and articles don’t sit there pending for ages, getting “cold”.
If you find yourself neglecting communication with contributors, or maybe you just want an easier way to keep everyone on the same page, try these six useful plugins. They can make the job so much simpler.
1. WP Status Notifier
Don’t worry about keeping up with pending posts any more. Just get this notifier and it will let you know when there is anything awaiting publication by email. You can also set up a notification for contributors to let them know that their post has been accepted and published. Quick, easy to use and helpful. Plus, it helps you get to the post while it is still fresh, a big concern if you are working on time sensitive topics or trending stories.
2. Ideas
Don’t clutter up the post section with ideas waiting for you to write. Instead, you can have a fully separate section where you draft your ideas, including descriptions and even deadline if you choose. This is such a great idea, as you can put any ideas you have in one place for contributors to see and use, without the risk of accidentally deleting the draft in the posts, or publishing it onto the blog.
3. Edit Flow
Communicate with your entire blog team with this awesome plugin that gives you a calendar, custom status messages, editorial comments that thread for full discussions with contributors and editors, metadata, story budgets, notifications and organized groups for quick comments to users.
4. Blogging Checklist
Are your writers always forgetting to check the SEO in their article? Are a few submitting content with spelling errors? Maybe they just aren’t tagging the posts properly. This is a plugin for all the little details that make up the technical aspects of the post. Create a checklist that sits in the editing section of ever post and have them follow the list to make sure there is nothing they are missing before they hit the submit button. You will be amazed at how much time this will save your editors.
5. Dashboard Post-It
Leave quick notes in post-it’s on your dashboard. It is super easy, and there are no real features available. If all you want is a way to leave fast reminders and comments, this is a good option.
6. MBG Guest Blogging Plugin
{Disclaimer: I am biased :)}
This one goes first because this is how the blogger – contributor relationship starts. MyBlogGuest is helping you to find regular contributors for your blog who will then form the core community around your site.
The plugin makes it easy to select guest articles and get additional info on the authors to be able to create contributor accounts within your WP dashboard.
Any time you see a little author photo on the list:
…that means this author is “Google verified” – which also means you’ll get the author’s full name, Gravatar email address and Google Plus profile link once your guest blogging offer is approved:
From there, you can start building further relationships with that author, inviting him to guest post again and again!
Being open with your contributors and making sure you all speak doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, it can be pretty easy when done correctly. A little effort and the plugins above will be all that is required to keep your blog running smoothly.
