From 10 articles in a year to 60 in three months

How we fixed our content woes without a ‘content writer’

Newton is an exciting product. Our team does a lot of cool stuff, so we always have stories to tell and experiences to share. Add to it the strong opinions (you should see our Mac app) and musings from the team. One might imagine that our marketing team must be busy publishing a lot of articles every month. But, that was not the case with us. We hardly used to write. We published a total of 43 posts in three years (2014–2016).

But in the last 3 months, we penned close to 60 articles, publishing almost every weekday. It was difficult, but we managed to fix our content woes. We didn’t hire a content writer or an agency to do the job. It was achieved through ‘all team blogging’. Let me tell you The Newton Content Story — what inspired us, the challenges we faced and how we finally achieved it.

Getting to know the problem

Everyone in the team had their ‘primary role’ and nobody got time to write. There’s not enough inspiration. The marketing team kept the content flowing, but it was not a regular activity. We wrote whenever we felt like it, or whenever there was a major launch. There was no structure or targets regarding posts per week.

We wanted only to publish the blogs that’ll ‘go viral’ and/or ‘break the internet.’ That never happened.

As the person in charge of the marketing at Newton, I always wanted to add content as a marketing channel. Yes, content takes time but telling your stories is the best way to engage your users. People just love stories. Our biggest inspiration was, and still is, Basecamp’s blog — Signal v. Noise. We wanted to emulate them. But, the mistake was, we wanted to do it quickly. Note: Signal v Noise is a 15+ years old blog. We wanted only to publish the blogs that’ll ‘go viral’ and/or ‘break the internet.’ That never happened.

All team Blogging — You don’t need a content writer

At Newton, we follow the concept of all team support where everyone including our CEO replies to the tickets. It worked for us, and people now recognize Newton for its support among other things. Why not extend the same idea to blogging? How long can your blog tell stories about your marketing team?

I strongly believe that your marketing shouldn’t be the only team writing, everyone in the team has to voice their opinions.

With time, I hated the idea of a specialist content writer in tech companies and started liking ‘all team blogging’ more.

Also, we never found an ideal ‘content writer.’ Even if we had hired one, how can one only write in the tech space? What will they write about if they don’t do or have anything to learn on a daily basis. The articles will be robotic, or they may just act as ‘editors’. With time, I hated the idea of a specialist content writer in tech companies and started liking ‘all team blogging’ more. It’s like you do a field job and write about it, share your opinions and thoughts. Straight from the horse’s mouth.

Now that we know ‘all team blogging’ is what we want, the most important step is to implement it. We tried.

Making it easy

You can’t walk up to your team and suddenly ask them to start writing. Most won’t have a clue where to start. Making it easy for them is a crucial step.

A year ago, we asked a few team members to write about their favorite apps. We named the series ‘Apps on my home screen’. Some contributed, while others didn’t want to write such ‘easy posts’ (they’re after breaking the internet). After the round one, those who’ve contributed didn’t know what to write next. Others, well, they are still searching for their first topic. After a month’s time, we were back to zero posts per week. All team blogging is not easy, especially, if you want to make it a regular thing. Our first attempt failed.

A little more history

Last September, we went from a free app to a subscription based email service. Needless to say, there was a lot of hate. I recommend you to read this article to understand what our team went through during this tough period.

Even after a few months, we had to deal with negative reviews on the Store. Someone discovering Newton for the first time just couldn’t miss these negative reviews. I don’t blame them. We never told our side of the story. But, the trolls made sure they did. It was a mistake on our part. I felt an immediate need to fix our content channel. Show the users our side of things. I had to make the ‘all team blogging’ happen, at any cost.

The 4 O’clock Club

Take 2 — February, 2017

I came up with a concept where a few members of the team gather at a place, every day, and just write. I pitched it to a select few, whom I believe are open to the idea of writing and can dedicate some time on a regular basis. I formed a team of 8 spreading across marketing, design, and support. Later we added a couple of engineers to expand our topics. I pitched it has a habit forming exercise wherein everyone can improve their writing skills. I didn’t want to sound too serious. I kept it simple. Here’s my pitch -

Newton Writer’s Club

Aim: To develop a habit of writing — hone your writing skills and contribute on a regular basis to Paper Planes.

