What is an Editorial Calendar?

In today’s fast-paced digital publishing environment, the use of editorial calendars is pivotal for efficient content management. These calendars not only provide a structured framework for organizing content publication schedules but also ensure a consistent and timely flow of content to audiences. Camayak stands out in this realm, offering enhanced functionalities that transform traditional editorial calendars into dynamic tools for modern publishers.

The Evolution of Editorial Management with Camayak

Since its inception in 2010, Camayak has redefined editorial management by moving away from conventional spreadsheet-based systems. The platform provides an intuitive and collaborative environment that seamlessly integrates various aspects of content production and management, marking a significant shift in how editorial teams operate​​.

Key Features of Camayak’s Editorial Calendar

Camayak’s editorial calendar is not just a scheduling tool; it’s a comprehensive system designed to streamline the entire publishing process. Key features include:

• Visualizing Deadlines and Content Flow: The calendar provides a clear view of upcoming deadlines and content distribution, ensuring that all team members are aware of their responsibilities and timelines​​​​.
• Integration with Multiple CMS Platforms: Camayak offers seamless integration with popular CMS platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Shopify, as well as custom CMS integrations through its API, facilitating a smooth transition from planning to publication​​.

Streamlined Workflows and Contributor Management

Camayak excels in organizing and managing workflows and contributors, offering a more efficient solution compared to tools like PublishPress. Its capabilities ensure smooth coordination among team members, from writers to editors, streamlining the editorial process from start to finish​​.

Benefits of Using Camayak for Editorial Calendars

Camayak’s implementation of editorial calendars brings a host of benefits to content teams:

• Increased Efficiency: By centralizing the planning, tracking, and management of content, Camayak significantly reduces the time spent on administrative tasks, enabling teams to focus more on content creation and strategy.
• Enhanced Team Collaboration: With its transparent and intuitive interface, Camayak fosters better communication and collaboration among team members, ensuring everyone is aligned with the publication’s goals and schedules​.

Simplifying the Pitch-to-Publication Process

Camayak streamlines the entire process from receiving pitches to publishing content:

• Efficient Management of Pitches: Editors can easily review, accept, or reject pitches within the platform, ensuring a seamless flow of content ideas into the publication pipeline.
• Direct Assignment to Writers: Once a pitch is accepted, it can be directly assigned to writers, eliminating any need for transferring information between different systems or platforms​​.

Automating Writer Payments and Assignment Tracking

One of the standout features of Camayak is its ability to automate writer payments:

• Prompt and Accurate Payments: As soon as a piece is approved, the system automatically schedules payments to writers, ensuring they are compensated promptly and accurately for their work.
• Efficient Assignment Tracking: Camayak provides a centralized platform for tracking the progress of assignments from pitch to publication, significantly reducing the time and effort involved in managing multiple contributor.

Editorial Calendar Case Studies and Success Stories

Camayak has a proven track record of transforming the editorial processes of various organizations. Here are some success stories and case studies that highlight its impact:

• Streamlined Operations: Numerous publications have reported significant improvements in their workflow efficiency and content quality since implementing Camayak.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Editors and contributors alike have praised Camayak for its role in fostering a more collaborative and transparent work environment.

Camayak’s Impact on Different Organizations

The versatility of Camayak has enabled it to cater to a wide range of organizations, each benefiting from its unique features:

• Associations and B2B Publishers: These groups have utilized Camayak to manage complex editorial calendars and large volumes of content, ensuring timely and effective communication with their audiences.
• Newsrooms and Content Marketers: For these fast-paced environments, Camayak has been instrumental in managing deadlines and streamlining the editorial process, allowing for more focus on content quality and audience engagement.
• Agencies and Startups: These organizations have found Camayak to be a valuable tool for maintaining a consistent content strategy and managing a diverse team of contributors efficiently​​.

Choosing the Right Camayak Plan for Your Needs

Camayak offers various subscription plans to suit different organizational needs. Understanding these options will help you select the most appropriate plan for your team:

• Camayak Free: Ideal for small teams or solo editors, this plan offers unlimited writers, simple workflows, and basic automation. It’s perfect for organizations starting with content management and looking for an efficient, cost-effective solution.
• Camayak Basic ($20/month): This plan is a step up for teams needing more features, such as pitch and assignment templates, branded accounts, and increased media file storage. It’s suitable for growing teams that require more customization and control over their editorial processes.
• Camayak Full: For large organizations or those seeking to supercharge their editorial experience, Camayak Full provides priority support, full API access, complex workflows, and the ability to configure multiple desks. This plan is ideal for high-volume, fast-paced publishing environments where advanced features and customization are necessary​​.

Conclusion

The right editorial calendar tool can revolutionize how content is managed, produced, and published. Camayak, with its comprehensive features and flexible plans, stands out as a premier solution for modern publishers. Its ability to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and automate critical processes makes it an invaluable asset for any content-driven organization.

Contact and Additional Information

If you’re interested in exploring how Camayak can transform your editorial process, here’s how you can get more information:

• Schedule a Demo: Experience first-hand how Camayak can streamline your content management. A personalized demonstration will provide insight into how the platform can be tailored to your specific needs.
• Explore Features Through a Trial: Camayak offers the option to try out its features through a trial period. This hands-on experience is invaluable for understanding how the tool fits into your existing workflow and enhances your content management capabilities.
• Consultation for Custom Solutions: For organizations with unique requirements, Camayak offers consultation services to discuss and develop custom solutions that align perfectly with your editorial goals and challenges.

Camayak has established itself as a leader in content management and editorial calendar solutions. By offering a range of plans and features, it caters to the diverse needs of modern publishers, from small blogs to large newsrooms. Whether you are looking to improve efficiency, enhance collaboration, or streamline your entire editorial process, Camayak is equipped to meet and exceed your expectations.

For more information or to get started with Camayak, visit their website at Camayak or contact their support team for personalized assistance.

The post Maximizing Content Management with Editorial Calendars appeared first on Camayak Blog.

For insurance companies, sharing headquarters’ marketing materials with franchisees can be a challenge. In this article, we’ll outline how insurance franchisers can use Camayak to seamlessly and efficiently distribute marketing content to independent agents. Working with Camayak for editorial project management can simplify the process and ensure that franchisees have the content they need, without a lot of effort.

