As companies expand their thought leadership, they face a pivotal question: Can freelancers authentically capture a brand’s voice, even when the topic isn’t strictly about the company?
Semrush reports that 69% of small business owners and marketers create their own content, while 17% employ in-house writers and 14% collaborate with freelancers.
With the right approach, content marketing managers can harness freelance expertise to resonate with wider audiences while preserving the authenticity of their brand’s point of view.
Understanding Your Company’s POV in External Content
A strong, authentic company point of view (POV) is vital—not just for telling your brand’s story but also for creating content that connects within your industry. When your brand’s perspective aligns with audience interests, it’s easier to capture their attention. Focusing on broader topics like emerging trends or industry challenges can also help foster trust.
Why Your Company’s POV Matters Beyond Your Brand
A unique POV helps your brand stand out in a crowded market. It’s a reflection of your company’s values, insights, and commitment to solving problems. Establishing a strong POV helps in the following ways:
- Enhances brand authority: Showcase your brand as a credible source on various industry topics.
- Connects with industry audiences: Align your POV with broader industry challenges or trends to foster engagement and attract a broader audience.
- Positions your brand as a thought leader: Offer valuable insights and take a stance on important issues so your brand gains recognition as an industry leader rather than just another player.
A well-defined POV signals to your audience—and potential clients—that you’re a thought leader who makes meaningful contributions to industry conversations.
Freelancers as Brand Ambassadors: How They Can Capture Your Voice
Freelancers with industry experience can be invaluable to your brand. They help translate your POV into content that addresses audience pain points and industry developments. To help freelancers reflect your brand’s voice and ethos effectively, consider the following steps:
- Provide clear guidelines: Share style and tone guidelines that detail your brand’s personality, preferred language, and stance on key issues.
- Offer context on industry relevance: Explain why certain issues matter to your brand to help freelancers understand the bigger picture.
- Share examples of on-brand content: Show past content that demonstrates how your brand voice translates across different topics and formats.
With a strong onboarding process and access to key insights, freelancers can become adept ambassadors for your brand. They can produce content that informs and reinforces your brand’s unique perspective on industry issues.
How Freelancers Accurately Capture a Company’s Voice
For freelancers to represent your brand authentically, they must be deeply aligned with your company’s voice and perspective. Skilled freelancers rely on brand voice guidelines and internal collaboration to produce authentic content. This approach maintains your company’s identity, even when addressing topics outside your core brand.
Onboarding and Training Freelancers in Brand Voice
Effective onboarding is essential for freelancers to capture your brand’s unique voice accurately. To ensure successful alignment, consider the following steps:
- Provide detailed brand guides: Create guides that outline your brand’s voice, tone, and perspective, including specific words, phrases, and language styles to emulate.
- Hold structured onboarding sessions: Arrange sessions where freelancers can learn about your brand’s values and ask questions, gaining insights that go beyond written guidelines.
- Encourage interactive feedback: During onboarding, offer freelancers opportunities to receive feedback on drafts, which allows them to refine their understanding of your voice in real-time.
Close collaboration with internal teams, including regular check-ins, keeps freelancers aligned with your brand. Ongoing feedback loops help them adapt to any adjustments in tone or messaging, ensuring consistency.
Building Strong Freelancer-Client Relationships for Brand Consistency
Long-term relationships with freelancers bring a unique advantage: familiarity with brand voice and changing perspectives. Over time, freelancers who regularly work with a company become adept at understanding its values, voice, and strategic goals, making them almost an extension of the in-house team.
- Consistency: As freelancers collaborate on various projects, they grow familiar with brand nuances, contributing to a more authentic and cohesive voice across content types. This relationship enables freelancers to take on more complex projects over time with less oversight.
- Knowledge transfer: When freelancers stay with a company for longer, they not only understand the brand’s current voice but also adapt as the brand’s voice shifts. This adaptability is invaluable, especially for brands with shifting market positions or new audience targets.
- Improved efficiency: With established freelancers, onboarding for each new project becomes faster. These freelancers already know the core brand values and often require less briefing, resulting in quicker turnarounds without sacrificing quality.
Encouraging a collaborative, long-term approach with trusted freelancers can make freelance content creation as seamless and consistent as in-house work.
Examples of Freelancers Successfully Capturing Company POV
Many companies have achieved impressive results with freelancers who deliver content that reflects their unique perspectives. Here are some examples of effective freelance collaboration:
- B2B software industry: A freelancer creating a thought leadership piece on digital transformation can channel the company’s commitment to innovation and customer empowerment, crafting an article that highlights industry trends while subtly emphasizing the company’s values.
- Healthcare sector: A healthcare brand can partner with a freelancer to produce articles on patient-first care models, showcasing the brand’s ethos and educating a broader audience on changing industry practices.
These examples show that, with preparation and guidance, freelancers can successfully represent a brand’s POV in impactful, industry-wide content.
When Keeping Content In-House Might Be Better
While freelancers bring versatility and fresh perspectives, some types of content benefit more from in-house expertise. If a company’s unique insights or sensitive perspectives are central, an internal team is typically better equipped. Their deep understanding allows them to handle these elements with care and accuracy.
In-House vs. Freelance Content Scenarios
While freelancers bring flexibility and fresh perspectives to many types of content, some situations call for the depth and immediacy of an in-house team. Here are examples where in-house expertise often proves more effective than freelance contributions:
- Crisis communications: During a crisis, such as a PR incident or an urgent company update, an in-house team’s deep understanding of company protocols and values is crucial. In-house teams can respond swiftly, ensuring messages align with sensitive nuances and company stances. Freelancers, who may lack access to internal discussions, could find it challenging to capture the right tone or fully address stakeholder concerns.