Timing: 4 PM — 4:30 PM Everyday

What to Write?
To start with, join us on a daily basis to write whatever comes to your mind. Write about your day, hobbies or even, Trump. Just write. Once you feel that you are in the groove, pick topics that can go the official blog — Paper Planes.

Topics need not be restricted to work-related stuff. Just share your opinions. You can write about anything that makes sense and that you think people like us would like to read.

Everyone liked it. We spent a good hour or two deciding what to call it. After exploring few options like — Water-cooler poets, draft@newtonhq.com, Philosopher’s Tone, shakespeare@newtonhq.com, 4oclock@newton and Write Club (like fight club), we settled with The 4 O’clock Club.

“There is absolutely no need to write those ‘internet breaking’ posts. We’ll just write simple posts that people like us, in the startup ecosystem, would like to read. Don’t worry about the number of recommends or page views. They are trivial.”

One can use these 30 minutes to do anything creative — you can read or even write for your personal blog. It’s complete freedom. I never forced anyone to contribute to the official blog. Those who were ready submitted their articles to Paper Planes. Slowly, there was a healthy competition about the number of posts on the official blog. That’s when I realized we’re onto something. It has now become the part of our culture; we write every day, come what may.

What we did right

Creating a culture in any organization is a tricky thing. It requires a lot of things to fall in place. Here’s what we did right to promote all team blogging:

• Right People. If you have the right people, the problem is half solved. I was very careful in picking the early members of the 4 O’clock Club. Things become easy when you have Umesh on your side. He for one, like me, wanted to tell stories.
• Having a fixed time slot. It sounded crazy initially as things don’t follow a set pattern in a startup. We had to skip a few sessions because of a priority task or a meeting. After a few days, we’ve learned to organize our day around it. Now, we don’t schedule meetings between 4–5 pm.
• We’ve added a slot to pick topics. If someone can pick their topic, it’s fine. If not, others can help.
• We share our drafts with all the members before publishing. This way, you have an audience of about 10 smart individuals who can read and share an opinion on your post. It’s a massive confidence booster.
• Starting small. We told ourselves that, “There is absolutely no need to write those ‘internet breaking’ posts. We’ll just write simple posts that people like us, in the startup ecosystem, would like to read. Don’t worry about the number of recommends or page views. They are trivial.”
• Writing on Medium. Even though WordPress is a great hosting platform, it didn’t provide a pleasant writing experience. We decided to move to Medium. Even Signal v Noise made a move by then. It made things very easy for us all. A fair share of the credit for this turnaround goes to Medium. We love you, Medium!

It’s still a work in progress…

As of today, less than one-third of the Newton team is part of the 4 O’clock Club. I didn’t inform everyone in the team about our little project. I won’t be surprised if some of them get to know about it through this post. Expanding the Club will be a challenge. I’m completely aware that not everyone will be interested in writing, but I’ll keep trying.

One good thing about writing regularly is, you are always searching for a story in everything you do.

So far, we wrote about our learnings and opinions in marketing, design, and behind the scenes stories of Newton. There were occasional engineering posts as well. We want to be able to pick any topic under the sun and write about it in a manner that our readers will find it interesting. Expanding the club will definitely help.

One good thing about writing regularly is, you are always searching for a story in everything you do. We hope to tell more stories that our readers would love to read and share.

Join the club

We’ve always treated our users as an extended family. You helped us grow. It is only fair to say that you’re an integral part of our team. With that being said, we’re opening up Paper Planes to everyone. You can send in the topics you want us to write about or even better, share your own stories and experiences. Send us an email to hello@newtonhq.com or just leave a comment below.

We folks at Newton and the followers of Paper Planes are always game for a good story!