Why do insurance HQs need to distribute their marketing to independent agents?

As a franchiser, your success is intertwined with that of your franchisees. However, most independent insurance agents are not marketing pros. They most likely don’t know how to run an effective content marketing program. Likely, your company is already investing heavily in marketing, but it’s not effective if your agents aren’t publishing the content. By automating the publishing process, you make the most of your investment by ensuring that content gets onto all of your agents’ websites.

How can you create and export content to share with agents?

Today, you may be using a mix of spreadsheets, project management tools, and email to keep on top of the content process. By moving this work to Camayak, you can streamline the work and bring each of those steps into one application. With Camayak, you can:

Stop rewriting briefs

By setting up pitch and assignment templates, you can stop rewriting the same set of instructions over and over. For example, you may need to include a set of legal disclaimers with each blog post. You can include them in the assignment template to simplify your job.

Keep all your content together

Whether you currently manage drafts as Word files on a shared drive or in Google Docs, you probably know the pain of not being able to find the draft content you need. With Camayak, those drafts are all in the same system. Want to see them organized in a content calendar? It’s as simple as clicking over to the calendar view.

Notify reviewers automatically

When you’re managing a large volume of content, you may feel like you spend hours every day just checking on the content’s status and letting reviewers know when drafts are ready. Camayak workflows can automate reviewer notifications. Without anyone needing to manually keep track, you can focus on the work that matters.

Publish to three sites or 300 sites

The biggest challenge in managing marketing for franchisees is getting the content to the agents and making sure that it’s published. Instead, set up Camayak to publish automatically to each independent agent’s website. After setting up publishing integration, you can push out new content to every site at once. You don’t need to worry that agents aren’t familiar with web publishing, or that your email will get buried in their inboxes. The process can be completely hands-off for agents.

How can HQs track the success of marketing content for each agent?

If you’re not sure what’s been published on each agent’s site, measuring the effectiveness of new content is impossible. But with Camayak pushing content to everyone, you can finally get meaningful metrics.

Partner with Camayak to make the most of your content marketing spend

Let your independent agents focus on their customers instead of their marketing content. And let your marketing team focus on creating compelling content, rather than training agents to handle their own publishing. When you use Camayak to distribute marketing content from headquarters to independent agents, you make the most of your content marketing investment.

The post Insurance Companies: Here’s How HQ Marketing Can Distribute Its Content to Independent Agents appeared first on Camayak Blog.

Why Use HubSpot App Marketplace’s Apps for Blogging?

We’ve all been frustrated by having to open numerous different apps and websites to find the information we need to complete a task. If you manage your blog through HubSpot, HubSpot App Marketplace has apps that can help you find content writers, manage a content calendar, and send payments to freelancers, all without jumping between apps.

Introduction to HubSpot App Marketplace’s Top Apps for Bloggers

HubSpot App Marketplace offers hundreds of different apps to integrate your HubSpot account with other services. We’ll take a look at some of the top apps for bloggers and content teams.

WriterAccess

WriterAccess is primarily used to find content writers. It offers a network of 15,000 writers and other content professionals and a “matchmaking” service for teams who need writers for marketing content. The WriterAccess HubSpot app provides a way to move articles from the WriterAccess app to your HubSpot blog. The HubSpot integration is only available with WriterAccess Pro, which comes in at $59/month.

HubSpot Integration Feature

• Send approved content from WriterAccess to your HubSpot blog

What Do the Users Say?

WriterAccess’s customers have plenty of positive feedback to share on review sites like G2: In my 8 years of working for the web design and SEO industry, I’ve worked with several writing companies and WriterAccess has proven to provide the best experience, writing, and service out of all of them.

Unfortunately, users of the HubSpot integration app aren’t quite as pleased. One user shared: The integration with HS is terrible. It adds code to the content that is impossible to remove without either copying it into a Google Sheet to strip it or getting a developer involved. It adds a significant amount of time to our processes.

Conclusion

If you already work with WriterAccess to hire freelance writers to create content, this app looks like an easy choice, but it’s very limited: All it does is push approved content from WriterAccess’s system to your HubSpot blog. (And, according to the review we read, it doesn’t do that well.) Teams that already work with freelance writers outside of WriterAccess’s network should steer away. You’ll still have to manually move content from any writer who isn’t submitting through the WriterAccess platform.

Verblio

Like WriterAccess, Verblio is an online marketplace that helps you find writers for blog posts and articles. However, it boasts a second focus: video content production. Mixing video and written content is an effective way to diversify your media and reach more people. Pricing is based on the content you order through the platform. The minimum order is $105 and the lowest monthly subscription tier costs $35.

HubSpot Integration Features

• Send approved content from Verblio’s platform to your HubSpot blog
• Send videos from Verblio to your HubSpot media file
• Connect multiple HubSpot accounts to a single Verblio account
• Create video requests by importing blog posts from HubSpot

What Do the Users Say?

We couldn’t find a review of Verblio’s HubSpot integration specifically, but users on G2 generally liked working with Verblio. It earned a 4.9 out of 5 rating: The quality of the work and knowledgeable nature of the Verblio team (writers and contacts) is excellent. The platform has a wealth of talented writers and our contact has recommended some terrific writers for some of our more niche clients.

Conclusion

Verblio is, like WriterAccess, a content agency. Existing Verblio customers might love the HubSpot app, but it won’t work for any team with a pool of freelance writers outside Verblio. If you’re looking for a content agency and deciding between WriterAccess and Verblio, Verblio wins out: It has more integration features, and its ability to create video content is a big bonus. It’s worth noting, however, that using Verblio requires a monthly fee.

NDash

NDash helps companies work with freelance writers to pitch, review, and publish content. Unlike Verblio and WriterAccess, nDash offers a free version. With the free version, you can only work with your team’s internal writers. For a monthly fee of $25, you can work with freelance writers outside your company. NDash’s platform allows you to accept pitches and review drafts. You can also manage writer payments through nDash, although nDash charges an additional percentage (15% or more) over the writer’s contract fee for this service.

