Let Me Give It to You Straight – Why Being a Micromanager Makes Your Content Suffer

Whether you are a business owner, marketing manager, SEO manager or have some other title that means you are in charge of creating or adding content, you may be your own worst enemy. Micromanaging never seems to work out in any aspect of business, but for content writing, it can be truly disastrous.

What Is a Micromanager?

You can find many different meanings for a micromanager, but basically it refers to a boss who just won’t take his or her attention off employees throughout every task. Micromanagers are quick to criticize, and will nit-pick about every detail along the way, and then often end up less-than-impressed by the result anyway.

There are likely many different psychological reasons why someone ends up being a micromanager, but that’s not the topic of this post. The results are usually the same; frustrated employees, misdirected energy and a business that isn’t nearly as efficient as it could be.

Micromanagement and Your Content

When it comes to content writing, the micromanagement element takes on a whole new life. The “victims” in this scenario are the content writers and content creation team, and along with being horribly annoying all around, it results in content that is not as good as it could be.

Here are some common traits of a content micromanager:

• Sends pieces back for minor revisions more than once

• Wants to change individual words and phrases in every piece

• Picks at minor grammatical issues, even if they aren’t technically correct

• Requires pages of briefs and outlines for small, straightforward orders

• Needs his or her “vision” to be part of each post and page

• Frequently changes content providers, looking for the “right solution”

If any of these sound like you, then you may be micromanaging your content writing. Content micromanagers like to explain how they are paying for something and want to get what they pay for. They will tell you that they know their industry, clients and customers better than anyone and know how it needs to be.

These points may be true, but it’s also true that harping on every little detail of every piece of content will disrupt the flow, alter the message of many pieces and potentially cause your content provider to tell you to get lost. There is no reason for you to have to suffer from a low-quality content provider, but when you find one that is reputable and experienced, you need to take a back seat and let them do their thing.

You Outsource for a Reason

Business owners and marketing managers outsource their content writing because they want experts handling this all-important aspect of their marketing strategy. The entire point of outsourcing is to let the experts take care of it for you, so when you stick your nose in the middle of it with each and every piece of writing, it completely defeats the purpose.

Revisions are a part of life and editing is a part of writing, but feeling the need to inject your voice or personality into everything you see is not the way to go. If there are big issues with your content provider, it won’t take long for them to come to the surface. Keep your content goals in mind and do your best to refrain from picking at the non-essentials.

At The Content Company, we have refined our process of writing, editing and delivery so that it acts as a cure for the chronic content micromanager. Give us a call today at 888.221.5041 and we will show you what we can do.