Blogmutt, A Crowdsourcing Platform, Makes An Equity Offer To Its Bloggers For Hire

The SaaS model is now for blogging, too. A new breed of companies are crowdsourcing writers to do posts for small and large businesses. Blogmutt is a bit different than the other services in this regard. It is now offering equity to its top performing writers.

Blogmutt fits in the middle spectrum of the market between Elance at the low-end and Contently, which is more at the upper end of the scale. Blogmutt serves small businesses that know the importance of a blog but don’t have the time or have the frame of mind to write posts. Customers use the Blogmutt platform to find writers who then go through a review process with the customer. Posts are drafted and then reviewed by the client who pays $89 per month to Blogmutt for access to the platform. Writers get paid $8 per post.

The writing work is meant for people who are retired , who work at home or just want a simple, part-time job. Some do it just to get writing experience while others do it as a hobby. It’s like having a part-time job that does not require clocking in. It’s just up to the writer when to do a post.

It’s clear that the writers get paid little for their work. And it’s also pretty evident this is not journalism. Instead, it’s posts on a particular topic that relate to the business. Blogs serve as a mechanism for bolstering a site, enhancing search rankings but also help owners connect with customers and people who want to learn more about the business.

Co-Founder Scott Yates, a former journalist, said to me in a phone interview that providing equity allows writers to share in the potential upside that may come some day. Posts are awarded points based on how customer’s value their outcome. The writers rise up to different levels based upon their number of points. They received vested shares when the reach Level 8, which equates to 10,000 points or about 500 posts.

The systen is a novel one but it is also pretty smart PR move. But Yates personally knows how compensation can be for writing stories. Giving these part-time writers something to strive for does help the site’s productivity but it also shows how much blogging has changed. For Blogmutt, blogging is meant as a way to promote small businesses. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that in a commercial context, blogging is a job, not a passion. And since it is a job, it makes providing equity a perfectly logical way to compensate people. Workers are getting ownership in exchange for doing a considerable amount of work. That’s fine by me — I just hope these new blog workers start to make more money. They deserve it.

Feature image via JeffBullas.com