HubSpot Integration Features

• Connect multiple HubSpot accounts to a single nDash account
• Send approved blog content from nDash to your HubSpot blog

What Do the Users Say?

User reviews on G2 were mixed, but the HubSpot integration was a highlight: I love the ability to transfer content from my writing team directly into HubSpot. The export feature works very well and saves us a lot of time that used to be spent copying and pasting from Google Docs to HubSpot when writers turn in assignments.

Some users had issues using the nDash platform itself:

Very buggy system. I have identified many issues using the system, some of which have caused multiple hours of lost work and confusion. While their support is very helpful and quick to fix issues, I feel like I am a beta tester, pretty much constantly.

Conclusion

NDash has a robust platform, but content managers who work with freelance writers will need to upgrade to a monthly subscription. When paying writers, you’ll also pay an additional 15% over the writer’s contracted rate. The HubSpot integration app is limited to sending approved content from nDash to a HubSpot blog. NDash does have one major benefit over WriterAccess and Verblio: You can bring your existing writers into the nDash platform, rather than being limited to their network.

If you’re willing to pay the monthly subscription fee plus a percentage on each piece, nDash is an option to consider.

Camayak API Integration

Camayak offers a rich set of features, including automated workflows that eliminate tedious tasks, high-level visibility into writers’ progress and availability, and the ability to plan content with editorial calendars. Unlike the other platforms we’ve covered, Camayak does not offer a network of freelance writers. With Camayak, you bring your existing freelancers into the platform, coordinate deadlines, and pay writers automatically (with a 9% fee). Speaking of fees, Camayak provides a free subscription especially for teams with simple approval workflows and a small volume of content. If the free level doesn’t meet your needs, upgrade to the pro for a small fee.

HubSpot Integration Features

Camayak’s ability to integrate with HubSpot isn’t tied to the HubSpot App Marketplace. Instead, Camayak offers an application programming interface (API) that you can use to develop an integration that meets your needs.

What Do the Users Say?

Camayak users are enthusiastic about the ways that it has simplified their work:

Camayak makes it intuitive to pitch, claim and submit assignments. If you’re looking for a better process that’s really easy to track, this is it.

Exactly what virtual newsrooms need: a cross between a CMS and project manager that keeps us on time.

Conclusion

Camayak differs in a major way from the other solutions we’ve discussed: You get to source your own freelance writers. Where Verblio and WriterAccess tie you to their own network of writers, Camayak offers total freedom in who you choose to work with. And, although nDash also allows you to bring in your own team of freelancers, you’ll pay substantial per-project fees for the privilege.

Because Camayak allows you to build your own integration using their API, you also have more flexibility in how that content goes into HubSpot. Unfortunately, you’ll also have to enlist the help of a developer to get the integration going. There’s no point-and-click option here.

Integrating with Your Blog Publishing Platform Can Save Time, but Choose Wisely

Each of the solutions we outlined has benefits, but it pays to carefully consider each platform and whether it fits your needs before you decide.

If you currently don’t have any freelance writers and you have the time to weed through submissions to find some good writers, try Verblio. Its HubSpot integration offers more features than the alternatives. With Verblio, the pay for writers is definitely on the low end, so don’t expect the writers to stick around forever.

If you already have writers, but want to source from a large network, and don’t mind paying a premium, try nDash. The average writer’s rate is higher than that on the alternative platforms, which means you’ll likely develop longer-term relationships with your freelancers.

If you want to source your own writers, need to keep the fees to a minimum, and can set up your own integration, try Camayak. The platform’s workflow automation helps you accomplish more with fewer staff members, and you won’t pay high fees on each contract.

The post The Best Hubspot Apps for Blogging appeared first on Camayak Blog.

Read on to find out how you can integrate Camayak with your existing CMS.

Create custom CMS integrations with the Content Publishing API

With Camayak’s Content Publishing API, you can integrate any content management system you want. Our API is available to all customers, even those on our free plan. Before we talk about any specific CMS, let’s talk about the API itself. Not a developer? Don’t worry, we’ll break it down in plain terms right here.

What is an API?

An API lets developers write code to access an application’s functionality and data from outside the application. In the case of a Camayak integration, the API makes it possible to click “Publish” in Camayak and push your content over to another system (your CMS). Your code sends a request to Camayak’s API and Camayak sends back your data. Our API can send back the title, body content, featured image, byline, and custom metadata for assignments created in Camayak.

What popular Content Management Systems (CMS) integrate with Camayak?

Gatsby

GatsbyJS is a popular static site generator (SSG). Web developers love SSGs like Gatsby because they typically result in sites that load lightning fast. To integrate Gatsby and Camayak, you’ll use the Content Publishing API to access your content from Camayak.

HubSpot CMS Hub

CMS Hub is part of the HubSpot suite of products for marketing, sales, and customer service. Customers choose CMS Hub to keep their site content in the same system as their email marketing and CRM. To get the benefits of Camayak when using HubSpot CMS Hub, you can use the Camayak API and HubSpot CMS APIs to build your publishing integration.

WordPress

At this point, at least 30% of sites on the internet use WordPress, making it the most popular CMS out there. One reason for this is the robust set of plugins that expand WordPress’s basic functionality. If your blog or publication uses WordPress, we have good news: Publishing to WordPress doesn’t require any coding when you use our WordPress plugin.

Drupal

Drupal is a highly customizable open source CMS. Various newspapers and magazines, including The Economist, Entertainment Weekly, and the popular French newspaper Le Figaro, rely on Drupal to serve up their online content. Camayak customers have built successful integrations using the Camayak Content Publishing API to push content to their Drupal-based websites.

Shopify

Although Shopify made its name as an e-commerce platform, many retailers also use its blogging engine to power their content marketing. Using the Content Publishing API, you can take advantage of Camayak’s robust editorial workflows and push content directly to your Shopify blog.

Custom CMS

Even if your team doesn’t use one of these content management systems, you can still integrate with Camayak using our API. Plenty of Camayak customers use their own home-grown CMS to manage content. By integrating with Camayak, they get a valuable set of tools for managing content without needing to build those tools themselves.

Why use a third-party publisher like Camayak?