- Highly specialized technical content: For industries like healthcare, finance, or tech, content often dives into detailed, niche topics that require not only subject matter expertise but also an understanding of company-specific processes or compliance requirements. In-house writers who regularly collaborate with technical teams are better positioned to navigate these intricacies without extensive onboarding.
- Content on proprietary products or processes: Content that requires intimate knowledge of proprietary technologies or internal methodologies typically remains in-house. In-house experts can highlight these details accurately while protecting intellectual property and competitive insights that could be harder to safeguard with external contributors.
High-Sensitivity Topics or Company-Exclusive Insights
Content that covers proprietary information or handles sensitive topics is often better managed by internal experts. For high-sensitivity content, in-house teams can:
- Protect competitive strategies: Avoid potential oversights in content that touches on confidential approaches, market tactics, or strategic insights.
- Safeguard proprietary information: Ensure that proprietary knowledge remains secure and accurately communicated by those most familiar with its value.
- Convey nuanced brand perspectives: Allow trusted team members to handle sensitive topics where subtlety is required, reducing the risk of misrepresentation.
This approach ensures that complex details are conveyed accurately and remain secure, aligning with the company’s strategic priorities.
Content with Complex Internal Context
Some content requires deep internal knowledge that is challenging to transfer externally. Content involving intricate workflows, specific internal processes, or cross-departmental insights benefits from in-house expertise. Scenarios where in-house content creation is ideal include:
- In-depth process documentation: Articles or guides on internal processes where details are critical and the learning curve is steep
- Cross-departmental insights: Content requiring insights from multiple teams, such as case studies or technical how-tos, where close internal collaboration is needed
- Highly contextual content: Pieces that build on long-term initiatives or internal strategies, which may be difficult for external writers to grasp fully
When managing these projects internally, companies can tap into their teams’ unique insights. This approach ensures the content reflects organizational complexity without needing extensive onboarding for freelancers.
Tips for Working with Freelancers to Ensure Your Company’s POV is Reflected
Empowering freelancers to communicate your company’s unique perspective requires intentional steps that set them up for success.
Clear Briefing and Continuous Feedback
A well-structured content brief is essential for aligning freelancers. Some ways to enhance the brief process include:
- Define core messages: Specify the central points your content should communicate, focusing on what matters most to your brand.
- Provide style and voice guidelines: Include examples of on-brand language, phrasing, and tone to ensure consistency.
- Share sample content: Show completed work that aligns with your brand’s perspective to give freelancers concrete examples.
Continuous feedback throughout the content creation process refines alignment. Consider these best practices to maintain consistency:
- Set up regular check-ins: Hold brief touchpoints during each project to review initial drafts and provide feedback.
- Encourage iterative drafts: Allow freelancers to submit drafts in stages to catch misalignment early on.
- Offer constructive critiques: Focus feedback on helping the freelancer better understand your brand voice, building their confidence and accuracy over time.
Establishing Open Communication Channels
When communication is open, collaboration with freelancers becomes smoother. It allows them to ask questions and gain a deeper understanding of your brand’s perspective. To promote open communication, consider:
- Use collaborative platforms: Tools like Trello, Microsoft Teams, nDash’s platform, or Asana keep conversations flowing and enable quick questions and updates.
- Schedule regular touchpoints: Weekly or bi-weekly check-ins allow freelancers to discuss progress, ask questions, and confirm alignment.
- Encourage proactive communication: Invite freelancers to contact the project manager with any uncertainties or insights they think may benefit it.
These strategies enhance alignment with your company’s POV. They also strengthen the freelancer relationship, resulting in content that connects authentically with your audience.
Balancing Freelance and In-House Content for Authentic Brand Voice
In a competitive market, the blend of freelance versatility and in-house expertise is a powerful asset. When equipped with the right tools and understanding, freelancers can become reliable stewards of your company’s voice.
For content marketing managers, mastering this balance not only ensures a cohesive brand identity but also opens new avenues to engage audiences and build trust across channels. The right partnership can make your company’s unique perspective resonate far beyond its core messages.
Pros and Cons of In-House vs. Freelance Content Creation
Here’s a quick reference guide to help determine which type of content creator best suits different needs:
| Aspect | In-House Team | Freelance Writers |
| Speed of Response | Immediate response, especially in crises | May be delayed due to limited availability |
| Brand Familiarity | High familiarity with company values and voice | Can build over time with consistent projects |
| Flexibility and Fresh Perspective | May become too aligned with internal biases | They bring new ideas and perspectives |
| Cost Efficiency | Potentially high costs due to salaries and benefits | Typically, lower costs on a per-project basis |
| Access to Proprietary Information | Full access, ensuring accuracy and confidentiality | Limited, which could compromise depth and security |
| Adaptability | Adaptable to changing needs and priorities | Flexible for short-term projects or campaigns |
| Content Types Best Suited For | Crisis comms, highly technical content, proprietary info | Industry insights, general thought leadership, broad topics |
Expanding Your Reach While Staying True to Your Voice
You can trust freelance writers to be stewards of your company’s POV when armed with the right support and context. When combining freelance creativity with strategic guidance, you can expand your brand’s presence and influence across a variety of topics. The result? A content strategy that aligns with your goals and resonates with your audience.