How Do Freelance Content Creators Work In 2019? — A crumbl Research
In order to change the way content is distributed it is important to know the status quo. That is why we have conducted in-depth interviews with content creators.
The way content is produced and distributed is changing rapidly. Up to 90% of articles on news sites are written by external authors. Understanding these authors better and solving their problems is an important step to make the content ecosystem as a whole better and more efficient.
How do content creators work in 2019? That’s what we wanted to know precisely and that is why we conducted qualitative research on exactly this question. In several in-depth interviews, we tried to draw a comprehensive picture of how content is produced in 2019. These interviews were combined with an online survey on the content process. A particular focus of our study was on content research, content creation, content distribution and remuneration.
Content Research
The cornerstone of every article is research. This includes not only research on specific topics and review research but also research on possible topics. This sub-step is commonly referred to as topic identification and relevance assessment. According to a study by BITKOM, journalists and freelance authors spend about a third of their working day on research tasks. Of this, up to 40% of working time — according to research by Machill, Beiler, and Zenker — is devoted to finding topics
The question which topics are worth covering is particularly important for freelance authors since these are usually not integrated into a fixed editorial staff and thus into an editorial plan, which is why we limit our survey to this aspect of the journalistic research process.
Social media and raw data are the main sources for the interviewed authors. But other newspapers also serve as a source of inspiration and starting point for content research.
In general, most authors keep an eye on what kind of articles other authors in their field publish. This is less for research purposes, but rather to get an overview of the journalistic coverage. In addition, authors in the same area do not see themselves as competitors.
Content Creation
The second step of the content process is the creation of content. Here, as well, the questions of our study refers to the special needs of freelance journalists and content creators. Although these people are free to choose their tools, the conventional Microsoft Word is usually used as a go-to solution for creating content. The only really relevant alternative mentioned is WordPress. This is particularly often used when articles need to be uploaded quickly and directly. Most of the authors we interviewed are also conservative when it comes to storing their content. Data is always stored locally. Further online storage only takes place afterward.
Content Distribution
Content distribution is probably the most important part of the entire content process. This step represents the publication of an article, which is why we have sometimes referred to it as the “publishing process” in our survey. The original approach is usually through the author’s own network. A second contact point is — according to the results of our online survey — online communities and freelance sites. But no matter where the initial approach occurs, further communication with publishers mainly takes place via email.
When it comes to pushing one’s own content onto social media sites there are two camps: More than 50% of the respondents stated that they do not do this. Mostly because the readership reached via social media did not include their target audience. On the other hand, more than 70% of respondents to the online survey push their content on social media. How this discrepancy occurs can be explained, for instance, by the age of the interviewees, but also by the field they write about. A study conducted by Canterbury Christ Church University together with Cision — one of the leading companies in media intelligence — found that social media has a higher temporal significance for authors from the fields of daily news and politics than for authors from the economics department.
Remuneration
The last step of the content process is the remuneration of authors. According to our results, this usually takes place per article. This means that before an article is published a fixed price is paid for it, which is unrelated to the later success of the article. Success-based payment, for example depending on the advertising revenues achieved, is almost non-existing in the current market.
These results are part of extensive qualitative research on the topic of content creators. The survey phase ran from November to December 2018. These are explorative results that give an initial overview of the field and are intended to pave the way for a deeper understanding of this group of people. Due to the method used, no statistically significant statements are possible at this point in time.
The survey was carried out by crumbl. Crumbl is a marketplace for digital content. Content creators can post their articles (but also other digital content such as videos or recordings) here and distribute them to a variety of news outlets. At first, the platform will be entirely focused on free content, where content creators can easily choose where they would want their content to be posted.
Are you a content creator that can confirm these results, or do you have a different viewpoint? Do let us know in the comments! We are happy to have any input that makes it possible for us to understand content creators even better so that we can help you make your daily work easier and more efficient.
If you’re interested we have just opened our closed beta testing phase. There are only limited spots available, all you have to do is send Felix a quick email here.