Camayak is a powerhouse for any team that publishes content online. By aligning your pitches, contributor communications, editorial review, and writer payments into one platform, work can pass seamlessly from submission to publication. Camayak’s benefits include:

Unified Content Calendar: Whether you’re publishing to one site or fifteen, you can see all deadlines in a single content calendar with Camayak. Filters show you content by writer or publication with just a couple of clicks.

• Custom Workflows: Every publishing team has different review processes. With Camayak, teams can design a custom review workflow that streamlines their process. By automating the workflow, teams spend less time on project management and more time on content.

• Keep Track of Pitches: When you accept pitches through Camayak, they flow directly into assignments. What’s more, pitch and assignment templates mean less back and forth with contributors. One Camayak customer found their improved pitch process resulted in a 20x increase in weekly pitches.

• Automate Writer Payments: Never forget to send another payment. Camayak can automate the process so payments go directly to a writer’s bank account as soon as their submission is approved.

Streamline publishing with Camayak integrations

Whether your team’s focus is news, lifestyle blogging, or content marketing, we know that publishing a steady stream of engaging content is a challenge. Camayak makes it easy to develop content, track deadlines, and manage contributors.

When you integrate Camayak with your content management system, you reduce errors and increase productivity. With Camayak’s integration options, you get better processes without ever migrating to a new CMS. Even better, API access is included with all Camayak subscriptions, even Camayak Free.

The post Camayak Integrates With Any CMS, No Migration Required appeared first on Camayak Blog.

Checking for content originality can be a time-consuming part of the editorial process. Mistakes happen when teams are pressed for time, so Public Relations and Communications teams need efficient ways to review content for plagiarism.

Every job is easier with the right tools. Let’s look at how Camayak, with our Turnitin integration, can help your team avoid embarrassing mistakes with content attribution.

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin isn’t new to the college scene. Universities have been using Turnitin to check for improper attribution and plagiarism since 1998, primarily for student work. However, these mistakes are also a reality outside of student assignments. Plagiarism happens at major newspapers and in university communications. As we all rush to meet deadlines and more research moves to the internet, it’s surprisingly easy to publish plagiarized content, sometimes inadvertently. It’s also easier than ever for readers to uncover plagiarism and unleash a crisis.

So, how does Turnitin work? Turnitin checks writing against databases that include academic papers, websites, and periodicals, looking for identical or similar phrases. When it finds those similarities, editors have a chance to review. By reviewing Turnitin’s findings, content teams can identify plagiarism before they publish the content.

Turnitin both simplifies the process of checking for plagiarism and does a more thorough check than editors can do alone. What’s more, Camayak offers an integration with Turnitin, allowing teams to automate the check and ensuring that it happens for every piece of content.

What is Camayak?

Camayak came about to help newsrooms and other publishing teams to streamline their workflows. Today, many student-led publications within universities already use Camayak. With this tool, they can make the most of shoestring budgets, aligning contributors and editors, managing editorial processes for multiple desks, and ensuring that workload is distributed evenly.

Whether publications need Camayak to help them accept and respond to pitches, see which team members are overloaded, or automate manual tasks like checking for plagiarism, university publications have found ways to do more with less using Camayak. As one customer put it, “It’s the CMS every newsroom should have.”

Integrated tools offer efficiency

Most editors have to balance a long list of responsibilities. Too often, inefficient processes tie up their time in slow, manual processes, including plagiarism checks. Automating those processes frees time for developing content ideas, collaborating with writers, and editing submissions.

By itself, Camayak allows you to organize editorial workflows and ensures that teams stay aligned. Turnitin introduces safeguards into your publishing process and minimizes the risk of publishing plagiarized material. Together, they turn plagiarism checking into an automated part of streamlined editorial workflows, allowing editors to focus their time on other priorities.

Universities are already using Turnitin’s robust functionality to uphold academic standards. Imagine leveraging this powerful tool to improve your published content.

Creating better systems is easy with Camayak

Even as university departments face budget challenges, Public Relations and Communications teams remain important. This work upholds universities’ reputations, attracts prospective students, and inspires alumni to donate. When teams publish a high volume of content or face demanding deadlines, it’s easy for mistakes to creep in.

Camayak’s Turnitin integration is like automatic braking in a car. Brakes are nothing new. They’ve existed as long as cars. Everyone driver knows how to brake and every professional editor knows how to check for content attribution issues. But when you’re speeding down the highway, you can’t see everything at once. Automatic braking kicks in when you miss something, helping you avoid a collision. Likewise, Camayak workflows with Turnitin integration can catch what editors miss when they’re speeding toward a deadline.

Whether your team is responding to a crisis or announcing faculty innovations, you need to ensure quality content and avoid attribution mistakes. Camayak streamlines your editorial and publishing workflows and Turnitin introduces a defense against plagiarism. Together, they help your team move more quickly without stumbling.

How can Camayak improve your content processes? Book a free demo to find out.

The post Camayak + Turnitin: Help for University PR Departments appeared first on Camayak Blog.

Whether you work in a marketing agency, handle client blogs as a freelancer, or run a content group, you can organize and streamline your work with Camayak. Let’s talk about how.

Learn how to use Camayak Free with Roman Heindorff.

Streamline your process

There’s a reason that big-name magazines have large pools of contributing writers: they get the benefit of fresh ideas and perspectives from each one. The same is true for blogs. Working with a variety of writers brings more life to your blog content.

Managing those writers, though? It’s not without challenges. So how do you get more high-quality content for your blogs without spending your days in chaos?

Move pitches out of your email inbox

How many times have you opened your email looking for pitches, only to get pulled into something else? In today’s digital world, our inboxes are stressful. What’s the alternative? Let writers send their pitches right to your editorial workspace.

Want more pitches from established contributors? Any writer who has access to your Camayak workspace can create and submit a pitch. If you want pitches from new contributors, Camayak gives you a special email address to share. When writers send pitches to that address, they go right into Camayak, not your inbox.

Manage revisions and communication

It’s not unusual to find teams using two or three different apps just to communicate about a piece of content. You might send a Slack message to a writer, flip over to the Google Docs draft, and then open your email to look at the original pitch. Talk about inefficient. Research shows that “shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.”

