Basic Management of Multiple Contributors

There are various considerations that you will need to give to running a blog with multiple contributors.

First of all, what permissions will they have? As a Contributor, a blog post can only be submitted as pending approval of an editor; similarly, no images can be uploaded. Meanwhile, an Author is able to add images to a post.

You might consider grouping your team into a hierarchy based on their ability and reputation, or you could leave them all at the same level and perform all of the necessary editing and admin yourself. The secret, of course, is to have a system that works for all concerned – but remember that the real beneficiary will be your blog and its readers.

How To Manage Your Team

Taking advantage of powerful plugin and relying on various native WordPress tools, you can effectively manage a team of three regular contributors on a blog, with many other writers making occasional posts.

Daily posts usually number two to eight, depending on various factors. In order to manage this, collect news items from sources, take advantage of the Press This toolbar widget to save draft posts and then use the Posts view and Quick Edit to assign each post to the most appropriate contributor. When they next login, they will see those drafts and open them up to get the links to the story source (you might also copy the link to the draft post from the Posts view and email it to your contributor).

In addition to this,  utilize the free Edit Flow plugin, which features several modules that can be enabled and disabled as required.

This tool can be used to manage all manner of team-based editorial functions from overseeing budgets for stories to editorial calendars, email notifications and even threaded conversations to discuss articles. If you run a multi-author blog you should certainly consider using this plugin. Use it mainly to get notifications as to when posts are submitted so they can be scheduled.

Whichever method you use, remember that the aim is productivity for everyone, not just your team. If you have any misgivings about how you are able to influence the direction of your blog if you’re writing less and editing more, then have a good think about your contributors and their abilities.

After all, it might be that you’re using the right approach, but with the wrong personnel. If this is the case, changing your team around might be the best option