Instead of clicking between apps, keep all communication related to a project right alongside the submitted draft in Camayak. You can add comments, send notifications to reviewers and open older revisions.

Pay writers automatically

Even the most organized people make mistakes. Here’s one place you don’t want to make mistakes: paying your contributors! Writers want to work with companies that pay on time, every time.

With automatic writer payments in Camayak, you can’t forget to send a payment. Writers can connect their bank accounts and automatically get paid when you accept their work.

Simplify editorial and publishing work

“Managing a blog” sounds simple, but you know the reality: there are a lot of moving pieces to track. We built Camayak to make it easier.

See every deliverable in one place

Imagine that you’re managing half a dozen blogs, each publishing at least three times a week. That’s 18+ assignments to track every week. When even the most organized person would get overwhelmed, some Camayak customers successfully manage even more content than this.

No matter how many blogs you’re managing, Camayak shows you everything in one place. From the calendar view, you see every assignment, its submission deadline and its status. Want to check on content for a specific blog? Filter the calendar with just two clicks.

Build custom workflows for each blog

The same review and approval workflow won’t work for every blog, especially when there are multiple clients involved. One client may need three levels of approval, while another wants a single review.

You could handle it all manually, but you don’t have to with Camayak. By setting up desks for each blog, you can build custom workflows that meet everyone’s needs. Rather than sending emails for each approval, the workflow automatically notifies the approvers. And once the final approval happens, the content can be published automatically, too.

Publish to multiple blogging platforms

If you work in a content agency or marketing firm, it’s likely that your clients aren’t all on the same blogging platform. (Convincing them to migrate to reduce your headaches? That’s a non-starter.)

With Camayak, you don’t need to log into your client’s blogging platform to publish new content. Instead, you set up each blog to integrate with Camayak. This means you’ll always – and only – work in Camayak, even if your clients are using half a dozen blogging platforms.

Managing multiple blogs? Make it easy.

It’s been a quarter-century since Bill Gates’s declaration that, when it comes to the internet, “content is king.”

Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the internet, just as it was in broadcasting.

Bill Gates, January 1996

We don’t see any signs that the content explosion is slowing down, but a lot has changed in 20+ years of blogging. Today, readers expect more from blogs. They want unique perspectives, professional editing and frequent publishing. When you’re managing multiple blogs, significant work goes into creating a great experience for readers. Whether your goal is building organic traffic or explaining your offering, you need a way to simplify the work of managing blogs. With a variety of plans to fit your budget, Camayak can help.

The post Managing Multiple Blogs with Camayak appeared first on Camayak Blog.

For nine years, Camayak has helped magazines, newspapers, agencies, and PR teams to streamline their publishing work. Our customers say this software is “excellent for managing writers” and “makes the process a breeze.” But some organizations have missed out on the Camayak magic because they simply didn’t have the budget for a robust tool.

In 2021, we’re making Camayak accessible to small teams and solo editors with two new subscription options: Camayak Free and Camayak Basic.

Camayak Free

Not sure how a tool like Camayak can fit into your publishing process? Camayak Free is ideal for you.

Camayak Free offers:

Unlimited Writers: Whether you have 3 or 300 contributors, they can all use Camayak. Our customers have found that writers love how transparent the pitching, submission, and review process is with Camayak.

Simple Workflows: With Camayak Free, you can set up simple workflows with a single level of approval. You’ll no longer track the status of each piece through email, spreadsheets, or a made-for-anything project management tool like Asana. Instead, simple workflows integrate the review and approval process.

Automation: How much time do you spend on mundane tasks for each submission you receive? With automation, Camayak handles those steps while you focus on the work that matters most.

• JW Player – video player.
• Getty Images – add photography.
• Chartbeat – in-depth analytics for your content.
• Turnitin – plagiarism check.
• Copyscape – plagiarism check.
• Your bank account – pay writers automatically.

Automatically publish on your CMS: With the push of a button, you can publish content from Camayak to your CMS. We integrate natively with WordPress, Drupal, TownNews, LinkedIn, and Shopify. Plus, with our open API, you can connect Camayak to any CMS that allows API integrations.

Automatic Writer Payments: Don’t worry about forgetting to process a writer payment. In Camayak, writer payments integrate seamlessly with the approval process. Once a piece is approved, Camayak schedules the payment.

Manage Pitches: If you find yourself searching through thousands of emails for that pitch you received last month, you will love managing pitches in Camayak. All pitches come through the same system that you’ll later use to receive and approve submissions.

Up to 5 Active Assignments: Camayak Free customers can have up to 5 active assignments at a time, ideal for publications that have a slow but steady stream of writing. (Is five not enough for you? Check out Camayak Full.)

Up to 2 Editors/Approvers: With Camayak Free, two editors can manage pitches, communicate with writers, and approve submissions. (Have a larger team? Camayak Full may be a better fit.)

Single Desk: Whereas large organizations may have multiple desks, each with its own pitch requirements and approval processes, smaller teams often have only a single desk. Camayak Free is a perfect fit for these single desk publications.

Connect to WordPress: No more exporting, uploading, or copy/pasting from your review tool into your CMS. Camayak Free integrates with WordPress, allowing approved content to flow directly into your site.

Camayak Basic ($20/month)

We’re proud of how much we offer with the Camayak Free plan, but some teams need a bit more. For them, we’re introducing Camayak Basic:

• Pitch & Assignment Templates: Templates can further streamline your work. Rather than re-writing instructions for each pitch and assignment, let Camayak remember them as templates. Templates make it easier to ensure that content is consistent.
• Branded Account: Use your business domain and branding. With the $20 plan, you no longer need to use a Camayak branded account. Customize your account to match your business.
• Upload Media Files: Camayak Free allows you to upload up to 5MB of media per assignment, but that won’t support multiple high-quality images or video resources. With Camayak $20, you can store media with the related projects.

Camayak Full

For organizations who need more, or who want to supercharge their editorial and publishing experience, Camayak Full is the answer.

With Camayak Full, you get:

• Priority Support: Get access to hands-on help quickly. If your newsroom moves fast and you need assistance, you can’t wait for support.
• Full API Access: Integrate with almost anything with full API access. API access allows Camayak to support other programs (Like WordPress or Hubspot) and give you a streamlined experience.
• Complex Workflows: Many publications have more than a single level of approval. If that’s you, Camayak Full can support your needs.
• Multiple Desks: In publications with numerous editors, it’s common to have different processes, reviewers, and workflows for each desk. With Camayak Full, you can configure multiple desks and customize each desk’s process as needed.
• Much More: Schedule a demo with our team to learn more about Camayak Full.

Better Management for Your Editorial Process

Publishing can be complicated. Focus on the work that matters, not searching through pitches, following up to check on statuses, and manually migrating content.

Camayak has been working with publications like yours for over a decade. We’re thrilled to be offering Camayak Free and Camayak Basic to reach a whole new set of users.

The post Manage Your Editorial Process for Free: Introducing Camayak’s Freemium Plan appeared first on Camayak Blog.

If you publish through WordPress, this guide is for you. We’ll compare two free tools that integrate with WordPress to simplify and improve your editorial processes: Camayak and PublishPress. Both have paid versions with more robust features, but this comparison focuses on the free versions.

PublishPress Free

PublishPress offers a bevy of WordPress plugins for publishing teams, both free and paid. They aim to improve the way teams work together by building on WordPress’s basic publishing functionality.

As WordPress plugins, all of PublishPress’s features are accessed through the WordPress Admin panel. To use PublishPress, you log into your WordPress site.

Camayak Free

Camayak offers a stand-alone product that allows seamless publishing to WordPress and various other content management systems. For nine years, we’ve helped magazines, agencies, newspapers, and PR teams to streamline their publishing processes.

Although Camayak integrates with WordPress, users access features by logging into a separate web-based application, giving them extra flexibility.

Editorial Calendar

WordPress users know that the list of posts or pages WordPress offers isn’t ideal for visualizing deadlines. Both PublishPress and Camayak provide an editorial calendar. From these calendar views, it’s easy to visualize your work, understand what’s coming due, and see when you have gaps in content.

Within Camayak or PublishPress’s calendar views, you can filter by content status and by user. Maybe you want to see only content that’s awaiting review: filter by status, and your calendar shows only the relevant items. Or you want to know if a particular team member could handle another assignment: filter to show that user’s projects.

When it comes to editorial calendars, Camayak and PublishPress both offer a big step up from WordPress’s features.

Winner = Tie

Editorial Workflows

Workflows are where Camayak shines. With Camayak Free, your organization can create a workflow that gets content from pitch to publication. Setup is simple and streamlined workflows are at the core of what Camayak offers.

With PublishPress, organizations can build workflows, but the setup is more complex and requires an upgrade to at least one PublishPress Pro plugin.

Winner = Camayak

Contributors

A large pool of contributors ensures that writers’ busy schedules do not hinder you, and you’re always publishing varied perspectives.

With PublishPress, you can set up as many contributors as needed. However, anyone who contributes needs a user account on your WordPress site. If you’re working with many contributors, managing their user accounts can be a headache, especially with a small editorial team.

At Camayak, we’ve made sure that bringing in new contributors is straightforward and quick. Rather than asking editors to manage users, Camayak allows you to invite new contributors: simply enter an email address and select a desk position. The invited user can set up their own account once they receive your invitation. Even better, you can invite a whole list of people in just a few clicks.

Even better? Camayak supports automated writer payments, meaning you’ll never be scrambling to make sure contributors are paid.

Winner = Camayak

Pitches

The more pitches your publication receives, the better. If keeping pitches and assignments in the same system is important, Camayak is a better choice. Although it’s possible to set up PublishPress to receive pitches, you must create custom post statuses in WordPress and have a paid PublishPress Pro subscription.

Camayak is designed to make it easy for any contributors to pitch new stories without significant configuration. Editors can see every submitted pitch and quickly reject or accept them. Accepted pitches flow right into assignments, so you won’t need to copy over any information. As an editor, you can assign a writer or choose to leave the assignment open for a writer to claim.

Winner = Camayak

PublishPress Versus Camayak

WordPress is a popular content management platform for small magazines and newspapers, but, by itself, it doesn’t provide the tools you need to manage contributors, communicate deadlines, and guide content through an editorial process. For that, you need something more.

With the free versions of both PublishPress and Camayak, you have access to a suite of tools for managing your WordPress publishing process. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution: each has its own strengths.

PublishPress Free is a fit for teams that:

• Want to do all of the editorial work within WordPress
• Don’t have a large number of contributors
• Manage pitches in a different system

Camayak is a better choice for publications that:

• Want to make pitching easier and increase transparency
• Prefer to keep the editorial process in a separate system and use WordPress exclusively for published content
• Work with a large pool of contributors
• Want to automate writer payments
• May move away from WordPress in the future
• Publish both online and in print

When you give your editorial team the right tools, they can focus on producing fresh content and meeting deadlines. Camayak has helped editorial teams to do just that since 2010. With Camayak Free, we’re excited to show a whole new set of writers and editors how easy it can be.

Try Camayak Free today.

The post Publishing with WordPress: PublishPress vs Camayak appeared first on Camayak Blog.

Content marketing is a strategic approach to drive traffic to your Shopify store by creating and distributing helpful content consistently.

Why should your Shopify store have a blog?

Content marketing aims to create valuable, relevant, and consistent content that helps your customer solve a problem. Your blog provides a channel for distributing that content. Not only that, but the content you create will feed your social media and email marketing plan.

Many businesses have blogs, but they may not have an effective content marketing strategy. One mistake that companies make is to use their blog simply to post press releases and product announcements. While that content is relevant to the business itself, it’s less relevant to potential customers.

With a strategy that focuses on what your customers want, your blog content can help customers find you, understand your brand, and trust your company. Without it, your business may just be spinning its wheels with content.

How do you increase sales through a blog?

When designing an effective content marketing strategy for your Shopify store, keep these tactics in mind:

• Create content for your ideal customers
• Address each stage of the sales funnel
• Post frequently

Speak to your ideal customer, not to everyone

Content needs to be strategic, which starts with identifying your ideal customer’s interests and needs. Let’s look at an example: Helm Boots sells leather boots for men. Strong branding is at the core of their content marketing strategy. After a few minutes on their blog, you know a lot about their ideal customer:

• interested in menswear and style
• wants comfortable shoes that last
• prefers artisanal products over mainstream brand names

Content marketing isn’t about directly driving sales, so the content doesn’t need to be about the products, as long as it’s related to the ideal customer. The blog for Helm Boots is packed with content, but it’s mostly not about boots. Instead, it’s focused on lifestyle content, including a series of interviews with customers and curated recommendations for recipes, drinks, and films.

Provide content for each stage of the sales funnel

Once you have an idea of your ideal customer, it’s time to figure out what content you need. Start by breaking it up by stages of the sales funnel.

• The top of the sales funnel is discovery: your content helps potential customers to find your shop and understand what you sell.
• The middle of the sales funnel is consideration: a customer gets to know your product and your brand.
• The bottom of the funnel is purchase: a customer knows they want your product but needs to overcome their concerns and fears.

Your blog should include content that addresses each of these stages to build a strong content marketing strategy. Some content might address more than one point of the funnel, but it’s useful to identify the primary goal for each piece of content.

We’ll go more in-depth on each of these by looking at how Helm Boots and another Shopify store target different sales funnel stages. Our second example is BarkBox: a subscription service for dog treats and toys. They’ve operated with a compelling content marketing strategy for years.

Help customers to find your Shopify site with top-of-funnel content

Top-of-funnel content is all about discovery. You need your ideal customers to find your Shopify store. One way to accomplish this is to answer questions that your customers have. Although the questions could tie directly to the product, they could also simply be questions that your ideal customer might ask.

BarkBox does this exceptionally well: they have an entire category of content called “answers,” with posts like Why Does My Dog Stare at Me? and What Are The Best Toys For Dachshunds? When their ideal customer searches for these questions, BarkBox shows up in the search results.

Another way to maximize top-of-funnel potential is to create content that customers want to share with their friends. For this category, BarkBox produces slideshows of dog pictures like 18 Dogs Who Don’t Approve Of This Water Torture You Call “Bath Time.” With easy-to-share content, blog visitors expand your reach just by wanting to share the joy of laughing at silly dogs.

Middle-of-funnel content answers questions about your products and brand

Once a customer reaches the middle of the sales funnel, they know your brand and might be interested in buying. To help them decide, figure out what questions they have about your product or your store.

What questions do your customers ask most frequently before buying? Create a blog post that answers each question. With these posts, you’re anticipating questions that a customer may ask.

For BarkBox, middle-of-funnel content includes the articles What size BarkBox should I get? and Are your toys safe?

Over at Helm Boots, they’re answering middle-of-funnel questions with articles on resoling Helm boots, maintaining leather shoes, and choosing the right size.

Address your customers’ worries with bottom-of-funnel content

By the time a customer reaches the bottom of the funnel, they’re almost ready to buy, but they have to overcome that nagging worry, “What if I regret this purchase?” Bottom-of-funnel content is all about reassuring a customer.

One way to soothe those worries is with testimonials and customer reviews. BarkBox shows customer stories right on their homepage, alongside snapshots of the happy dogs. (The pictures help the reviews seem less anonymous.)

Helm Boots has a massive bottom-of-funnel hurdle: their boots are more expensive than the average leather boot you’d buy at the mall. Before purchasing, their customer wants to know that they’re getting something extra for the premium cost. To help their customer understand, Helm has deep-dive articles explaining the manufacturing process. They highlight the materials with phrases like “Leather is a lot like a lot of investments in that you get what you pay for.” They reassure buyers that these boots won’t fall apart: “quality that will last generations.” They also, indirectly, compare their product to the competitors: “the US market is crowded with low-quality goods.” All of these phrases push the message that Helm Boots are worth the extra money.

Bottom-of-funnel content needs to focus on reassuring potential buyers that your product is right for them.

Find the right topics for your Shopify blog

When deciding what topics to write about, consider these questions:

• What are the interests of your ideal customer?
• What stage of the sales funnel do you want to target?
• What problem does your product solve?
• How does your product help the customer live their ideal life?
• Do you have influential customers who would be open to collaborating?
• What questions do you get most often?
• What objections do you get from prospective customers?
• How do you overcome objections?

After that, it’s just a matter of producing and publishing content.

Streamline your process and publish content frequently

We’ve shown you examples from BarkBox and Helm Boots above, but we haven’t talked about how to get the content for your Shopify blog. There’s no end to the innovative content ideas, but your business doesn’t have an infinite budget for content developers.

That’s why user-generated content is powerful. Happy customers are glad to share their thoughts on your product if you make it easy.

How do you get user-generated content?

• Offer incentives like discount codes to encourage customers to share their experience with your product.
• Create a strong social media presence and let customers know how to tag your brand. Pull social media posts into your site, or repost customer content on your social media profiles.
• Make it easy for customers to submit reviews, photos, testimonials, and other content for you to publish. You can do this with Camayak’s pitch functionality.

Collect more user-generated content through Camayak

Your customers may be happy to submit content, but only if it’s easy for them. By setting up Camayak to receive user-generated content as pitches, you make it easier for contributors to submit content and for you to manage it.

Contributors appreciate the simplicity offered by sending pitches and submissions through a single system with greater transparency. One Camayak customer, CB Lounge, received 10x as many pitches per week after moving their pitch process to Camayak.

Manage content chaos with Camayak workflows

Organizing a content creation and publishing process can be a headache, but it’s a necessity. Content marketing can’t succeed without a steady flow of content, but you can minimize the headache. Shopify stores like yours get more done when they use Camayak to:

• See which content is in-progress, in-review, or ready to publish
• Automate repetitive manual tasks
• Control how assignments move through the approval process
• Publish content directly to their Shopify blogs

Whether your content is coming from internal teams, customers, or freelancers, streamlining the process means you can publish more frequently.

Content marketing can increase revenue for your Shopify store

Content marketing is a powerful way to drive traffic to your Shopify store, increase brand awareness, build trust between your company and your customers, help customers see your products’ value, and increase sales. Done well, it can supercharge your business. But organizing a content process isn’t easy.

That’s where Camayak can help. Content marketing can be simple when you invest in the right tools.

By using Camayak to manage your Shopify blog, you can effectively manage contributors, scale your content marketing efforts, and build a valuable platform that turns casual browsers into customers and customers into raving fans.

Request a Camayak Demo Today

The post Content Marketing for Shopify Store Owners appeared first on Camayak Blog.

The answer is efficiency: collaborating painlessly with contributors, streamlining your work by creating systems, and using tools that automate away the annoying, repetitive tasks.

When these pieces line up, your small staff gets to invest their time in the work that matters: producing a great publication.

Provide Clear Direction for Contributors

You remember asking for a 1200-word interview, delivered by January 15. You received a 2000-word opinion piece on February 1. What happened?

No matter how skilled your contributors are, they can’t read minds or remember everything you say. (Bummer.) As an editor, it’s your job to provide clear direction. It’s normal to think we are crystal clear: after all, we understand what we’re saying. But miscommunications happen. If you have an enthusiastic group of writers, but you’re never quite sure what they’ll turn in, there’s work to do.

Some tips for clear assignments:

1. Write down the assignment details. A phone conversation is great, but it’s not easy to capture all the details. By writing it down, you provide a resource that you and the writer can reference.
2. Associate all work with deadlines. Ensure that specific assignments are broken down into specific deadlines, including the parts that fall to your staff rather than the contributor. This might mean that there’s a submission deadline, a deadline for proofreading, a deadline for editorial review, and a deadline for typesetting. Deadlines keep everyone on track.
3. Create a template for assignments. If you’re writing assignment briefs from scratch, you’re wasting time that you could spend on more important projects. (And you may be forgetting to add all of the details.) Start from the general guidelines — rules that apply to all the pieces you publish. You can refer to these in every template. From there, think about guidelines for specific types of writing. For example, you publish poetry under 20 lines, or opinion pieces are 1,200 – 1,500 words. If you already have these guidelines as templates, you won’t need to rewrite them for each assignment.

If you’re not sure where to start with your assignment templates, start with these questions:

• What is the topic?
• What approach will the writer take?
• What type of piece is it?
• How long will the piece be?

Clear direction is critical when working with contributors. You can make that easier by systematizing your work process. Assignment templates are the first step, but you can take it further.

Build a Simple System for Writing Contributors and Internal Staff

Whether you’re working with 5 contributors or 50, a simple system amplifies your efforts. This is especially true when your staff includes multiple editors. Imagine being a contributor where one editor prefers pieces to be emailed as an MS Word file, but another wants a Google Document shared via Slack. It’s a recipe for confusion, missed deadlines, and wasted time.

To start formalizing a system, ask yourself:

• How do I want to receive pitches?
• Who accepts pitches?
• How many pitches can be accepted for each issue?
• How do I want to receive submissions and communicate revisions?
• Does editing involve the contributor or only the staff?
• What will the revision workflow look like?
• Who is involved in the revision workflow?
• What are the deadlines for each step?
• How do contributors get paid?

Systems require buy-in from everyone involved.

Q: How do you build a system that gets abandoned in 3 weeks or never fully implemented?

A: Design it in a vacuum and fail to get buy-in from those affected.

Before you formalize a system, talk to other staff members. Understand what they want from the system. You might start by surveying every editor to find out what they like about their current process. Or maybe your team sits down for a morning to workshop the process.

Once you’ve come up with a system, you’ll still need to communicate it. There’s a learning curve for changing your way of operating. Provide your team with directions that they can refer back to as they learn.

Your new system also needs advocates. As always, clear communication is essential. If the staff doesn’t see how they, the contributors, and the publication benefit from the new system, they won’t put in the effort to use it.

Don’t write systems on stone tablets.

Give the team some time to get used to a new system. Depending on your team, that may be two months, three publication cycles, or even a year. Let everyone get through the learning curve and settle in. Then, ask for feedback and look at how the system is working.

You’ll often find opportunities to refine the system. For example, one department started thinking they wanted sign-off on all projects but discovered they only need it on specific project types. Look particularly for chances to pare down your system into fewer steps. Less complexity means everyone has a better understanding of what’s happening.

How to Refine Your Workflow using Camayak

Contributors need clear directions. Your team needs a system to minimize confusion and maximize impact. Camayak can help you meet both of those needs.

Improve communication with contributors.

Camayak users love that contributors are free. Unlike other tools for managing work, Camayak does not charge a per-user fee for contributors. You can have as many contributors as you need, but you only pay for staff members.

Even better? Contributors love working with publications on Camayak. They can submit their pitches and submissions in the same place. Visibility into the review and approval process means they don’t need to send follow-up emails. With assignment information in Camayak, they aren’t stuck wondering, “Where did I write that down?”

One Camayak customer described it this way:

Everyone we work with is a lot happier to have things so streamlined, and I’ve forgotten how we ever managed without it.

Contributors know exactly where to go for anything related to your publication because it’s all in one system.

Use a system that simplifies your work.

Camayak can customize a workflow that reflects how you want your publication to run.

What items should you discuss at the editorial meeting? Pull up a filtered calendar view and breeze through that meeting.

Do three different departments need to know when an assignment is approved? You won’t need to send an email. Instead, approving the assignment in Camayak can trigger a notification for each department.

Are you not sure how many pitches your publication receives because they come through email? Invite writers to send pitches through Camayak. You’ll be able to see the volume easily. As you review pitches, you can also search past issues to ensure you’re not publishing similar pieces.

A system for pitches, submissions, reviews, and edits lets your small staff accomplish more, but Camayak levels that up.

How can you do more with fewer hours and less effort?

Pitches and submissions come into a single place. When you accept a pitch, it becomes an assignment. Contributors log in to see due dates, review the project, and submit work. Your editorial team has a birds-eye view of all the moving pieces: what they’re waiting on and who is waiting on them. Your small team isn’t a limitation when you have the right tools.

Small staff, big impact

With a small staff, you have to be aware of where your efforts are going.

Make it easy for contributors.

Build systems that work for your organization.

Invest in a tool that moves the focus back to what you care about: producing a magazine that your readers love.

Request a Camayak Demo Today

The post Small Staff Magazines: How to Manage Contributors More Efficiently appeared first on Camayak Blog.